Publications

Educators

03 Sep 2024
News

AI and Wellbeing

2018
Chapter

Time, Money, and Subjective Wellbeing

By: Cassie Mogilner, A.V. Whillans and Michael I. Norton

Time and money are scarce and precious resources: people experience stress about having insufficient time and worry about having insufficient money. This chapter reviews research showing that the ways in which people spend their time and money, the tradeoffs that... View Details

Keywords: Money; Time Management; Happiness; Satisfaction

Find at Harvard

08 Mar 2022
News

France Telecom: Corporate Restructuring and Employee Wellbeing

18 Nov 2020
Podcast

WWT: IT innovation rooted in diversity and employee wellbeing

Corporate social responsibility and commitment to a local workforce can go hand-in-hand with profitability. World Wide Technology in St. Louis is managing to thrive while dealing head-on with the pandemic and social and racial issues. One of the largest minority-owned... View Details

November 2022
Article

The Psychosocial Value of Employment: Evidence from a Refugee Camp

By: Reshmaan Hussam, Erin M. Kelley, Gregory Lane and Fatima Zahra

Employment may be important to wellbeing for reasons beyond its role as an income source. This paper presents a causal estimate of the psychosocial value of employment in refugee camps in Bangladesh. We involve 745 individuals in a field experiment with three arms: a... View Details

Keywords: Psychosocial Wellbeing; Employment; Refugees; Well-being

Article

Prosocial Spending and Buying Time: Money as a Tool for Increasing Subjective Well-Being

By: Elizabeth Dunn, A.V. Whillans, Michael I. Norton and Lara B. Aknin

Researchers have long been interested in the relationship between income and happiness, but a newer wave of work suggests that how people use their money also matters. We discuss the three primary areas in which psychologists have explored the relationship... View Details

Keywords: Wellbeing; Money; Spending; Decision Making; Happiness; Well-being

21 Feb 2022
News

When deciding to get the COVID-19 vaccine to protect public health, Americans rated economic wellbeing higher than Europeans

31 May 2013
News

Can Harvard Professor Michael Porter do for wellbeing and happiness what others have so far failed to achieve?

Article

Time Use and Happiness of Millionaires: Evidence from the Netherlands

By: Paul Smeets, A.V. Whillans, Rene Bekkers and Michael I. Norton

How do the very wealthy spend their time, and how does time use relate to well-being? In two studies in the Netherlands, the affluent (N=863, N=690) and the general population (N=1232, N=306) spent time in surprisingly similar ways, such as by spending the same amount... View Details

Keywords: Time And Wellbeing; Millionaires; Social Class; Wealth; Happiness; Demographics; Netherlands

April 2018
Teaching Note

Happy UAE

By: Joshua Schwartzstein

Teaching Note for HBS No. 918-041. View Details

Keywords: UAE; Wellbeing; Wellness; Government Initiatives; Happiness; Welfare; Governance; Motivation and Incentives; United Arab Emirates

2016
Blog

Building A Culture of Health - John A. Quelch: The Marketing of Prevention

By: John A. Quelch

The US will devote 17.5% of GDP to health care this year, around $3 trillion. Yet only 3 percent of that will be spent on prevention, including both primary prevention (preventing illness in the first place) and secondary prevention (preventing sick people getting... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Healthcare Marketing; Prevention; Wellbeing; Health; Marketing; Health Industry; Insurance Industry; Public Administration Industry; Europe; North and Central America

2025
Working Paper

The Hidden Costs of Flexible Labor Models: How Working Multiple Jobs Affects Employees

By: Paige Tsai and Ryan W. Buell

As operations increasingly rely upon flexible labor models—such as gig, part-time, and remote work—it has become commonplace for individuals to work multiple jobs. Across three studies, relying on a combination of transaction-level data from 90,548 customers of a... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Operations; Employee Behavior; Job Design; Sustainable Operations; Wellbeing; Job Design and Levels; Personal Finance; Well-being; Happiness; Satisfaction; Wages

SSRN

December 24, 2019
Article

Why It's So Hard to Change People's Commuting Behavior

By: Ariella S. Kristal and A. V. Whillans

Car commuters report higher levels of stress and lower job satisfaction compared to train commuters—in large part because car commuting can involve driving in traffic and navigating tense road situations. Some employers are trying to get involved and reduce car... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Motivating People; Time And Wellbeing; Time Stress; Commuting; Behavior; Change; Motivation and Incentives

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Article

Multitasking While Driving: A Time Use Study of Commuting Knowledge Workers to Assess Current and Future Uses

By: Thomaz Teodorovicz, Andrew L. Kun, Raffaella Sadun and Orit Shaer

Commuting has enormous impact on individuals, families, organizations, and society. Advances in vehicle automation may help workers employ the time spent commuting in productive work-tasks or wellbeing activities. To achieve this goal, however, we need to develop a... View Details

Keywords: In-vehicle User Interfaces; Time-use Study; Automated Vehicles; Knowledge Workers; Commuting

10 Apr 2020
News

Want Your Business To Combat Coronavirus? Three Best Practices For Partnering With Nonprofits

11 Apr 2013
Panel Discussion

From Per Capita to Pro Capita: Launch of the Social Progress Imperative

By: Michael E. Porter, Michael Green, Heather Hancock, Judith Rodin, Madhav Chavan and Ngaire Woods

What is a successful country? The global debate about development has, for decades, been focused on a single, economic measure of success: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Per Capita. But this tells us little about the real wellbeing of a nation or its sustainability. What... View Details

Keywords: Social Progress Index; Country; Measurement and Metrics; Social Issues

Research Summary

Overview

By: Ashley V. Whillans

Engaged with field work in East Africa, South Asia, and in several large hybrid organizations in the United States, Professor Whillans places a focus on exploring questions with strong theoretical motivation in the social psychological literature and relevant... View Details

07 Jan 2016
News

Can money buy happiness?

May 2021 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Headspace vs. Calm: A Mindful Competition

By: Ayelet Israeli and Anne Wilson

By 2021, the mindfulness app wars reached their apex. Over 2,000 meditation apps were available to consumers, but two apps, Headspace and Calm, dominated the space, jointly holding about 70% of the total market. Headspace had established itself as the approachable... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Communication; Integrated Strategy; Brand; Brand ＆ Product Management; Brand Communication; Brand Differentiation; Brand Building; Brand Management; E-Commerce Strategy; Ecommerce; App; App Development; Applications; COVID; COVID-19; Pandemic; Pricing; Pricing Strategy; Subscription Model; Subscription; Partnerships; Strategic Partnerships; B2B Vs. B2C; B2B; Health ＆ Wellness; Wellbeing; Digitization; Commoditization; Mobile App; Mobile App Industry; Mobile Healthcare; Mobile Marketing; Digital Brand; Digital Health; Consumer Health; Apps; Online Business; Online Competition; Online Community; Online Entertainment; Entertainment And Leisure; Meditation; Marketing; Marketing Communications; Brands and Branding; Price; Strategy; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Partners and Partnerships; Health; Well-being; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Communication; Communication Strategy; Disruption; Consumer Behavior; Digital Marketing; E-commerce; Applications and Software; Health Industry; Technology Industry; Communications Industry; United States; North America; United Kingdom

Educators