Laura Huang - Faculty & Research - Harvard Business School

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Laura Huang

MBA Class of 1954 Associate Professor of Business Administration

Organizational Behavior
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Laura Huang is an associate professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit.  Prior to joining HBS, she was an assistant professor of management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.  Professor Huang’s research examines early-stage entrepreneurship, and the role of interpersonal relationships and implicit factors in the investment decisions of financiers such as angel investors and VCs. Her work studies the subtle signals and cues that often impact the behavioral perceptions of investors, which can lead to implicit bias in the investing process. Her research has been published in several academic journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and has also been featured in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes, and Nature.  She has won a number of awards for her research, and was named one of the 40 Best Business School Professors Under the Age of 40 by Poets & Quants.

Professor Huang earned a PhD in management from the University of California, Irvine; an MBA from INSEAD; and an MS and BSE in electrical engineering, both from Duke University.  Before entering academia, she held positions in investment banking, consulting, and general management, for organizations such as Standard Chartered Bank, IBM Global Services, and Johnson & Johnson, in a variety of global locations.  She has also served as an advisor to several start-ups in the US, Europe, Southeast Asia, and China.

Professor Huang is the author of Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage (Portfolio-Penguin, Jan 2020).

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Books

  1. Book | 2020

    Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage

    Laura Huang

    Having an edge is about gaining an advantage, but it goes beyond just advantage. It's about recognizing that others will have their own perceptions about us, right or wrong. When you recognize the power in those perceptions and flip them in your favor, you create an edge—and your hard work works harder for you.

    Keywords: Success; Perception; Personal Characteristics; Performance;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura. Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage. New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2020.  View Details
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Journal Articles

  1. Article | Academy of Management Journal | Forthcoming

    Sizing Up Entrepreneurial Potential: Gender Differences in Communication and Investor Perceptions of Long-Term Growth and Scalability

    Laura Huang, Priyanka D. Joshi, Cheryl J. Wakslak and Andy Wu

    Female entrepreneurs have been found to face disadvantages as compared with male entrepreneurs, especially in acquiring the financial resources they need to sustain and grow their ventures. Across three studies, we examine how disparities in funding outcomes may be due to differences in how entrepreneurs communicate their ventures, whereby female entrepreneurs have a tendency to use more concrete language when describing their ventures than do their male counterparts. We find that use of abstract speech affects investors’ perceptions of which ventures are oriented toward long-term growth and scalability—which in turn, affects the likelihood that a venture will receive investment. We conclude with a discussion of the important role of communication style as a key mediating mechanism in influencing the cognitions of investors.

    Keywords: Business Startups; Finance; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Communication;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura, Priyanka D. Joshi, Cheryl J. Wakslak, and Andy Wu. "Sizing Up Entrepreneurial Potential: Gender Differences in Communication and Investor Perceptions of Long-Term Growth and Scalability." Academy of Management Journal (forthcoming).  View Details
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  2. Article | Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

    To Be or Not to Be Your Authentic Self? Catering to Others' Expectations and Interests Hinders Performance

    Francesca Gino, Ovul Sezer and Laura Huang

    When approaching interpersonal first meetings (e.g., job interviews), people often cater to the target’s interests and expectations to make a good impression and secure a positive outcome such as being offered the job (pilot study). This strategy is distinct from other approaches identified in prior impression management research (Studies 1A, 1B and 1C), and does not produce the benefits people expect. In a field study in which entrepreneurs pitched their ideas to potential investors (Study 2), catering harmed investors’ evaluations, while being authentic improved them. People experience greater anxiety and instrumentality when they cater to another person’s preferences than when they behave authentically (Studies 3A and 3B). Compared to behaving authentically or to a control condition, catering harms performance because trying to anticipate and fulfill others’ preferences feels instrumental and increases anxiety (Studies 4 and 5). Taken together, these results suggest that although people believe using catering in interpersonal first meetings will lead to successful outcomes, the opposite is true: catering creates undesirable feelings of instrumentality for the caterer, increases anxiety, and ultimately hinders performance.

    Keywords: Authenticity; catering; honesty; selection; impression management; Interpersonal Communication; Behavior; Performance;

    Citation:

    Gino, Francesca, Ovul Sezer, and Laura Huang. "To Be or Not to Be Your Authentic Self? Catering to Others' Expectations and Interests Hinders Performance." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 158 (May 2020): 83–100.  View Details
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  3. Article | Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

    Mitigating Malicious Envy: Why Successful Individuals Should Reveal Their Failures

    Alison Wood Brooks, Karen Huang, Nicole Abi-Esber, Ryan W. Buell, Laura Huang and Brian Hall

    People often feel malicious envy, a destructive interpersonal emotion, when they compare themselves to successful peers. Across three online experiments and a field experiment of entrepreneurs, we identify an interpersonal strategy that can mitigate feelings of malicious envy in observers: revealing one’s failures. Despite a general reluctance to reveal one’s failures—as they are happening and after they have occurred—across four experiments, we find that revealing both successes and failures encountered on the path to success (compared to revealing only successes) decreases observers’ malicious envy. This effect holds regardless of the discloser’s status and cannot be explained by a decrease in perceived status of the individual. Then, in a field experiment at an entrepreneurial pitch competition, where pride displays are common and stakes are high, we find suggestive evidence that learning about the failures of a successful entrepreneur decreases observers’ malicious envy while increasing their benign envy in addition to decreasing their perceptions of the entrepreneur’s hubristic pride (i.e., arrogance) while increasing their perceptions of the entrepreneur’s authentic pride (i.e., confidence). These findings align with previous work on the social-functional relation of envy and pride. Taken together, our results highlight how revealing failures encountered on the way to success can be a counterintuitive yet effective interpersonal emotion regulation strategy.

