Most people show up on their first day at work energized to get started, and ready to contribute to the mission of the organization they just joined. And yet, just a few months later, their level of engagement at work has dropped. Why?
For years, Professor Gino has been fascinated by questions like this one, that point to a potential interesting puzzle about our human nature. Why do we make the choices we do, often in ways that seem to be off with our desire to be engaged and happy in our professional and personal lives? To find the answer to this question, over the years she has embarked on a number of research projects that have uncovered novel and often-counterintuitive findings, and that provide actionable advice to managers and employees on how to meet the practical challenges they face.
Professor Gino uses multiple methods in her work, ranging from survey and archival data analysis to field and laboratory experiments. This multi-method approach allows her to better understand the organizational contexts in which decisions are made and the psychological mechanisms that underlie them. This approach draws from psychology, behavioral decision research, and organizational behavior to inform the question of why people’s actions so often do not reflect honesty, competence, or effectiveness.
Being human makes all of us vulnerable to influences that, even when subtle, can dramatically impact our actions. By understanding such influences and using the interventions Professor Gino uncovered in her research, managers can design processes that effectively tackle organizational members’ systematic shortcomings, as well as their own.
