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Human Behavior & Decision-Making

Human Behavior & Decision-Making

    • 2014
    • Book

    The Power of Noticing: What the Best Leaders See

    By: Max Bazerman

    This book will examine the common failure to notice critical information due to bounded awareness. The book will document a decade of research showing that even successful people fail to notice the absence of critical and readily available information in their environment due to the human tendency to focus on a limited set of information. This work is still in its formative stages, and I welcome comments about how bounded awareness affects you and your organization and how you have created solutions to such problems.

    • 2014
    • Book

    The Power of Noticing: What the Best Leaders See

    By: Max Bazerman

    This book will examine the common failure to notice critical information due to bounded awareness. The book will document a decade of research showing that even successful people fail to notice the absence of critical and readily available information in their environment due to the human tendency to focus on a limited set of information. This...

    • 2014
    • Article

    Time, Money, and Morality

    By: F. Gino and C. Mogilner

    Money, a resource that absorbs much daily attention, seems to be present in much unethical behavior thereby suggesting that money itself may corrupt. This research examines a way to offset such potentially deleterious effects—by focusing on time, a resource that tends to receive less attention than money but is equally ubiquitous in our daily lives. Across four experiments, we examine whether shifting focus onto time can salvage individuals' ethicality. We found that implicitly activating the construct of time, rather than money, leads individuals to behave more ethically by cheating less. We further found that priming time reduces cheating by making people reflect on who they are. Implications for the use of time versus money primes in discouraging or promoting dishonesty are discussed.

    • 2014
    • Article

    Time, Money, and Morality

    By: F. Gino and C. Mogilner

    Money, a resource that absorbs much daily attention, seems to be present in much unethical behavior thereby suggesting that money itself may corrupt. This research examines a way to offset such potentially deleterious effects—by focusing on time, a resource that tends to receive less attention than money but is equally ubiquitous in our daily...

    • Article

    The (Perceived) Meaning of Spontaneous Thoughts

    By: Carey K. Morewedge, Colleen Giblin and Michael I. Norton

    Spontaneous thoughts, the output of a broad category of uncontrolled and inaccessible higher-order mental processes, arise frequently in everyday life. The seeming randomness by which spontaneous thoughts arise might give people good reason to dismiss them as meaningless. We suggest that it is precisely the lack of control over and access to the processes by which they arise that leads people to perceive spontaneous thoughts to reveal meaningful self-insight. Consequently, spontaneous thoughts potently influence judgment. A series of experiments provides evidence supporting two hypotheses. First, we hypothesize that the more a thought is perceived to be spontaneous, the more it is perceived to provide meaningful self-insight. Participants perceived more spontaneous kinds of thought to reveal greater self-insight than more controlled kinds of thought in Study 1 (e.g., intuition versus deliberation), and perceived thoughts with the same content and target to reveal greater self-insight when spontaneously than deliberately generated in Studies 2 and 3 (i.e., childhood memories and impressions formed, respectively). Second, we hypothesize that greater self-insight attributed to thoughts that are (perceived to be) spontaneous leads those thoughts to more potently influence judgment. Participants felt more sexually attracted to an attractive person whom they thought of spontaneously than deliberately in Study 4, and reported their commitment to a current romantic relationship would be more affected by the spontaneous than deliberate recollection of a good or bad experience with their partner in Study 5. Much human thought arises unbidden, spontaneously intruding upon consciousness. The thought and name of a former lover might come to mind during dinner with one's spouse. Or worse, it may be blurted out during an intimate moment. Because no trace of the past lover is present, the thought lacks an apparent cause. In the latter case it almost certainly occurs without intent, given its potential consequences. The seeming randomness of such thoughts might provide reason to dismiss them as the wanderings of a restless mind. We propose that it is precisely the lack of control over and access to the process by which spontaneous thoughts come to mind that leads them to be perceived to reveal special self-insight. Drawing on previous theory and research, we propose that the greater self-insight they are attributed leads spontaneous thoughts to exert a greater impact on attitudes and behavior than similar deliberate thoughts. Compare a wife's thought of a former lover while perusing her yearbook to that same thought during an intimate moment with her husband. In the former case, the reason for the production of that thought is clear ("I thought of him because I looked at his picture while reminiscing about the past"). In the latter case, she lacks both control over the thought and access to its origin. We suggest that its apparent spontaneity should lead her to attribute it special meaning ("Why would I think of him in this moment unless it is important?"), and it should consequently exert a greater influence on her judgment ("I must still have feelings for him"). In this paper, we report a series of five studies examining how the perceived spontaneity of thought influences the extent to which it is believed to yield meaningful self-insight and influences judgment.