    Keywords: Emotions; Perception; Interpersonal Communication; Communication Strategy;

    Citation:

    Brooks, Alison Wood, Karen Huang, Nicole Abi-Esber, Ryan W. Buell, Laura Huang, and Brian Hall. "Mitigating Malicious Envy: Why Successful Individuals Should Reveal Their Failures." Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 148, no. 4 (April 2019): 667–687.  View Details
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  4. Article | American Psychologist

    'Forward Flow': A New Measure to Quantify Free Thought and Predict Creativity

    Kurt Gray, Stephen Anderson, Eric Evan Chen, John Michael Kelly, Michael S. Christian, John Patrick, Laura Huang, Yoed N. Kenett and Kevin Lewis

    When the human mind is free to roam, its subjective experience is characterized by a continuously evolving stream of thought. Although there is a technique that captures people’s streams of free thought—free association—its utility for scientific research is undermined by two open questions: (a) How can streams of thought be quantified? (b) Do such streams predict psychological phenomena? We resolve the first issue—quantification—by presenting a new metric, “forward flow,” that uses latent semantic analysis to capture the semantic evolution of thoughts over time (i.e., how much present thoughts diverge from past thoughts). We resolve the second issue—prediction—by examining whether forward flow predicts creativity in the lab and the real world. Our studies reveal that forward flow predicts creativity in college students (Study 1) and a representative sample of Americans (Study 2), even when controlling for intelligence. Studies also reveal that membership in real-world creative groups—performance majors (Study 3), professional actors (Study 4) and entrepreneurs (Study 5)—is predicted by forward flow, even when controlling for performance on divergent thinking tasks. Study 6 reveals that forward flow in celebrities’ social media posts (i.e., on Twitter) predicts their creative achievement. In addition to creativity, forward flow may also help predict mental illness, emotional experience, leadership ability, adaptability, neural dynamics, group productivity, and cultural success. We present open-access online tools for assessing and visualizing forward flow for both illustrative and large-scale data analytic purposes.

    Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Creativity; Forecasting and Prediction;

    Citation:

    Gray, Kurt, Stephen Anderson, Eric Evan Chen, John Michael Kelly, Michael S. Christian, John Patrick, Laura Huang, Yoed N. Kenett, and Kevin Lewis. "'Forward Flow': A New Measure to Quantify Free Thought and Predict Creativity." American Psychologist 74, no. 5 (July 2019): 539–554.  View Details
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  5. Article | Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

    Gender Differences in Communicative Abstraction

    Priyanka D. Joshi, Cheryl J. Wakslak, Gil Appel and Laura Huang

    Drawing on construal level theory, which suggests that experiencing a communicative audience as proximal rather than distal leads speakers to frame messages more concretely, we examine gender difference in linguistic abstraction. In a meta-analysis of prior studies examining the effects of distance on communication, we find that women communicate more concretely than men when an audience is described as being psychologically close. These gender differences in linguistic abstraction are eliminated when speakers consider an audience whose distance has been made salient (Study 1). In studies that follow, we examine gender difference in linguistic abstraction in contexts where the nature of the audience is not specified. Across a written experimental context (Study 2), a large corpus of online blog posts (Study 3), and the real-world speech of congressmen and congresswomen (Study 4), we find that men speak more abstractly than women. These gender difference in speech abstraction continue to emerge when subjective feelings of power are experimentally manipulated (Study 5). We believe that gender differences in linguistic abstraction are the result of several interrelated processes—including but not limited to social network size and homogeneity, communication motives involving seeking proximity or distance, perceptions of audience homogeneity and distance, as well as experience of power. In Study 6, we find preliminary support for mediation of gender differences in linguistic abstraction by women’s tendency to interact in small social networks. We discuss implications of these gender differences in communicative abstraction for existing theory and provide suggestions for future research.

    Keywords: construal level theory; psychological distance; Gender; Communication; Leadership;

    Citation:

    Joshi, Priyanka D., Cheryl J. Wakslak, Gil Appel, and Laura Huang. "Gender Differences in Communicative Abstraction." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 118, no. 3 (March 2020): 417–435.  View Details
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  6. Article | Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

    The Self-Presentational Consequences of Upholding One's Stance in Spite of the Evidence

    Leslie John, Martha Jeong, Francesca Gino and Laura Huang

    Five studies explore the self-presentational consequences of refusing to “back down” – that is, upholding a stance despite evidence of its inaccuracy. Using data from an entrepreneurial pitch competition, Study 1 shows that entrepreneurs tend not to back down even though investors are more impressed by entrepreneurs who do. Next, in two sets of experiments, we unpack the psychology underlying why actors refuse to publicly back down and investigate observers’ impressions of those actors. Specifically, we show that observers view people who refuse to back down as confident but unintelligent, and these perceptions drive consequential decisions about such refusers, such as whether to invest in their ideas (Studies 1 & 2) or whether to hire them (Study 3). Although actors can intuit these effects (Study 4), this understanding is not reflected in their behavior because they are concerned with saving face (Study 5).

