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Faculty & Research

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    • HBS Book

    Glass Half-Broken: Shattering the Barriers That Still Hold Women Back at Work

    By: Colleen Ammerman and Boris Groysberg

    Why does the gender gap persist and how can we close it? For years women have made up the majority of college-educated workers in the United States. In 2019, the gap between the percentage of women and the percentage of men in the workforce was the smallest on record. But despite these statistics, women remain underrepresented in positions of power and status, with the highest-paying jobs the most gender-imbalanced. Even in fields where the numbers of men and women are roughly equal, or where women actually make up the majority, leadership ranks remain male-dominated. The persistence of these inequalities begs the question: Why haven't we made more progress? In Glass Half-Broken, HBS Gender Initiative director Colleen Ammerman and Boris Groysberg reveal the pervasive organizational obstacles and managerial actions—limited opportunities for development, lack of role models and sponsors, and bias in hiring, compensation, and promotion—that create gender imbalances.

    • HBS Book

    Glass Half-Broken: Shattering the Barriers That Still Hold Women Back at Work

    By: Colleen Ammerman and Boris Groysberg

    Why does the gender gap persist and how can we close it? For years women have made up the majority of college-educated workers in the United States. In 2019, the gap between the percentage of women and the percentage of men in the workforce was the smallest on record. But despite these statistics, women remain underrepresented in positions of...

    • Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 164 (May 2021): 179-191.

    Joy and Rigor in Behavioral Science

    By: Hanne K. Collins, Ashley V. Whillans and Leslie K. John

    In the past decade, behavioral science has seen the introduction of beneficial reforms to reduce false positive results. Serving as the motivational backdrop for the present research, we wondered whether these reforms might have unintended negative consequences on researchers’ behavior and emotional experiences. In an experiment simulating the research process, Study 1 (N=449 researchers) suggested that engaging in a pre-registration task impeded the discovery of an interesting but non-hypothesized result. Study 2 (N=404 researchers) indicated that relative to confirmatory research, researchers found exploratory research more enjoyable, motivating, and interesting; and less anxiety-inducing, frustrating, boring, and scientific. These studies raise the possibility that emphasizing confirmation can shift researchers away from exploration, and that such a shift could degrade the subjective experience of conducting research.

    • Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 164 (May 2021): 179-191.

    Joy and Rigor in Behavioral Science

    By: Hanne K. Collins, Ashley V. Whillans and Leslie K. John

    In the past decade, behavioral science has seen the introduction of beneficial reforms to reduce false positive results. Serving as the motivational backdrop for the present research, we wondered whether these reforms might have unintended negative consequences on researchers’ behavior and emotional experiences. In an experiment simulating the...

    • Digital Initiative

    Assessing the Strength of Network Effects in Social Network Platforms

    By: Marco Iansiti

    Network effects have risen to the forefront of platform competition discussions (e.g. the House Judiciary investigation of competition in digital markets, claiming that Facebook, for example, is entrenched due to strong network effects and high switching costs). While newer literature has developed much more sophistication in characterizing network effects, common regulatory perspective often assumes more simplistic views.

    • Digital Initiative

    Assessing the Strength of Network Effects in Social Network Platforms

    By: Marco Iansiti

    Network effects have risen to the forefront of platform competition discussions (e.g. the House Judiciary investigation of competition in digital markets, claiming that Facebook, for example, is entrenched due to strong network effects and high switching costs). While newer literature has developed much more sophistication in characterizing...

    • Featured Case

    Amazon Shopper Panel: Paying Customers for Their Data

    By: Eva Ascarza and Ayelet Israeli

    This case introduces a new Amazon program that has consumers upload their receipts from transactions outside of Amazon, in exchange for money. Through the discussion, the case aims to explore issues in customers’ privacy in the digital age, the value of customers’ own data, and the change in regulations aimed to protect consumers that move companies from using third party data to first party data. In addition, the case offers an opportunity to discuss the power dynamics of online giants such as Amazon, Google, and Facebook.

    • Featured Case

    Amazon Shopper Panel: Paying Customers for Their Data

    By: Eva Ascarza and Ayelet Israeli

    This case introduces a new Amazon program that has consumers upload their receipts from transactions outside of Amazon, in exchange for money. Through the discussion, the case aims to explore issues in customers’ privacy in the digital age, the value of customers’ own data, and the change in regulations aimed to protect consumers that move...

