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- July–August 2025
- Article
Don’t Let an AI Failure Harm Your Brand
How companies market their AI systems affects the repercussions they face when their products fail. Marketers must promote their AI products with potential failure in mind. To do that, they must first understand consumers’ unique attitudes toward AI. Marketers who... View Details
- Summer 2025
- Article
Dynamic Competition for Customer Memberships
By: Cristian Chica, Julian Jimenez-Cardenas and Jorge Tamayo
A competitive two-period membership (subscription) market is analyzed. Two symmetric firms charge a “membership” fee that allows consumers to buy products or services at a given unit price for both periods. Firms can choose between long- or short-term memberships. When... View Details
- June 2025
- Article
Ideation with Generative AI—In Consumer Research and Beyond
By: Julian De Freitas, G. Nave and Stefano Puntoni
The use of large language models (LLMs) in consumer research is rapidly evolving, with applications including synthetic data generation, data analysis, and more. However, their role in creative ideation—a cornerstone of consumer research—remains underexplored. Drawing... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Training Within Firms
By: Brayan Diaz, Andrea Neyra-Nazarrett, Julian Ramirez, Raffaella Sadun and Jorge Tamayo
Training investments are essential for improving worker and firm productivity, yet their
implementation is often hindered by low participation rates and insufficient worker engagement.
This study uses data from three firms–a car manufacturer, a quick-service... View Details
- February 2025
- Article
Disclosure, Humanizing, and Contextual Vulnerability of Generative AI Chatbots
By: Julian De Freitas and I. Glenn Cohen
In the wake of recent advancements in generative AI, regulatory bodies are trying to keep pace. One key decision is whether to require app makers to disclose the use of generative AI-powered chatbots in their products. We suggest that some generative AI-based chatbots... View Details
- 2025
- Article
Humor as a Window into Generative AI Bias
By: Roger Samure, Julian De Freitas and Stefano Puntoni
A preregistered audit of 600 images by generative AI across 150 different prompts explores the link between humor and discrimination in consumer-facing AI solutions. When ChatGPT updates images to make them “funnier”, the prevalence of stereotyped groups changes. While... View Details
- January 2025
- Article
Reducing Prejudice with Counter-stereotypical AI
By: Erik Hermann, Julian De Freitas and Stefano Puntoni
Based on a review of relevant literature, we propose that the proliferation of AI with human-like and social features presents an unprecedented opportunity to address the underlying cognitive and affective drivers of prejudice. An approach informed by the psychology of... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Why Most Resist AI Companions
By: Julian De Freitas, Zeliha Oğuz-Uğuralp, Ahmet Kaan Uğuralp and Stefano Puntoni
AI companion applications—designed to serve as synthetic interaction partners—have recently
become capable enough to reduce loneliness, a growing public health concern. However,
behavioral research has yet to fully explain the barriers to adoption of such AI and... View Details
- October 2024 (Revised February 2025)
- Case
AI and Brand Management: Promises and Perils
By: Julian De Freitas and Elie Ofek
As AI gains traction across industries, companies anticipate that AI will revolutionize both backend processes and customer-facing interactions—with brands eager to leverage AI for tailored marketing materials and automated consumer engagements. Yet, despite a dramatic... View Details
- September–October 2024
- Article
How AI Can Power Brand Management
By: Julian De Freitas and Elie Ofek
Marketers have begun experimenting with AI to improve their brand-management efforts. But unlike other marketing tasks, brand management involves more than just repeatedly executing one specialized function. Long considered the exclusive domain of creative talent, it... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
The Rise of Alternatives
By: Juliane Begenau, Pauline Liang and Emil Siriwardane
Since the 2000s, U.S. public pensions have shifted their risky investments towards alternative assets like private equity and hedge funds, some more aggressively than others. We explore several explanations for these cross-sectional trends, focusing on those implied by... View Details
- July 2024
- Article
Acceptance of Automated Vehicles Is Lower for Self than Others
By: Stuti Agarwal, Julian De Freitas, Anya Ragnhildstveit and Carey K. Morewedge
Road traffic accidents are the leading cause of death worldwide for people aged 2–59. Nearly all deaths are due to human error. Automated vehicles could reduce mortality risks, traffic congestion, and air pollution of human-driven vehicles. However, their adoption... View Details
- July 2024
- Article
Chatbots and Mental Health: Insights into the Safety of Generative AI
By: Julian De Freitas, Ahmet Kaan Uğuralp, Zeliha Uğuralp and Stefano Puntoni
Chatbots are now able to engage in sophisticated conversations with consumers. Due to the ‘black box’ nature of the algorithms, it is impossible to predict in advance how these conversations will unfold. Behavioral research provides little insight into potential safety... View Details
- May 2024
- Article
Going Beyond the 'Self' in Self-control: Interpersonal Consequences of Commitment Strategies
By: Ariella S. Kristal and Julian Zlatev
Commitment strategies are effective mechanisms individuals can use to overcome self-control problems. Across seven studies (and two supplemental studies), we explore the negative interpersonal consequences of commitment strategy choice and use. In Study 1, using an... View Details
- May 2024
- Article
The Health Risks of Generative AI-Based Wellness Apps
By: Julian De Freitas and G. Cohen
Artifcial intelligence (AI)-enabled chatbots are increasingly being used to
help people manage their mental health. Chatbots for mental health and
particularly ‘wellness’ applications currently exist in a regulatory ‘gray area’.
Indeed, most generative AI-powered... View Details
- April 2024
- Article
Fee Variation in Private Equity
By: Juliane Begenau and Emil N. Siriwardane
We study how investment fees vary within private-capital funds. Net-of-fee return clustering suggests that most funds have two tiers of fees, and we decompose differences across tiers into both management and performance-based fees. Managers of venture capital funds... View Details
- December 2023 (Revised February 2024)
- Case
21Seeds: Taking Shots at Breakout Growth
21Seeds, a female-founded flavor-infused tequila startup launched in 2019, had made inroads into the alcoholic beverage industry by focusing on an underserved consumer segment in spirits—women, primarily in their 30s and 40s, many of whom were moms—and by following a... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Sending Signals: Strategic Displays of Warmth and Competence
By: Bushra S. Guenoun and Julian J. Zlatev
Using a combination of exploratory and confirmatory approaches, this research examines how
people signal important information about themselves to others. We first train machine learning
models to assess the use of warmth and competence impression management... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Change We Can’t Believe In: Distrust of Political Converts
By: Julian J. Zlatev, Amos Schurr and Nir Halevy
We propose and test three hypotheses regarding how people respond to political converts— individuals who switch their voting from one political party to another. Across two experiments, using behavioral and attitudinal measures of trust in two different countries, we... View Details
- February 2023
- Case
SIMmersion: Simulating Crucial Conversations
By: Alison Wood Brooks, Julian Zlatev and F Katelynn Boland
This case introduces readers to SIMmersion, a company founded in 2002 that creates and sells training programs to firms, government agencies, educational institutions, and individuals (B2B and B2C). Their training programs are built around simulations (“sims”) that... View Details