    • Article

    The (Perceived) Meaning of Spontaneous Thoughts

    By: Carey K. Morewedge, Colleen Giblin and Michael I. Norton

    Spontaneous thoughts, the output of a broad category of uncontrolled and inaccessible higher-order mental processes, arise frequently in everyday life. The seeming randomness by which spontaneous thoughts arise might give people good reason to dismiss them as meaningless. We suggest that it is precisely the lack of control over and access to the...

    • Article

    Past, Present and Future Research on Multiple Identities: Toward an Intrapersonal Network Approach

    By: Lakshmi Ramarajan

    Psychologists, sociologists, and philosophers have long recognized that people have multiple identities—based on attributes such as organizational membership, profession, gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and family role(s) and that these multiple identities shape people's actions in organizations. The current organizational literature on multiple identities, however, is sparse and scattered and has yet to fully capture this foundational idea. I review and organize the literature on multiple identities into five different theoretical perspectives: social psychological; microsociological; psychodynamic and developmental; critical; and intersectional. I then propose a way to take research on multiple identities forward using an intrapersonal identity network approach. Moving to an identity network approach offers two advantages: first, it enables scholars to consider more than two identities simultaneously, and second, it helps scholars examine relationships among identities in greater detail. This is important because preliminary evidence suggests that multiple identities shape important outcomes in organizations, such as individual stress and well-being, intergroup conflict, performance, and change. By providing a way to investigate patterns of relationships among multiple identities, the identity network approach can help scholars deepen their understanding of the consequences of multiple identities in organizations and spark novel research questions in the organizational literature.

    • Article

    Past, Present and Future Research on Multiple Identities: Toward an Intrapersonal Network Approach

    By: Lakshmi Ramarajan

    Psychologists, sociologists, and philosophers have long recognized that people have multiple identities—based on attributes such as organizational membership, profession, gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and family role(s) and that these multiple identities shape people's actions in organizations. The current organizational literature on...

    • March 2014
    • Article

    Cheating More for Less: Upward Social Comparisons Motivate the Poorly Compensated to Cheat

    By: Leslie K. John, George Loewenstein and Scott Rick

    Intuitively, people should cheat more when cheating is more lucrative, but we find that the effect of performance-based pay rates on dishonesty depends on how readily people can compare their pay rate to that of others. In Experiment 1, participants were paid 5 cents or 25 cents per self-reported point in a trivia task, and half were aware that they could have received the alternative pay rate. Lower pay rates increased cheating when the prospect of a higher pay rate was salient. Experiment 2 illustrates that this effect is driven by the ease with which poorly compensated participants can compare their pay to that of others who earn a higher pay rate. Our results suggest that low pay rates are, in and of themselves, unlikely to promote dishonesty. Instead, it is the salience of upward social comparisons that encourages the poorly compensated to cheat.

    • March 2014
    • Article

    Cheating More for Less: Upward Social Comparisons Motivate the Poorly Compensated to Cheat

    By: Leslie K. John, George Loewenstein and Scott Rick

    Intuitively, people should cheat more when cheating is more lucrative, but we find that the effect of performance-based pay rates on dishonesty depends on how readily people can compare their pay rate to that of others. In Experiment 1, participants were paid 5 cents or 25 cents per self-reported point in a trivia task, and half were aware that...

    • 2014
    • Article

    Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men

    By: 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.

    • 2014
    • Article

    Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men

    By: 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...

    • 2014
    • Chapter

    Appetite, Consumption, and Choice in the Human Brain

    By: Brian Knutson and Uma R. Karmarkar

    Although linked, researchers have long distinguished appetitive from consummatory phases of reward processing. Recent improvements in the spatial and temporal resolution of neuroimaging techniques have allowed researchers to separately visualize different stages of reward processing in humans. These techniques have revealed that evolutionarily conserved circuits related to affect generate distinguishable appetitive and consummatory signals, and that these signals can be used to predict choice and subsequent consumption. Review of the literature surprisingly suggests that appetitive rather than consummatory activity may best predict future choice and consumption. These findings imply that distinguishing appetite from consumption may improve predictions of future choice and illuminate neural components that support the process of decision making.

    • 2014
    • Chapter

    Appetite, Consumption, and Choice in the Human Brain

    By: Brian Knutson and Uma R. Karmarkar

    Although linked, researchers have long distinguished appetitive from consummatory phases of reward processing. Recent improvements in the spatial and temporal resolution of neuroimaging techniques have allowed researchers to separately visualize different stages of reward processing in humans. These techniques have revealed that evolutionarily...