    • Featured Case

    Proteak: Valuing Forestry Assets

    By: Gerardo Pérez Cavazos and Carla Larangeira

    In early 2020, 414 Capital was hired by Proteak, Mexico´s largest forestry platform, to perform a valuation of its teak business, a high-grade hardwood commonly used to build boat decks, outdoor walls, furniture, doors and small objects. Teak plantations typically became commercially viable upon reaching 20 to 30 years of maturity and Proteak was two years away from reaching its final harvest period for several teak plantations in Mexico. Teak productivity could vary significantly across plantations. Ariel Fischman, founder and CEO of 414 Capital, a leading independent corporate financial services firm, recognized valuing land in Mexico was also a tricky business, and although they had previously performed a valuation of Proteak in 2014, the market dynamics had changed in the last six years, and so had the company’s position in the market.

    • Featured Case

    Proteak: Valuing Forestry Assets

    By: Gerardo Pérez Cavazos and Carla Larangeira

    In early 2020, 414 Capital was hired by Proteak, Mexico´s largest forestry platform, to perform a valuation of its teak business, a high-grade hardwood commonly used to build boat decks, outdoor walls, furniture, doors and small objects. Teak plantations typically became commercially viable upon reaching 20 to 30 years of maturity and Proteak was...

    • HBS Working Knowledge

    Stock Price Reactions to ESG News: The Role of ESG Ratings and Disagreement

    By: George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon

    Company performance evaluations have included sell-side analyst forecasts, recommendations, and credit ratings, but a newer set has emerged: environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings. This study finds that ESG ratings are useful for predicting future ESG news, but their predictive ability diminishes for firms with large disagreement between raters.

    • HBS Working Knowledge

    Stock Price Reactions to ESG News: The Role of ESG Ratings and Disagreement

    By: George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon

    Company performance evaluations have included sell-side analyst forecasts, recommendations, and credit ratings, but a newer set has emerged: environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings. This study finds that ESG ratings are useful for predicting future ESG news, but their predictive ability diminishes for firms with large disagreement...

    • HBS Working Paper

    Housing Consumption and the Cost of Remote Work

    By: Christopher Stanton and Pratyush Tiwari

    This paper estimates housing choice differences between households with and without remote workers. Prior to the pandemic, the expenditure share on housing was more than seven percent higher for remote households compared to similar non-remote households in the same commuting zone. Remote households’ higher housing expenditures arise from larger dwellings (more rooms) and a higher price per room. Pre-COVID, households with remote workers were actually located in areas with above-average housing costs, and sorting within-commuting zone to suburban or rural areas was not economically meaningful. Using the pre-COVID distribution of locations, we estimate how much additional pre-tax income would be necessary to compensate non-remote households for extra housing expenses arising from remote work in the absence of geographic mobility, and we compare this compensation to commercial office rents in major metro areas.

    • HBS Working Paper

    Housing Consumption and the Cost of Remote Work

    By: Christopher Stanton and Pratyush Tiwari

    This paper estimates housing choice differences between households with and without remote workers. Prior to the pandemic, the expenditure share on housing was more than seven percent higher for remote households compared to similar non-remote households in the same commuting zone. Remote households’ higher housing expenditures arise from larger...

Initiatives & Projects

Impact-Weighted Accounts Project

The mission of the Impact-Weighted Accounts Project is to drive the creation of financial accounts that reflect a company’s financial, social, and environmental performance.
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Seminars & Conferences

Apr 14
  • 14 Apr 2021

Jessica Kennedy, Vanderbilt

Apr 15
  • 15 Apr 2021

Ingrid Nembhard, Wharton, University of Pennsylvania

→More Seminars & Conferences

Recent Publications

Does Observability Amplify Sensitivity to Moral Frames? Evaluating a Reputation-Based Account of Moral Preferences

By: Valerio Capraro, Jillian J. Jordan and Ben Tappin
  • 2021 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
A growing body of work suggests that people are sensitive to moral framing in economic games involving prosociality, suggesting that people hold moral preferences for doing the “right thing”. What gives rise to these preferences? Here, we evaluate the explanatory power of a reputation-based account, which proposes that people respond to moral frames because they are motivated to look good in the eyes of others. Across four pre-registered experiments (total N = 9,601), we investigated whether reputational incentives amplify sensitivity to framing effects. Studies 1-3 manipulated (i) whether moral or neutral framing was used to describe a Trade-Off Game (in which participants chose between prioritizing equality or efficiency) and (ii) whether Trade-Off Game choices were observable to a social partner in a subsequent Trust Game. These studies found that observability does not significantly amplify sensitivity to moral framing. Study 4 ruled out the alternative explanation that the observability manipulation from Studies 1-3 is too weak to influence behavior. In Study 4, the same observability manipulation did significantly amplify sensitivity to normative information (about what others see as moral in the Trade-Off Game). Together, these results suggest that moral frames may tap into moral preferences that are relatively deeply internalized, such that the power of moral frames is not strongly enhanced by making the morally-framed behavior observable to others.
Citation
Related
Capraro, Valerio, Jillian J. Jordan, and Ben Tappin. "Does Observability Amplify Sensitivity to Moral Frames? Evaluating a Reputation-Based Account of Moral Preferences." Working Paper, January 2021.

