Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,252)
- Faculty Publications (477)
- Article
Conversational Receptiveness: Expressing Engagement with Opposing Views
By: M. Yeomans, J. Minson, H. Collins, H. Chen and F. Gino
We examine “conversational receptiveness”—the use of language to communicate one’s willingness to thoughtfully engage with opposing views. We develop an interpretable machine-learning algorithm to identify the linguistic profile of receptiveness (Studies 1A-B). We then... View Details
- September 2020
- Article
How Multimedia Shape Crowdfunding Outcomes: The Overshadowing Effect of Images and Videos on Text in Campaign Information
By: J Yang, Y Li, Goran Calic and Anton Shevchenko
This study aims to explore the moderating effect of the number of images and videos on the relationship between text length in crowdfunding campaign descriptions and crowdfunding outcomes. We use data from 13,622 technology campaigns on the Kickstarter website to test... View Details
- September–October 2020
- Article
Social-Impact Efforts That Create Real Value
By: George Serafeim
Until the mid-2010s few investors paid attention to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data—information about companies’ carbon footprints, labor policies, board makeup, and so forth. Today the data is widely used by investors. How can organizations create... View Details
Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainability Management; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; ESG Disclosure; ESG Disclosure Metrics; ESG Ratings; ESG Reporting; Social Impact; Impact Measurement; Social Innovation; Purpose; Corporate Purpose; Corporate Social Responsibility; Strategy; Social Enterprise; Society; Accounting; Investment; Environmental Sustainability; Climate Change; Corporate Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Financial Services Industry; Chemical Industry; Technology Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; North America; Europe; Japan; Australia
- 2023
- Working Paper
When Should Public Programs Be Privately Administered? Theory and Evidence from the Paycheck Protection Program
By: Alexander Bartik, Zoë B. Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca, Christopher Stanton and Adi Sunderam
What happens when public resources are allocated by private companies whose objectives may be
imperfectly aligned with policy goals? We study this question in the context of the Paycheck
Protection Program (PPP), which relied on private banks to disburse aid to small... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Does Who Helps You Impact Your Behavior? Examining the Effects of Social Interactions on Knowledge Sharing in Online Communities
By: Eunkwang Seo, Frank Nagle and Sonali K. Shah
Online communities provide vibrant forums for knowledge sharing and are increasingly being used by individual users and firms to source knowledge and create and capture value. Yet, there is much to learn about how the actions of community members affect other members,... View Details
- September 2020
- Article
Relaxing Household Liquidity Constraints Through Social Security
By: Sylvain Catherine, Max Miller and Natasha Sarin
More than a quarter of working-age households in the United States do not have sufficient savings to cover their expenditures after a month of unemployment. Recent proposals suggest giving workers early access to a small portion of their future Social Security benefits... View Details
- July 2020
- Case
Amanda and Kristen: Mented Cosmetics
By: Steven Rogers, Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Alterrell Mills
The co-founders (Black HBS alumnae) of an e-commerce beauty startup explore the unmet needs within the beauty industry. This case study examines the entrepreneurial opportunities that come from identifying an underserved market, specifically within the Black community... View Details
Keywords: Brands and Branding; Competition; Customers; Disruption; Disruptive Innovation; Distribution Channels; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Macroeconomics; Marketing; Marketing Channels; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Product Design; Product Development; Product Positioning; Sales; Social Issues; Social Marketing; Business Startups; Strategic Planning; Strategy; Supply Chain Management; Venture Capital; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Advertising Industry; Public Relations Industry; Chemical Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Retail Industry; North and Central America; United States; New York (city, NY); New York (state, US)
- June 2020
- Background Note
Customer Management Dynamics and Cohort Analysis
By: Elie Ofek, Barak Libai and Eitan Muller
The digital revolution has allowed companies to amass considerable amounts of data on their customers. Using this information to generate actionable insights is fast becoming a critical skill that firms must master if they wish to effectively compete and win in today’s... View Details
- June 2020
- Article
In Generous Offers I Trust: The Effect of First-offer Value on Economically Vulnerable Behaviors