    Keywords: Self-presentation; belief perseverance; judgment; confidence; persuasion; Personal Characteristics; Behavior; Perception; Decision Making; Outcome or Result;

    Citation:

    John, Leslie, Martha Jeong, Francesca Gino, and Laura Huang. "The Self-Presentational Consequences of Upholding One's Stance in Spite of the Evidence." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 154 (September 2019): 1–14.  View Details
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  7. Article | Journal of Applied Psychology

    Worthy of Swift Trust? How Brief Interpersonal Contact Affects Trust Accuracy

    Oliver Schilke and Laura Huang

    Organizational scholars have long underscored the positive consequences of trust, yet trust can also have dysfunctional effects if it is not placed wisely. Though much research has examined conditions that increase individuals’ tendencies to trust others, we know very little about the circumstances under which individuals are likely to make more accurate trust decisions (i.e., neither misplace their trust nor refrain from trusting when doing so would have been beneficial), especially when they must do so rapidly and in the absence of an exchange history. Put simply, we have little understanding of what drives the accuracy of swift trust judgments. Building on relevant literatures, we propose that short episodes of prior interpersonal contact with a partner can increase the accuracy of swift trust decisions. Across two experimental studies, we demonstrate that brief interpersonal contact leads trustors to both (a) become more accurate in their trust decisions and (b) engage in other-focused perspective taking, which mediates the effect of interpersonal contact on trust accuracy. We then show that it is specifically because of verbal cues, rather than visual cues, that brief interpersonal contact enables other-focused perspective taking and, in turn, trust accuracy (Study 3). We contribute to the literature on trust by examining trust accuracy (rather than mere trust levels), identifying the significant role of brief interpersonal contact, and revealing other-focused perspective taking as a key mechanism in accurate swift trust decisions.

    Keywords: Trust; Interpersonal Communication; Judgments; Perspective;

    Citation:

    Schilke, Oliver, and Laura Huang. "Worthy of Swift Trust? How Brief Interpersonal Contact Affects Trust Accuracy." Journal of Applied Psychology 103, no. 11 (November 2018): 1181–1197.  View Details
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  8. Article | Academy of Management Journal

    The Role of Investor Gut Feel in Managing Complexity and Extreme Risk

    Laura Huang

    Securing financial resources from investors is a key challenge for many early stage entrepreneurial ventures. Given the inherent uncertainty surrounding a decision to invest in these ventures, prior research has found that experienced investors rely heavily on their investor gut feel—dynamic expertise-based emotion-cognitions specific to the entrepreneurship context. In this paper, I inductively find that rather than based on rapid, nonconscious impulse, as much of prior literature would suggest, what investors call their "gut feel" is an elaborate "intuiting process." This process serves a distinct purpose: it emboldens investors to make investments that would otherwise be considered overly risky and likely to lead to failure. In the theoretical model I present, I delineate how investors are guided by a predisposed stance on risk and uncertainty, which dictates the approach investors take towards managing the complexity of an investment opportunity—and how they cognitively and emotionally reframe investment risk into a compelling narrative that transcends avoidance behavior and leads investors to invest. These findings expand our overall understanding of the complex ways in which investors contend with the risks and uncertainties in entrepreneurial finance.

    Keywords: angel investors; gut feel; intuition; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Risk and Uncertainty; Complexity; Decision Making;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura. "The Role of Investor Gut Feel in Managing Complexity and Extreme Risk." Academy of Management Journal 61, no. 5 (October 2018): 1821–1847.  View Details
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  9. Article | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

    Patient–Physician Gender Concordance and Increased Mortality Among Female Heart Attack Patients

    Brad Greenwood, Seth Carnahan and Laura Huang

    We examine patient gender disparities in survival rates following acute myocardial infarctions (i.e., heart attacks) based on the gender of the treating physician. Using a census of heart attack patients admitted to Florida hospitals between 1991 and 2010, we find higher mortality among female patients who are treated by male physicians. Male patients and female patients experience similar outcomes when treated by female physicians, suggesting that unique challenges arise when male physicians treat female patients. We further find that male physicians with more exposure to female patients and female physicians have more success treating female patients.

    Keywords: Health Disorders; Health Care and Treatment; Gender; Outcome or Result;

    Citation:

    Greenwood, Brad, Seth Carnahan, and Laura Huang. "Patient–Physician Gender Concordance and Increased Mortality Among Female Heart Attack Patients." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, no. 34 (August 21, 2018).  View Details
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  10. Article | Organization Science

    Gender Bias, Social Impact Framing, and Evaluation of Entrepreneurial Ventures

    Matthew Lee and Laura Huang

    Recent studies find that female-led ventures are penalized relative to male-led ventures due to role incongruity, or a perceived “lack of fit,” between female stereotypes and expected personal qualities of business entrepreneurs. We examine whether social impact framing that emphasizes a venture’s social-environmental welfare benefits, which research has shown to elicit stereotypically feminine attributions of warmth, diminishes these penalties. We initially investigate this proposition in a field study of evaluations of early-stage ventures and find evidence of lessened gender penalties for female-led ventures that are presented using a social impact frame. In a second study, we experimentally validate this effect and show that it is mediated by the effect of social impact framing on perceptions of the entrepreneur’s warmth. The effect of social impact frames on venture evaluations did not apply to men, was not due to perceptions of increased competence, and was not conditional on the gender of evaluators. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that social impact framing increases attributions of warmth for all entrepreneurs but with positive consequences on business evaluation only for female-led ventures, for which increased perceptions of warmth attenuate female entrepreneurs’ gender role incongruity.

    Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Framework; Perception; Performance Evaluation;

    Citation:

    Lee, Matthew, and Laura Huang. "Gender Bias, Social Impact Framing, and Evaluation of Entrepreneurial Ventures." Organization Science 29, no. 1 (January–February 2018): 1–16.  View Details
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  11. Article | Academy of Management Journal

    We Ask Men to Win & Women Not to Lose: Closing the Gender Gap in Startup Funding

    Dana Kanze, Laura Huang, Mark Conley and E. Tory Higgins

    Male entrepreneurs are known to raise higher levels of funding than their female counterparts, but the underlying mechanism for this funding disparity remains contested. Drawing upon Regulatory Focus Theory, we propose that the gap originates with a gender bias in the questions that investors pose to entrepreneurs. A field study conducted on question-and-answer interactions at TechCrunch Disrupt New York City during 2010 through 2016 reveals that investors tend to ask male entrepreneurs promotion-focused questions and female entrepreneurs prevention-focused questions, and that entrepreneurs tend to respond with matching regulatory focus. This distinction in the regulatory focus of investor questions and entrepreneur responses results in divergent funding outcomes for entrepreneurs whereby those asked promotion-focused questions raise significantly higher amounts of funding than those asked prevention-focused questions. We demonstrate that every additional prevention-focused question significantly hinders the entrepreneur's ability to raise capital, fully mediating gender's effect on funding. By experimentally testing an intervention, we find that entrepreneurs can significantly increase funding for their startups when responding to prevention-focused questions with promotion-focused answers. As we offer evidence regarding tactics that can be employed to diminish the gender disadvantage in funding outcomes, this study has practical as well as theoretical implications for entrepreneurship.

    Keywords: Business Startups; Finance; Gender; Prejudice and Bias;

    Citation:

    Kanze, Dana, Laura Huang, Mark Conley, and E. Tory Higgins. "We Ask Men to Win & Women Not to Lose: Closing the Gender Gap in Startup Funding." Academy of Management Journal 61, no. 2 (April 2018): 586–614.  View Details
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  12. Article | Academy of Management Review

    Resources and Relationships in Entrepreneurship: An Exchange Theory of the Development and Effects of the Entrepreneur-Investor Relationship

    Laura Huang and Andrew P. Knight

    We develop a theoretical model, grounded in exchange theory, about the process through which relationships between entrepreneurs and investors develop and influence the growth of new ventures. Our theory highlights the multifaceted relationships that entrepreneurs and investors share—comprising both affective and instrumental dimensions—and the bidirectional exchanges of social and financial resources that build these relationships over time. An exchange theory perspective sheds light on the emergence of different patterns of relationship development over time and how different kinds of resource exchange contribute to new venture growth, contingent on the core problems that a venture faces at a given stage of development. We discuss implications of an exchange perspective on resources and relationships in entrepreneurship for theory, research, and practice.

    Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Relationships; Business Startups; Business and Shareholder Relations; Theory;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura, and Andrew P. Knight. "Resources and Relationships in Entrepreneurship: An Exchange Theory of the Development and Effects of the Entrepreneur-Investor Relationship." Academy of Management Review 42, no. 1 (January 2017): 80–102.  View Details
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  13. Article | Journal of International Business Studies

    When Is Traditionalism an Asset and When Is It a Liability for Team Innovation? A Two-Study Empirical Examination

    Laura Huang, Cristina B. Gibson, Bradley L. Kirkman and Debra L. Shapiro

    Team innovation requires idea generating and idea implementing. In two studies, we examine how these team activities are affected by the extent to which members value traditionalism – that is, placing importance on preserving old ways of doing things over breaking precedent and forging new approaches. We proposed that higher average levels of team traditionalism would be negatively associated with idea generating but positively associated with idea implementing. Conversely, we proposed the opposite effects for diversity on team traditionalism. Further, we argued that these effects would be mediated by team process conflict because diversity on team traditionalism might make it more likely that members will debate what to retain versus newly adopt, and team agreement is more likely to occur when team members’ values are shared, rather than discrepant, with one another. Supporting our assertions, we found that whether traditionalism is an asset or liability for team innovation depends on whether (1) the average level (versus diversity) of team traditionalism is examined; and (2) idea generating versus idea implementing is of primary importance. Specifically, idea generating benefits from higher diversity on team traditionalism, whereas idea implementing benefits from higher average levels of team traditionalism. We discuss theoretical and practical implications.

