Publications

2020
Working Paper

When Do Experts Listen to Other Experts? The Role of Negative Information in Expert Evaluations for Novel Projects

By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Misha Teplitskiy, Gary Gray, Hardeep Ranu, Michael Menietti, Eva C. Guinan and Karim R. Lakhani

The evaluation of novel projects lies at the heart of scientific and technological innovation, and yet literature suggests that this process is subject to inconsistency and potential biases. This paper investigates the role of information sharing among experts as the... View Details

Keywords: Project Evaluation; Innovation; Knowledge Frontier; Negativity Bias; Projects; Innovation and Invention; Information; Diversity; Judgments

SSRN

June 2022
Article

Conservatism Gets Funded? A Field Experiment on the Role of Negative Information in Novel Project Evaluation

By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Misha Teplitskiy, Gary Gray, Hardeep Ranu, Michael Menietti, Eva C. Guinan and Karim R. Lakhani

The evaluation and selection of novel projects lies at the heart of scientific and technological innovation, and yet there are persistent concerns about bias, such as conservatism. This paper investigates the role that the format of evaluation, specifically information... View Details

Keywords: Project Evaluation; Innovation; Knowledge Frontier; Information Sharing; Negativity Bias; Projects; Innovation and Invention; Information; Knowledge Sharing

2015
Working Paper

Blinded by Experience: Prior Experience, Negative News and Belief Updating

By: Bradley R. Staats, Diwas S. KC and Francesca Gino

Traditional models of operations management involve dynamic decision-making assuming optimal (Bayesian) updating. However, behavioral theory suggests that individuals exhibit bias in their beliefs and decisions. We conduct both a field study and two laboratory studies... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Operations; Egocentric Bias; Experience; Healthcare Operations; Prejudice and Bias; Behavior; Operations; Decision Making; Health Care and Treatment

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June 2020
Article

How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections

By: Maria Ibanez and Michael W. Toffel

Accuracy and consistency are critical for inspections to be an effective, fair, and useful tool for assessing risks, quality, and suppliers—and for making decisions based on those assessments. We examine how inspector schedules could introduce bias that erodes... View Details

Keywords: Assessment; Bias; Inspection; Scheduling; Econometric Analysis; Empirical Research; Regulation; Health; Food; Safety; Quality; Performance Consistency; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

March 1983
Article

Brilliant but Cruel: Perceptions of Negative Evaluators

By: T. M. Amabile

Using edited excerpts from actual negative and positive book reviews, this research examined the hypothesis that negative evaluators of intellectual products will be perceived as more intelligent than positive evaluators. The results strongly supported the hypothesis.... View Details

Keywords: Social Psychology; Situation or Environment; Performance Evaluation; Perception; Status and Position; Attitudes; Prejudice and Bias; Power and Influence

Purchase

Article

Inaccurate Group Meta-Perceptions Drive Negative Out-Group Attributions in Competitive Contexts

By: J. Lees and M. Cikara

Across seven experiments and one survey (n = 4,282), people consistently overestimated out-group negativity towards the collective behaviour of their in-group. This negativity bias in group meta-perception was present across multiple competitive (but not cooperative)... View Details

Keywords: Intergroup Competition; Psychology; Political Polarization; Judgment And Decision-making

Research Summary

Analyst Disagreement, Forecast Bias and Stock Returns

We present evidence of inefficient information processing in equity markets by documenting that biases in analysts' earnings forecasts are reflected in stock prices. In particular, investors fail to account for analysts' tendency to withhold negative views and to issue... View Details

28 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

How Racial Bias Taints Customer Service: Evidence from 6,000 Hotels

as the time a Starbucks manager called police to arrest two Black men for loitering, though they were merely waiting for an acquaintance. “There are a lot of very negative consequences,” says Feldberg. “At one basic level, companies are... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

18 Oct 2004
Research & Ideas

The Bias of Wall Street Analysts

the actual earnings per share that ended up being reported minus an analyst's forecast; thus, optimism would be indicated by negative forecast errors. As predicted, we found that all forecast errors surrounding external financing activity... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