Why Do Successful Women Feel So Guilty?

By: Debora Spar
  • June 2012 |
  • Editorial |
  • The Atlantic
Citation
Related
Spar, Debora. "Why Do Successful Women Feel So Guilty?" The Atlantic (June 28, 2012).

Joy and Rigor in Behavioral Science

By: Hanne K. Collins, Ashley V. Whillans and Leslie K. John
  • May, 2021 |
  • Article |
  • Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
In the past decade, behavioral science has seen the introduction of beneficial reforms to reduce false positive results. Serving as the motivational backdrop for the present research, we wondered whether these reforms might have unintended negative consequences on researchers’ behavior and emotional experiences. In an experiment simulating the research process, Study 1 (N=449 researchers) suggested that engaging in a pre-registration task impeded the discovery of an interesting but non-hypothesized result. Study 2 (N=404 researchers) indicated that relative to confirmatory research, researchers found exploratory research more enjoyable, motivating, and interesting; and less anxiety-inducing, frustrating, boring, and scientific. These studies raise the possibility that emphasizing confirmation can shift researchers away from exploration, and that such a shift could degrade the subjective experience of conducting research. Study 3 (N=314 researchers) introduced a scale to measure “prediction preoccupation”—the feeling of heightened concern over, and fixation with, confirming predictions.
Citation
Related
Collins, Hanne K., Ashley V. Whillans, and Leslie K. John. "Joy and Rigor in Behavioral Science." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 164 (May 2021): 179–191.

Large-Scale Field Experiment Shows Null Effects of Team Demographic Diversity on Outsiders' Willingness to Support the Team

By: Edward H. Chang, Erika L. Kirgios and Rosanna K. Smith
  • 2021 |
  • Article |
  • Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Demographic diversity in the United States is rising, and increasingly, work is conducted in teams. These co-occurring phenomena suggest that it might be increasingly common for work to be conducted by demographically diverse teams. But to date, in spite of copious field experimental evidence documenting that individuals are treated differently based on their demographic identity, we have little evidence from field experiments to establish how and whether teams are treated differently based on their levels of demographic diversity. To answer this question, we present the results of a preregistered, large-scale (n=9496) field experiment testing whether team demographic diversity affects outsiders’ responses to the team. Participants were asked via email to donate money to support the work of a team that was described and depicted as demographically diverse, or not. Even though the study was well-powered to detect even small effects (i.e., differences of less than 1.5 percentage points in donation rates), we found no significant differences in people’s willingness to donate to a more diverse versus a less diverse team. We also did not find moderation by participant gender, racial diversity of the participant’s zip code, or political leaning of the participant’s zip code, suggesting that the lack of a main effect is not due to competing mechanisms cancelling out a main effect. These results suggest past research on the effects of demographic diversity on team support may not generalize to the field, highlighting the need for additional field experimental research on people’s responses to demographically diverse teams.
Citation
Related
Chang, Edward H., Erika L. Kirgios, and Rosanna K. Smith. "Large-Scale Field Experiment Shows Null Effects of Team Demographic Diversity on Outsiders' Willingness to Support the Team." Art. 104099. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 94 (May 2021).

Does Observability Amplify Sensitivity to Moral Frames? Evaluating a Reputation-Based Account of Moral Preferences

By: Valerio Capraro, Jillian J. Jordan and Ben Tappin
  • 2021 |
  • Article |
  • Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
A growing body of work suggests that people are sensitive to moral framing in economic games involving prosociality, suggesting that people hold moral preferences for doing the “right thing”. What gives rise to these preferences? Here, we evaluate the explanatory power of a reputation-based account, which proposes that people respond to moral frames because they are motivated to look good in the eyes of others. Across four pre-registered experiments (total N = 9,601), we investigated whether reputational incentives amplify sensitivity to framing effects. Studies 1-3 manipulated (i) whether moral or neutral framing was used to describe a Trade-Off Game (in which participants chose between prioritizing equality or efficiency) and (ii) whether Trade-Off Game choices were observable to a social partner in a subsequent Trust Game. These studies found that observability does not significantly amplify sensitivity to moral framing. Study 4 ruled out the alternative explanation that the observability manipulation from Studies 1-3 is too weak to influence behavior. In Study 4, the same observability manipulation did significantly amplify sensitivity to normative information (about what others see as moral in the Trade-Off Game). Together, these results suggest that moral frames may tap into moral preferences that are relatively deeply internalized, such that the power of moral frames is not strongly enhanced by making the morally-framed behavior observable to others.
Citation
Related
Capraro, Valerio, Jillian J. Jordan, and Ben Tappin. "Does Observability Amplify Sensitivity to Moral Frames? Evaluating a Reputation-Based Account of Moral Preferences." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 94 (May 2021).

How to Build a Life: The Best Friends Can Do Nothing for You

By: Arthur C. Brooks
  • April 8, 2021 |
  • Article |
  • The Atlantic
Citation
Related
Brooks, Arthur C. "How to Build a Life: The Best Friends Can Do Nothing for You." The Atlantic (April 8, 2021).

Diagnosing Quality: Learning, Amenities, and the Demand for Health Care

By: Jorge Tamayo, Achyuta Adhvaryu, Emilio Gutierrez and Anant Nyshadham
  • 2021 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
We study the role of amenities in increasing demand for underutilized healthcare services. We evaluate the offer of a high-amenity diagnostic consultation for cataracts with a randomized price and find that a lower price for the high-amenity consultation increases surgery take-up by more than 50%. Structural estimates from a model of patient demand show that patients’ update to surgery valuation from experienced amenities is large (three-quarters of the update effect of wait time), and that price effects (e.g., sunk cost accounting or gift exchange) are much smaller, suggesting that providing amenities in initial interactions can increase adoption of underutilized services.
Citation
Related
Tamayo, Jorge, Achyuta Adhvaryu, Emilio Gutierrez, and Anant Nyshadham. "Diagnosing Quality: Learning, Amenities, and the Demand for Health Care." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-110, March 2021.

Absenteeism, Productivity, and Relational Contracts Inside the Firm

By: Jorge Tamayo, Achyuta Adhvaryu, Jean-Francois Gauthier and Anant Nyshadham
  • 2021 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
We study relational contracts among managers using a unique dataset that tracks transfers of workers across teams in Indian ready-made garment factories. We focus on how relational contracts help managers cope with worker absenteeism shocks, which are frequent, often large, weakly correlated across teams, and have substantial negative impacts on team productivity. Together these facts imply gains from sharing workers. We show that managers respond to shocks by lending and borrowing workers in a manner consistent with relational contracting, but many potentially beneficial transfers are unrealized. This is because managers’ primary relationships are with a very small subset of potential partners. Counterfactual simulations reveal large gains to forming additional relationships among managers.
Citation
Related
Tamayo, Jorge, Achyuta Adhvaryu, Jean-Francois Gauthier, and Anant Nyshadham. "Absenteeism, Productivity, and Relational Contracts Inside the Firm." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-109, March 2021.
More Publications

In The News

    • 13 Apr 2021
    • Harvard Business School

    “Getting Serious About Diversity” wins 62nd Annual HBR McKinsey Award

    Re: Robin Ely & Prithwiraj Choudhury
    • 07 Apr 2021
    • Chronicle of Higher Education

    The Edge: The Best Ways to Spend Some of the Billions in Biden’s Big Jobs Proposal

    By: Joseph Fuller
    • 07 Apr 2021
    • Washington Post

    Aubrey Bledsoe’s present is on the soccer pitch. Her future, she hopes, is in the boardroom.

    By: Anita Elberse
    • 06 Apr 2021
    • Cold Call

    Disrupting the Waste Management Industry with Technology

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The Case Method

Introduced by HBS faculty to business education in 1925, the case method is a powerful interactive learning process that puts students in the shoes of a leader faced with a real-world management issue and challenges them to propose and justify a resolution.
Today, HBS remains an authority on teaching by the case method. The School is also the world’s leading case-writing institution, with HBS faculty members contributing hundreds of new cases to the management curriculum a year via the School’s unique case development and writing process.
→Browse HBS Case Collection
→Purchase Cases

Faculty Positions

Harvard Business School seeks candidates in all fields for full time positions. Candidates with outstanding records in PhD or DBA programs are encouraged to apply.
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