    Keywords: Groups and Teams; Innovation and Invention; Diversity; Values and Beliefs; Performance Effectiveness;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura, Cristina B. Gibson, Bradley L. Kirkman, and Debra L. Shapiro. "When Is Traditionalism an Asset and When Is It a Liability for Team Innovation? A Two-Study Empirical Examination." Journal of International Business Studies 48, no. 6 (August 2017): 693–715.  View Details
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  14. Article | Proceedings of the International Workshop on Exploratory Search in Databases and the Web

    Collection, Exploration and Analysis of Crowdfunding Social Networks

    Miao Cheng, Anand Sriramulu, Sudarshan Muralidhar, Boon Thau Loo, Laura Huang and Po-Ling Loh

    Crowdfunding is a recent financing phenomenon that is gaining wide popularity as a means for startups to raise seed funding for their companies. This paper presents our initial results at understanding this phenomenon using an exploratory data driven approach. We have developed a big data platform for collecting and managing data from multiple sources, including company profiles (CrunchBase and AngelList) and social networks (Facebook and Twitter). We describe our data collection process that allows us to gather data from diverse sources at high throughput. Using Spark as our analysis tool, we study the impact of social engagement on startup fund raising success. We further define novel metrics that allow us to quantify the behavior of investors to follow and make investment decisions as communities rather than individuals. Finally, we explore visualization techniques that allow us to visualize communities of investors that make decisions in a close-knit fashion vs looser communities where investors largely make independent decisions. We conclude with a discussion on our ongoing research on causality analysis and new community detection algorithms.

    Citation:

    Cheng, Miao, Anand Sriramulu, Sudarshan Muralidhar, Boon Thau Loo, Laura Huang, and Po-Ling Loh. "Collection, Exploration and Analysis of Crowdfunding Social Networks." Proceedings of the International Workshop on Exploratory Search in Databases and the Web 3rd (2016): 25–30.  View Details
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  15. Article | Administrative Science Quarterly

    Managing the Unknowable: The Effectiveness of Early-stage Investor Gut Feel in Entrepreneurial Investment Decisions

    Laura Huang and Jone L. Pearce

    Using an inductive theory-development study, a field experiment, and a longitudinal field test, we examine early-stage entrepreneurial investment decision making under conditions of extreme uncertainty. Building on existing literature on decision making and risk in organizations, intuition, and theories of entrepreneurial financing, we test the effectiveness of angel investors’ criteria for making investment decisions. We found that angel investors’ decisions have several characteristics that have not been adequately captured in existing theory: angel investors have clear objectives—risking small stakes to find extraordinarily profitable investments, fully expecting to lose their entire investment in most cases—and they rely on a combination of expertise-based intuition and formal analysis in which intuition trumps analysis, contrary to reports in other investment contexts. We also found that their reported emphasis on assessments of the entrepreneur accurately predicts extraordinarily profitable venture success four years later. We develop this theory by examining situations in which uncertainty is so extreme that it qualifies as unknowable, using the term “gut feel” to describe their dynamic emotion-cognitions in which they blend analysis and intuition in ways that do not impair intuitive processes and that effectively predict extraordinarily profitable investments.

    Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Risk and Uncertainty; Decision Making; Emotions; Performance Effectiveness;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura, and Jone L. Pearce. "Managing the Unknowable: The Effectiveness of Early-stage Investor Gut Feel in Entrepreneurial Investment Decisions." Administrative Science Quarterly 60, no. 4 (December 2015): 634–670.  View Details
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  16. Article | Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior

    Where Global and Virtual Meet: The Value of Examining the Intersection of These Elements in Twenty-First-Century Teams

    Cristina B. Gibson, Laura Huang, Bradley L. Kirkman and Debra L. Shapiro

    We review prior research that has examined virtuality in teams (e.g., pertaining to the use of electronic media) or the global nature of teams (e.g., national and cultural differences), demonstrating that very few scholars have examined both simultaneously. Given that the global and virtual elements often coincide in the same team, this is a critical gap in research, particularly because these two features may interact in important ways, amplifying or mitigating the effects of each other. After elaborating on potential interactions, we set forth future research directions, which incorporate both global and virtual elements of teams and in doing so, better address the complexity of working in these increasingly common collaborative forms.

    Keywords: global virtual teams; cultural diversity; electronic communication; computer-mediated communication; Groups and Teams; Global Range; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Interactive Communication;

    Citation:

    Gibson, Cristina B., Laura Huang, Bradley L. Kirkman, and Debra L. Shapiro. "Where Global and Virtual Meet: The Value of Examining the Intersection of These Elements in Twenty-First-Century Teams." Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 1 (2014): 217–244.  View Details
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  17. Article | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

    Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men

    Alison Wood Brooks, Laura Huang, Sarah Kearney and Fiona Murray

    Entrepreneurship is a central path to job creation, economic growth, and prosperity. In the earliest stages of start-up business creation, the matching of entrepreneurial ventures to investors is critically important. The entrepreneur's business proposition and previous experience are regarded as the main criteria for investment decisions. Our research, however, documents other critical criteria that investors use to make these decisions: the gender and physical attractiveness of the entrepreneurs themselves. Across a field setting (three entrepreneurial pitch competitions in the United States) and two experiments, we identify a profound and consistent gender gap in entrepreneur persuasiveness. Investors prefer pitches presented by male entrepreneurs compared with pitches made by female entrepreneurs, even when the content of the pitch is the same. This effect is moderated by male physical attractiveness: attractive males were particularly persuasive, whereas physical attractiveness did not matter among female entrepreneurs.

    Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Gender;

    Citation:

    Brooks, Alison Wood, Laura Huang, Sarah Kearney, and Fiona Murray. "Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 12 (March 25, 2014): 4427–4431.  View Details
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  18. Article | Journal of Applied Psychology

    Political Skill: Explaining the Effects of Nonnative Accent on Managerial Hiring and Entrepreneurial Investment Decisions

    Laura Huang, Marcia Frideger and Jone L. Pearce

    We propose and test a new theory explaining glass-ceiling bias against nonnative speakers as driven by perceptions that nonnative speakers have weak political skill. Although nonnative accent is a complex signal, its effects on assessments of the speakers' political skill are something that speakers can actively mitigate; this makes it an important bias to understand. In Study 1, White and Asian nonnative speakers using the same scripted responses as native speakers were found to be significantly less likely to be recommended for a middle-management position, and this bias was fully mediated by assessments of their political skill. The alternative explanations of race, communication skill, and collaborative skill were nonsignificant. In Study 2, entrepreneurial start-up pitches from national high-technology, new-venture funding competitions were shown to experienced executive MBA students. Nonnative speakers were found to have a significantly lower likelihood of receiving new-venture funding, and this was fully mediated by the coders' assessments of their political skill. The entrepreneurs' race, communication skill, and collaborative skill had no effect. We discuss the value of empirically testing various posited reasons for glass-ceiling biases, how the importance and ambiguity of political skill for executive success serve as an ostensibly meritocratic cover for nonnative speaker bias, and other theoretical and practical implications of this work.

    Keywords: Spoken Communication; Prejudice and Bias; Competency and Skills; Selection and Staffing; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Decisions;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura, Marcia Frideger, and Jone L. Pearce. "Political Skill: Explaining the Effects of Nonnative Accent on Managerial Hiring and Entrepreneurial Investment Decisions." Journal of Applied Psychology 98, no. 6 (November 2013): 1005–1017.  View Details
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  19. Article | Academy of Management Learning & Education

    The Decreasing Value of Our Research to Management Education

    Jone L. Pearce and Laura Huang

    For centuries we have expected the best teachers also to be scholars. The practice of scholarship should do more than make scholars more humble teachers; scholarship is expected to be more than an activity done for its own sake. Here we present evidence that our scholarship is increasingly failing us as teachers: The research published in our best scholarly journals has become less actionable over time, and so, less useful to our students. We focused on research that can be used either conceptually or instrumentally as a basis for action, by anyone taking a management course or executive session of any type. We call such research actionable for several reasons. To see if our research has become less useful over time, we selected the two most prestigious management journals that have been published the longest, allowing us to test the changes. We took the most recent complete volume of both journals, and sampled the articles in each of the preceding 10 years through 1960, the first year both were in print using our once-a-decade sampling frame. We collected data to test our suspicion that the scholarly research published in our best management journals has become proportionally less conceptually and instrumentally useful to executives, managers, and others who want to participate in and run organizations more effectively, and so, less useful to us as teachers of management. We found a significant decrease in the proportion of journal articles that generated actionable knowledge from 1960 to 2010. We offered several speculations for the decline in the proportion of actionable research despite the continuing calls for more relevant management research and numerous concrete suggestions intended to foster more useable research over the years. These include the favoring of complex moderator-mediator analyses, and studies demonstrating that abstract economic theories have not been implemented in practice.

    Citation:

    Pearce, Jone L., and Laura Huang. "The Decreasing Value of Our Research to Management Education." Academy of Management Learning & Education 11, no. 2 (June 2012): 247–262.  View Details
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  21. Article | Journal of Public Policy & Marketing

    After All Is Lost: Meeting the Material Needs of Adolescent Disaster Survivors

    Jill G. Klein and Laura Huang

    This research with teenage tsunami survivors finds that adolescents received little support from relief organizations in their desire to replace lost possessions. The authors suggest ways that marketers can help relief organizations identify the material needs of adolescent survivors, as well as the needs of other underserved or vulnerable segments.

    Citation:

    Klein, Jill G., and Laura Huang. "After All Is Lost: Meeting the Material Needs of Adolescent Disaster Survivors." Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 26, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 54–59.  View Details
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Cases and Teaching Materials

  2. Supplement | HBS Case Collection | June 2020

    Career Karma: Growth in a Time of Global Uncertainty (B)

    Laura Huang and Elizabeth Jiang

    This (B) case expands upon the journey of Career Karma’s three founders by presenting a fictionalized Investor Meeting scenario.

    Keywords: Business Ventures; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Plan; Business Startups; Education; Training; Entrepreneurship; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Marketing Strategy; Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Personal Development and Career; Technology Industry; Education Industry; Employment Industry;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura, and Elizabeth Jiang. "Career Karma: Growth in a Time of Global Uncertainty (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 420-125, June 2020.  View Details
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  4. Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2020

    Career Karma: Growth in a Time of Global Uncertainty (A)

    Laura Huang, Elizabeth Jiang and Brandon Yu

    Career Karma is a startup focused on helping individuals looking to transition careers into computer engineering roles or similar fields by preparing them for formal technical training programs, or “coding bootcamps,” that would lead to a successful career pivot upon graduating from the program. The platform also encouraged users to engage with each other in “squad” support groups and paired users with mentors (other users who successfully transitioned careers through Career Karma). This case explores the journey of Career Karma’s three founders and navigating growth through an unexpected recession caused by a global pandemic.