Article

Choice Architects Reveal a Bias Toward Positivity and Certainty

By: David P. Daniels and Julian Zlatev

Biases influence important decisions, but little is known about whether and how individuals try to exploit others’ biases in strategic interactions. Choice architects—that is, people who present choices to others—must often decide between presenting choice sets with... View Details

Keywords: Nudges; Biases; Strategic Decision Making; Social Influence; Choice Architects; Choice Architecture; Reflection Effect; Certainty Effect; Loss Aversion; Decision Making; Risk and Uncertainty; Power and Influence

November 30, 2020
Editorial

Don't Focus on the Most Expressive Face in the Audience

By: Amit Goldenberg and Erika Weisz

Research has shown that when speaking in front of a group, people’s attention tends to gets stuck on the most emotional faces, causing them to overestimate the group’s average emotional state. In this piece, the authors share two additional findings: First, the larger... View Details

Keywords: Bias; Emotions; Perception

Article

When Being a Model Minority Is Good...and Bad: Realistic Threat Explains Negativity Toward Asian Americans.

By: W.W. Maddux, A. Galinsky, A.J.C. Cuddy and M. Polifroni

The current research explores the hypothesis that realistic threat is one psychological mechanism that can explain how individuals can hold positive stereotypical beliefs toward Asian Americans yet also express negative attitudes and emotions toward them. Study 1... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Prejudice and Bias; Ethnicity; Groups and Teams; Attitudes; Emotions

May 18, 2020
Other Article

Media Bias? But Not What You Think It Is

By: Frank V. Cespedes

The media are often accused of political bias. But news outlets reflect many political beliefs in a fragmented media environment. However, an almost across-the-board bias is how news media talk about digital business, and the pandemic has exacerbated that bias, which... View Details

Keywords: Bias; Digital Business; Media; Disruption; Health Pandemics

10 Jan 2013
Working Paper Summaries

The Novelty Paradox & Bias for Normal Science: Evidence from Randomized Medical Grant Proposal Evaluations

Keywords: by Kevin J. Boudreau, Eva C. Guinan, Karim R. Lakhani & Christoph Riedl; Health

24 Aug 2020
Working Paper Summaries

When Do Experts Listen to Other Experts? The Role of Negative Information in Expert Evaluations for Novel Projects

Keywords: by Jacqueline N. Lane, Misha Teplitskiy, Gary Gray, Hardeep Ranu, Michael Menietti, Eva C. Guinan, and Karim R. Lakhani

Article

Price and Quality Decisions by Self-Serving Managers

By: Marco Bertini, Daniel Halbheer and Oded Koenigsberg

We present a theory of price and quality decisions by managers who are self-serving. In the theory, firms stress the price or quality of their products, but not both. Accounting for this, managers exploit any uncertainty about the cause of market outcomes to credit... View Details

Keywords: Causal Reasoning; Self-serving Bias; Strategic Orientation; Managerial Decision-making; Price; Quality; Decision Making; Theory

2024
Working Paper

A Gender Backlash: Does Exposure to Female Labor Market Participation Fuel Gender Conservatism?

By: Paula Rettl, Diane Bolet, Catherine E. De Vries, Simone Cremaschi, Tarik Abou-Chadi and Sergi Pardos-Prado

The growing participation of women in the labor market has marked a significant societal transformation, coinciding with the rise of gender conservatism and far-right support. We study whether the economic consequences of labor market feminization and gender backlash... View Details

Keywords: Gender Bias; Gender Equality; Gender Inclusivity; Politics; Political Backlash; Political Culture; Conservatism; Gender; Government and Politics; Equality and Inequality; Prejudice and Bias; Labor

November–December 2021
Article

Does Gender Matter? The Effect of Management Responses on Reviewing Behavior

By: Davide Proserpio, Isamar Troncoso and Francesca Valsesia

We study the effect of management responses on the reviewing behavior of self-identified female and male reviewers. Using data from Tripadvisor, we show that after hotels begin to respond to reviews, the probability that a negative review comes from a self-identified... View Details

Keywords: Word Of Mouth; Online Reviews; Management Responses; E-commerce; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Digital Platforms; Customers

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