Ever since their origins about three decades ago, the Behavioral Science areas of economics, ethics and managerial psychology have been rapidly evolving. In the 1980's and 1990's, early work by Max Bazerman in judgment and negotiation, Matthew Rabin in behavioral economics, and James Sebenius in negotiations was instrumental in shaping research on Human Behavior & Decision-Making. Today, our research focuses on individual and interactive judgment and decision making and explores the role of personal bias, cognition and learning, time, perception, ethics and morality, and emotion.

Recent Publications

Should Your Start-up Be For-profit or Nonprofit?: A Guide for Social Entrepreneurs

By: Cait Brumme and Brian Trelstad
  • May–June 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Harvard Business Review
Years ago the line between nonprofit and for-profit enterprises was clear, but that has changed. Nonprofits now offer products that compete with those of the best for-profits, and for-profits can deliver as much social value as charities. Despite the blurred distinction, all mission-driven start-ups will eventually face a stark choice about which legal structure to adopt, and they need to make it carefully, because it’s hard to undo, say the authors, the CEO of a nonprofit accelerator and a partner in an impact investing fund.

To guide their decision, social entrepreneurs should examine several questions: Is the market ready for a for-profit solution? Where is the available capital? And which structure would help the organization attract the talent and resources that it requires?
Keywords: Business Startups; Social Entrepreneurship; Mission and Purpose; Nonprofit Organizations; For-Profit Firms; Decision Choices and Conditions
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Brumme, Cait, and Brian Trelstad. "Should Your Start-up Be For-profit or Nonprofit? A Guide for Social Entrepreneurs." Harvard Business Review 101, no. 3 (May–June 2023): 136–145.

Analytics for Marketers: When to Rely on Algorithms and When to Trust Your Gut

By: Fabrizio Fantini and Das Narayandas
  • May–June 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Harvard Business Review
Advanced analytics can help companies solve a host of management problems, including those related to marketing, sales, and supply-chain operations, which can lead to a sustainable competitive advantage. But as more data becomes available and advanced analytics are further refined, managers may struggle with when, where, and how much to incorporate machines into their business analytics, and to what extent they should bring their own judgment to bear when making data-driven decisions.

In general, humans are better at decisions involving intuition and ambiguity resolution. Machines are far superior at decisions requiring deduction, granularity, and scalability. How can you find the right balance?

There are three common approaches to analytics: descriptive, where decisions are made mainly by humans; predictive, which combines aspects of the other two; and prescriptive, which usually means autonomous management by machines. This article describes when and how to use each approach and examines the trade-offs and limitations. Although the focus is on marketing and sales, the principles may be applied more broadly.
Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Decision Making
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Fantini, Fabrizio, and Das Narayandas. "Analytics for Marketers: When to Rely on Algorithms and When to Trust Your Gut." Harvard Business Review 101, no. 3 (May–June 2023): 82–91.

The Politics of Philanthropy in China

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yuhai Wu
  • 2023 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
This working paper looks historically at business philanthropy in China. In the West, the literature has distinguished between entrepreneurial and customary philanthropy, while the phenomenon of spiritual philanthropy has been identified in many emerging markets. This working paper argues that these models do not fit the case of China, where philanthropy has always been primarily political, designed to access and protect from the political power of the government. This political philanthropy has taken an enhanced form since 2016 as the Chinese government, using the political discourse of "corporate social responsibility," has sought to guide state-owned capital and private capital into the field of philanthropy, and align the agenda of philanthropy with the policy of the central government. This is an endeavor to reshape the ethical system of Chinese society though combining the universal moral concepts of "goodness" and "mutual assistance" with the CCP’s socialist ideology. The government is also effectively creating a new economic sector – as it had done previously with green industries – which can provide social services and support, especially to underserved demographic sectors.
Keywords: China; Philanthropy; Ethics; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Moral Sensibility; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Economic Systems; Economic Sectors; China
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Jones, Geoffrey, and Yuhai Wu. "The Politics of Philanthropy in China." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 23-067, May 2023.

Setting Gendered Expectations? Recruiter Outreach Bias in Online Tech Training Programs