By: M. Jeong, J. Minson and F. Gino
Negotiation scholarship espouses the importance of opening a bargaining situation with an aggressive offer, given the power of first offers to shape concessionary behavior and outcomes. In our research, we identify a surprising consequence to this common prescription.... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Project on Impact Investments' Impact Investment Database
By: M. Diane Burton, Shawn Cole, Abhishek Dev, Christina Jarymowycz, Leslie Jeng, Josh Lerner, Fanele Mashwama, Yue (Cynthia) Xu and T. Robert Zochowski
Impact investing has grown significantly over the past 15 years. From a niche investing segment with only $25 billion AUM in 2013 (WEF 2013), it experienced double-digit growth and developed into a market with an estimated $502 billion AUM (Mudaliapar and Dithrich... View Details
- Article
Predictions, Prophets, and Restarting Your Business
The first task of crisis management is a reasonably accurate view of the current situation and how it might evolve. There are many predictions about so-called “new normal” as a result of the semi-enforced social distancing necessitated by the coronavirus. But most are... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Social Interactions in Pandemics: Fear, Altruism, and Reciprocity
By: Laura Alfaro, Ester Faia, Nora Lamersdorf and Farzad Saidi
In SIR models, homogeneous or with a network structure, infection rates are assumed to be exogenous. However, individuals adjust their behavior. Using daily data for 89 cities worldwide, we document that mobility falls in response to fear, as approximated by Google... View Details
- Article
The Impact of Penalties for Wrong Answers on the Gender Gap in Test Scores
By: Katherine B. Coffman and David Klinowski
Multiple-choice exams play a critical role in university admissions across the world. A key question is whether imposing penalties for wrong answers on these exams deters guessing from women more than men, disadvantaging female test-takers. We consider data from a... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Changing Ingroup Boundaries: The Effect of Immigration on Race Relations in the U.S.
By: Vasiliki Fouka and Marco Tabellini
How do social group boundaries evolve? Does the appearance of a new outgroup change the ingroup's perceptions of other outgroups? We introduce a conceptual framework of context-dependent categorization, in which exposure to one minority leads to recategorization of... View Details
Keywords: In-group-out-group Relations; Immigration; Race; Attitudes; Boundaries; Prejudice and Bias
- April 2020
- Article
CEO Behavior and Firm Performance
By: Oriana Bandiera, Stephen Hansen, Andrea Prat and Raffaella Sadun
We measure the behavior of 1,114 CEOs in six countries parsing granular CEO diary data through an unsupervised machine learning algorithm. The algorithm uncovers two distinct behavioral types: "leaders" and "managers." Leaders focus on multi-function, high-level... View Details
- March 30, 2020
- Article
Why Is the U.S. Behind on Coronavirus Testing?
By: Stefan Thomke
Coronavirus testing is needed to address the uncertainty in making decisions about patient treatment, resource allocation, policy, and so much more. Answers to questions such as “When should we relax social distancing measures—and for whom?” or “How many ventilators... View Details
- March 24, 2020
- Article
Delayed Negative Effects of Prosocial Spending on Happiness
By: Armin Falk and Thomas Graeber
Does prosocial behavior promote happiness? We test this longstanding hypothesis in a behavioral experiment that extends the scope of previous research. In our Saving a Life paradigm, every participant either saved one human life in expectation by triggering a targeted... View Details
- March 2020 (Revised June 2022)
- Case
GreenLight Fund
By: Brian Trelstad, Julia Kelley and Mel Martin
As Tara Noland, the Executive Director (ED) of GreenLight Cincinnati, reflected on her first few years on the job. Noland had delivered on what she had been hired to do in the city: work with leading philanthropists and nonprofit executives to use data and evidence to... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Working (From Home) During a Crisis: Online Social Contributions by Workers During the Coronavirus Shock
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Wesley W. Koo and Xina Li
Prior research has documented that during mortality-related crises workers face psychic costs and are motivated to make social contributions. In addition, management practices that encourage workers to make social contributions during a crisis create value for firms.... View Details
- March–April 2020
- Article
An Institutional Approach to Gender Diversity and Firm Performance
By: Letian Zhang
This study examines data from 35 countries and 24 industries to understand the relationship between gender diversity and firm performance. Previous studies report conflicting evidence: some find that gender-diverse firms experience more positive performance and others... View Details