    Keywords: Business Ventures; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Plan; Business Startups; Education; Training; Entrepreneurship; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Marketing Strategy; Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Personal Development and Career; Health Pandemics; Technology Industry; Education Industry; Employment Industry;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura, Elizabeth Jiang, and Brandon Yu. "Career Karma: Growth in a Time of Global Uncertainty (A)." Harvard Business School Case 420-121, June 2020.  View Details
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  6. Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2020 (Revised August 2020)

    CredEx Fintech: Business Model Transformation During the Digital Era

    Laura Huang, Raphael Amit and Xu Han

    Founded in 2010, CredEx has been a fast and constant innovator in the microfinance industry in China. Tang Xia, CEO and co-founder of CredEx, has led the company through a number of profound business model innovations in response to external environment changes, which transformed the company from an offline, operation heavy micro lending company to an online, data driven FinTech company. This case describes CredEx’s business model transformation process since its founding and explores the drivers and challenges in different stages of business model innovation and transformation. Ultimately, the case highlights the key capabilities needed to digitize a traditional finance business as well as the organizational changes needed to enable the digitization.

    Keywords: digitization; fintech; Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Transformation; Microfinance; Organizational Change and Adaptation;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura, Raphael Amit, and Xu Han. "CredEx Fintech: Business Model Transformation During the Digital Era." Harvard Business School Case 420-080, April 2020. (Revised August 2020.)  View Details
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  7. Case | HBS Case Collection | December 2019

    Gary Vaynerchuk: #GaryVee

    Laura Huang and Sarah Mehta

    Fresh out of a public social media debacle, Gary Vaynerchuk needs to reconsider the approach he takes in leading his digital media agency, VaynerMedia. Founded in 2009 by Gary and his brother AJ, VaynerMedia has grown into an unconventional creative marketing agency. With notable clients and a savvy and personable approach to maintaining attention arbitrage, the future looks bright with Gary at the helm of VaynerMedia. Or does it? This case explores Vaynerchuk’s strengths and weaknesses, VaynerMedia’s successes and challenges, and the overall command of the marketing firm as it continues to grow and evolve in an ever-changing digital media landscape. Ultimately, the case highlights a tension many ventures face as they mature from initial founding to growth sustainability: should the visionary CEO continue leading the charge forward, or should he consider stepping aside and allowing his firm to lead its own way forward?

    Keywords: social media; Entrepreneurship; Leadership Style; Personal Characteristics; Business Growth and Maturation; Marketing;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura, and Sarah Mehta. "Gary Vaynerchuk: #GaryVee." Harvard Business School Case 420-083, December 2019.  View Details
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  10. Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | September 2019

    Boxed

    Laura Huang and Andy Wu

    Boxed.com (“Boxed”) is an ambitious e-commerce retailer start-up, founded by visionary CEO Chieh Huang in 2013. From starting in Huang’s garage in 2013, to winning Emerging E-Retailer of the Year in 2016, to having 4 operational distribution centers in 2018, Boxed used a variety of strategies in order to gain customers and grow its presence. This case explores the journey that the scrappy, new entrant navigated as it competed against large, goliath players in an already established retail and e-commerce industry.

    Keywords: e-commerce; entrepreneurial management; Business Startups; Leadership; Strategy; Success; Retail Industry;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura, and Andy Wu. "Boxed." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 720-399, September 2019.  View Details
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  11. Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | July 2019

    Arlan Hamilton and Backstage Capital

    Laura Huang

    Teaching Note for HBS No. 419-029. Frustrated by an inability to convince existing venture capital firms to invest in companies led by women, people of color, and LGBT founders, Arlan Hamilton started her own firm, Backstage Capital, in 2015. Hamilton understood the untapped potential of companies run by underrepresented founders, a group historically excluded from venture capital funding, and was eager to demonstrate the significant returns on investment in such companies. This case explores Hamilton’s nontraditional VC background and her mission to fund startups where at least one founder of the company identifies as a woman, person of color, or LGBT. Now, three years after its founding, Hamilton is considering launching both an accelerator and a fund that will invest exclusively in Black women.

    Keywords: black leadership; LGBTQ; people of color; Entrepreneurship; Mission and Purpose; Venture Capital; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Identity; Personal Characteristics; Prejudice and Bias; Social Issues; Diversity; Gender; Race;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura. "Arlan Hamilton and Backstage Capital." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 420-010, July 2019.  View Details
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  12. Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2019

    Boxed

    Laura Huang, Andy Wu and Jiayi Bao

    Boxed.com (“Boxed”) is an ambitious e-commerce retailer start-up, founded by visionary CEO Chieh Huang in 2013. From starting in Huang’s garage in 2013, to winning Emerging E-Retailer of the Year in 2016, to having 4 operational distribution centers in 2018, Boxed used a variety of strategies in order to gain customers and grow its presence. This case explores the journey that the scrappy, new entrant navigated as it competed against large, goliath players in an already established retail and e-commerce industry.

    Keywords: e-commerce; entrepreneurial management; Business Startups; Leadership; Strategy; Success; Retail Industry;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura, Andy Wu, and Jiayi Bao. "Boxed." Harvard Business School Case 719-496, April 2019.  View Details
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  13. Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2018 (Revised October 2019)

    Arlan Hamilton and Backstage Capital

    Laura Huang and Sarah Mehta

    Frustrated by an inability to convince existing venture capital firms to invest in companies led by women, people of color, and LGBT founders, Arlan Hamilton started her own firm, Backstage Capital, in 2015. Hamilton understood the untapped potential of companies run by underrepresented founders, a group historically excluded from venture capital funding, and was eager to demonstrate the significant returns on investment in such companies. This case explores Hamilton’s nontraditional VC background and her mission to fund startups where at least one founder of the company identifies as a woman, person of color, or LGBT. Now, three years after its founding, Hamilton is considering launching both an accelerator and a fund that will invest exclusively in Black women.