By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Karim R. Lakhani and Roberto Fernandez
  • 2023 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
Competence development in digital technologies, analytics, and artificial intelligence is increasingly important to all types of organizations and their workforce. Universities and corporations are investing heavily in developing training programs, at all tenure levels, to meet the new skills needs. However, there is a risk that the new set of lucrative opportunities for employees in these tech-heavy fields will be biased against diverse demographic groups like women. Although much research has examined the experiences of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and occupations, less understood is the extent to which gender stereotypes influence recruiters’ perceptions and evaluations of individuals who are deciding whether to apply to STEM training programs. These behaviors are typically unobserved because they occur prior to the application interface. We address this question by investigating recruiters’ initial outreach decisions to over 166,000 prospective students who have expressed interest in applying to a mid-career level online tech training program in business analytics. Using data on the recruiters’ communications, our results indicate that recruiters are less likely to initiate contact with female than male prospects and search for additional signals of quality from female prospects before contacting them. We also find evidence that recruiters are more likely to base initial outreach activities on prospect gender when they have higher workloads and limited attention. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this research for our understanding of how screening and selection decisions prior to the application interface may undermine organizational efforts to achieve gender equality and diversity as well as the potential for demand-side interventions to mitigate these gender disparities.
Keywords: STEM; Selection and Staffing; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Training; Equality and Inequality; Competency and Skills
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Lane, Jacqueline N., Karim R. Lakhani, and Roberto Fernandez. "Setting Gendered Expectations? Recruiter Outreach Bias in Online Tech Training Programs." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 23-066, April 2023. (Accepted by Organization Science.)

IBM’s Ginni Rometty: Leading with Good Power

By: Hubert Joly, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Stacy Straaberg
  • May 2023 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
In March 2023, Virginia (Ginni) Rometty published Good Power: Leading Positive Change in our Lives, Work, and World, which covered her personal history and career at International Business Machines (IBM). Rometty was IBM’s ninth and first woman CEO from 2012–2020. Her tenure followed John Akers, Louis Gerstner, Jr., and Samuel Palmisano, CEOs who helmed IBM through the PC revolution, IBM’s brush with insolvency, the company’s rebound, and its early attempts at commercializing AI technology as well as its late entry into cloud computing. Prior to joining IBM, Rometty’s upbringing taught her the value of hard work, education, and serving others. Once at IBM, Rometty advanced through the ranks, notably negotiating the acquisition of PricewaterhouseCooper’s consulting unit and integrating its people into IBM. As CEO, Rometty developed a leadership philosophy of good power, based on wielding authority for the benefit of others. She also defined IBM’s purpose as Being essential to clients and society. Strategically, Rometty rebalanced IBM’s product portfolio to align with changes in the tech ecosystem such as the rise of cloud computing and AI. Rometty also committed to hiring and upskilling workers to achieve IBM’s goals including using a SkillsFirst approach that prioritized job proficiencies over credentials. Outside of IBM, Rometty signaled her commitment to the entire ecosystem of stakeholders by signing the Business Roundtable’s 2019 revision of the Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, and she co-founded OneTen, which sought to employ and promote 1 million Black Americans without four-year degrees into living-wage jobs. From 2012–2020, IBM’s revenue declined every year but one and share price trailed other large tech firms. However, in 2022, IBM’s share price bested other large tech companies. What factors contributed to IBM’s underperformance during Rometty’s tenure and the company’s improved performance in 2022—predecessor impact, good power tactics, market factors, or her initiatives?
Keywords: Transformation; Acquisition; Trends; Gender; Diversity; Education; Training; Values and Beliefs; Profit; Revenue; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Business or Company Management; Negotiation; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Family and Family Relationships; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Personal Characteristics; Perspective; Social Issues; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Competition; Corporate Strategy; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Health Industry; Information Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Service Industry; Technology Industry; New York (city, NY); United States
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Joly, Hubert, Leonard A. Schlesinger, and Stacy Straaberg. "IBM’s Ginni Rometty: Leading with Good Power." Harvard Business School Case 323-114, May 2023.

Developing Moral Muscle in a Literature-based Business Ethics Course

By: Inge M. Brokerhof, Sandra J. Sucher, P. Matthijs Bal, Frank Hakemulder, Paul G. W. Jansen and Omar N. Solinger
  • March 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Academy of Management Learning & Education
Moral subjectivity (e.g., reflexivity, perspective-taking) is a necessary condition for moral development. However, widely used approaches to business ethics education, rooted in conceptualizations of ethical development as objective and quantifiable, often neglect students’ subjective involvement in moral matters. In this case study, we investigated subjective aspects of moral development of MBA students in a business ethics course using an alternative pedagogy based on world literature as course material. The findings elucidated that the use of literary narratives stimulated the development of “moral muscle,” a dynamic moral capability that needs to be developed through regular reflection and practice. Additionally, the development of moral muscle during the course showed heterogeneity among students with different starting positions, learning routes, and end states of their moral development. The findings contribute to a new theoretical understanding of moral development as a dynamic process—as moral muscle—with different individual change trajectories, and shed new light on how the use of literary narratives in business ethics education can stimulate this development.
Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Business Education; Growth and Development; Teaching
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Brokerhof, Inge M., Sandra J. Sucher, P. Matthijs Bal, Frank Hakemulder, Paul G. W. