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• Article | Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) | February 2020

  Why Prosocial Referral Incentives Work: The Interplay of Reputational Benefits and Action Costs

  Rachel Gershon, Cynthia Cryder and Leslie K. John

  While selfish incentives typically outperform prosocial incentives, in the context of customer referral rewards, prosocial incentives can be more effective. Companies frequently offer “selfish” (i.e., sender-benefiting) referral incentives, offering customers financial incentives for recruiting new customers. However, companies can alternatively offer “prosocial” (i.e., recipient-benefiting) referral incentives. In two field experiments and an incentive-compatible lab experiment, recipient-benefiting referrals recruited more new customers than sender-benefiting referrals. In five additional experiments, we test a process account that invokes two countervailing forces: reputational benefits and action costs. First, at the referral stage, senders anticipate reputational benefits for referring when recipients receive a reward. As a result, recipient-benefiting referrals are just as effective as sender-benefiting referrals at this stage. Second, at the uptake stage, recipient-benefiting referrals are more effective than sender-benefiting referrals: recipient-benefiting referrals directly incentivize uptake (i.e., signing up for a new product or service), which is a high-effort action in referral programs. The preponderance of sender-benefiting (vs. recipient-benefiting) referral offers in the marketplace suggests these effects are unanticipated by marketers who design incentive schemes.

  Keywords: incentives; prosocial behavior; judgment and decision-making; referral rewards; Motivation and Incentives; Consumer Behavior; Decision Making;

  Citation:

  Gershon, Rachel, Cynthia Cryder, and Leslie K. John. "Why Prosocial Referral Incentives Work: The Interplay of Reputational Benefits and Action Costs." Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) 57, no. 1 (February 2020): 156–172.  View Details

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• Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2020

  Fostering Perceptions of Authenticity via Sensitive Self-Disclosure

  Li Jiang, Maryam Kouchaki, Francesca Gino, Reihane Boghrati and Leslie John

  Leaders’ perceived authenticity – the sense that a leader is acting in accordance with her “true self” – is associated with positive outcomes for both employees and organizations alike. How might a leader foster this impression? Using field and experimental data, we test whether sensitive self-disclosures – for example, revealing an aversion to public speaking – make leaders come across as authentic and lead to positive outcomes, such as an enhanced desire to work with that leader (Studies 1, 2A, 2B, and 3). Stemming from our conceptual account, we show that these benefits emerge when the self-disclosure is mild to moderately sensitive in nature (Study 4) and made voluntarily (as opposed to by requirement) (Study 6) by a relatively high-status person (Study 5). Would-be disclosers do not intuit these positive consequences of self-disclosure (Study 7), suggesting that leaders may under-employ an effective tool for making a positive impression.

  Keywords: Authenticity; disclosure; Leaders; impression management;

  Citation:

  Jiang, Li, Maryam Kouchaki, Francesca Gino, Reihane Boghrati, and Leslie John. "Fostering Perceptions of Authenticity via Sensitive Self-Disclosure." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-070, January 2020.  View Details

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• Article | BMJ: British Medical Journal | November 9, 2019

  Effect of Revealing Authors' Conflicts of Interests in Peer Review: Randomized Controlled Trial

  Leslie K. John, George Loewenstein, Andrew Marder and Michael Callaham

  Objective: To assess the impact of disclosing authors’ conflict of interest declarations to peer reviewers at a medical journal.
  Design: Randomised controlled trial.
  
  Setting: The study was conducted within the manuscript review process at the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
  
  Participants: Reviewers (n=885 reviewers) who reviewed manuscripts submitted between June 2, 2014 and January 23, 2018 inclusive (n=1480 manuscripts).
  
  Intervention: Reviewers were randomised to either receive (treatment) or to not receive (control) authors’ full ICMJE-format conflict of interest disclosures before performing their review. Reviewers rated the manuscripts as usual on eight quality ratings and were then surveyed to obtain “counterfactual scores”—i.e., the scores they believed they would have given had they been assigned to the opposite arm—as well as attitudes toward conflicts of interest. .
  
  Main outcome measures: The primary outcome measure was the overall quality score that reviewers assigned to the manuscript upon submitting their review (1 to 5 scale). The trial had 99% power to detect a .4 point difference, determined previously by editors to be the minimal significance threshold for a difference in score that would influence their editorial decision. Secondary outcomes looked at the scores the reviewers submitted for the seven more specific quality ratings as well as counterfactual scores elicited in the follow-up survey.
  
  Results: Providing authors’ conflict of interest disclosures did not affect reviewers’ ratings of manuscript quality (Mcontrol=2.70 out of 5, SD=1.11; Mtreatment=2.74 out of 5, SD=1.13; mean difference=0.04, 95% CI=-0.05 to 0.14), even for manuscripts with disclosed conflicts (Mcontrol=2.85 out of 5, SD=1.12; Mtreatment=2.96 out of 5, SD=1.16; mean difference=0.11, 95% CI=-0.05 to 0.26). Similarly, there was no effect of the treatment on any of the other seven quality ratings the reviewers assigned. Reviewers acknowledged conflicts of interest as an important issue and believed they could correct for them when disclosed. Yet, their counterfactual scores did not differ from actual scores (Mactual=2.69, Mcounterfactual=2.67; difference in means=0.02, 95% CI=-0.02 to -0.01). When conflicts were reported, a comparison of different source types (e.g., government, for-profit corporation, etc.) found no difference in impact.
  
  Conclusions: Current ethical standards require conflict of interest disclosure for all scientific reports. As currently implemented, this practice demonstrated no impact on any quality ratings of real manuscripts being evaluated for publication by real peer reviewers.

  Keywords: conflicts of interest; peer review; randomized controlled trial; scientific publication; Conflict of Interests; Journals and Magazines; Science;

  Citation:

  John, Leslie K., George Loewenstein, Andrew Marder, and Michael Callaham. "Effect of Revealing Authors' Conflicts of Interests in Peer Review: Randomized Controlled Trial." BMJ: British Medical Journal 367, no. 8221 (November 9, 2019).  View Details

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