    Keywords: black leadership; LGBTQ; women; people of color; Entrepreneurship; Mission and Purpose; Venture Capital; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Identity; Personal Characteristics; Prejudice and Bias; Social Issues; Diversity; Gender; Race;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura, and Sarah Mehta. "Arlan Hamilton and Backstage Capital." Harvard Business School Case 419-029, October 2018. (Revised October 2019.)  View Details
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  15. Case | HBS Case Collection | May 2017 (Revised November 2017)

    Cotopaxi: Managing Growth for Good

    Andy Wu and Laura Huang

    Cotopaxi, an innovative outdoor gear business targeting millennials, focuses on profit and social impact. This registered benefit corporation was formed by Davis Smith who coalesced his experiences as a Wharton MBA student along with professional knowledge from an unpaid internship in Peru and his previous e-commerce startups in the U.S. and Brazil. Cotopaxi’s social cause is fighting global poverty; their target is to donate 10% of their profits, but as a new capital-intensive business they give 2% of their revenue. Their income streams are mainly direct-to-consumer sales along with corporate sales and a special experience-based event—Questival. Their direct-to-consumer model lowers costs compared to competitors and allows Cotopaxi to offer lower prices, but they face a challenge in positioning their products as high quality.

    Keywords: entrepreneurship; social venture; benefit corporation; B-Corp; retail; consumer products; Apparel; social impact; Social Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Product Positioning; Social Enterprise; Mission and Purpose; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry;

    Citation:

    Wu, Andy, and Laura Huang. "Cotopaxi: Managing Growth for Good." Harvard Business School Case 717-488, May 2017. (Revised November 2017.)  View Details
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Other Publications and Materials

  1. Report | 2017

    The American Angel: The First In-Depth Report on the Demographics and Investing Activity of Individual American Angel Investors

    Laura Huang, Andy Wu, Min Ju Lee, Jiayi Bao, Marianne Hudson and Elaine Bolle

    Early-stage financing from angel investors is critical to the success of high-growth startups. Recent estimates suggest that annual US angel investment activity may total as much as $24 billion each year, contributing to the growth and success of more than 64,000 startups, though the exact amount cannot be measured precisely. Indeed, many details about American angel investors has long eluded public knowledge. Put simply, there is a lack of knowledge on the profile and investment activities of US angel investors. The American Angel campaign was launched with the goal of shedding light on these questions by conducting the largest survey of business angels in the United States and putting faces on the modern American Angel.
    This report, commissioned by the Angel Capital Association and the John Huston Fund for Angel Professionalism (raised by Rev1 Ventures), presents the results of the largest ever study of the profile, background, and investment behavior of angels in the US to date. The study comprises responses from 1,659 individual angels from throughout the country who responded to The American Angel survey.

    Keywords: angel investors; Geography; risk; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Demographics; Geographic Location; Decision Making; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; United States;

    Citation:

    Huang, Laura, Andy Wu, Min Ju Lee, Jiayi Bao, Marianne Hudson, and Elaine Bolle. "The American Angel: The First In-Depth Report on the Demographics and Investing Activity of Individual American Angel Investors." Report, Overland Park, KS, November 2017.  View Details
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  3. Article | Harvard Business Review (website)

    Male and Female Entrepreneurs Get Asked Different Questions by VCs —and It Affects How Much Funding They Get

    Dana Kanze, Laura Huang, Mark Conley and E. Tory Higgins

    Citation:

    Kanze, Dana, Laura Huang, Mark Conley, and E. Tory Higgins. "Male and Female Entrepreneurs Get Asked Different Questions by VCs —and It Affects How Much Funding They Get." Harvard Business Review (website) (June 27, 2017).  View Details
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  6. Article | New Space

    An Analysis of the Competitive Advantage of the United States of America in Commercial Human Orbital Spaceflight Markets

    Greg Autry, Laura Huang and Jeff Foust

    The “Public/Private Human Access to Space” / Human Orbital Markets (HOM) study group of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) has established a framework for the identification and analysis of relevant factors and structures that support a global human orbital spaceflight market. The HOM study group has called for analysis at the national level to be incorporated in their global study.
    This report, commissioned by the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transport, provides a review of demonstrated and potential Human Orbital Markets and an analysis of the U.S. industrial supply chain supporting commercial human orbital spaceflight.
    We utilize a multi‐method, holistic approach incorporating primarily qualitative methodologies that also incorporates relevant statistical data. Our methodology parallels the National Competitive Advantage diamond model pioneered by economist Michael Porter.
    The study reveals that while the U.S. currently possesses significant competitive advantage in commercial human orbital spaceflight, there are several areas of note that present a challenge to the sustainability of this advantage.

    Keywords: Air Transportation; Infrastructure; Emerging Markets; Analysis; Competitive Advantage; Aerospace Industry; United States;

    Citation:

    Autry, Greg, Laura Huang, and Jeff Foust. "An Analysis of the Competitive Advantage of the United States of America in Commercial Human Orbital Spaceflight Markets." New Space 2, no. 2 (2014): 83–110.  View Details
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