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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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• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | December 2019

  Starbucks: Reaffirming Commitment to the Third Place Ideal

  Francesca Gino and Katherine B. Coffman

  Citation:

  Gino, Francesca, and Katherine B. Coffman. "Starbucks: Reaffirming Commitment to the Third Place Ideal." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 920-031, December 2019.  View Details

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• Article | Management Science | December 2019

  Communicating with Warmth in Distributive Negotiations Is Surprisingly Counterproductive

  M. Jeong, J. Minson, M. Yeomans and F. Gino

  When entering into a negotiation, individuals have the choice to enact a variety of communication styles. We test the differential impact of being “warm and friendly” versus “tough and firm” in a distributive negotiation, when first offers are held constant and concession patterns are tracked. We train a natural language processing algorithm to precisely quantify the difference between how people enact warm versus tough communication styles. We find that the two styles differ primarily in length and their expressions of politeness (Study 1). Negotiators with a tough communication style achieved better economic outcomes than negotiators with a warm communication style, both in a field experiment (Study 2) and in a laboratory experiment (Study 3). This was driven by the fact that offers delivered in tough language elicited more favorable counteroffers. We further find that the counterparts of warm versus tough negotiators did not report different levels of satisfaction or enjoyment of their interactions (Study 3). Finally, in Study 4 we document that individuals’ lay beliefs are in direct opposition to our findings: participants believe that authors of warmly worded negotiation offers will be better liked and will achieve better economic outcomes.

  Keywords: Negotiation Style; Communication Strategy; Perception; Performance Effectiveness; Outcome or Result;

  Citation:

  Jeong, M., J. Minson, M. Yeomans, and F. Gino. "Communicating with Warmth in Distributive Negotiations Is Surprisingly Counterproductive." Management Science 65, no. 12 (December 2019): 5813–5837.  View Details

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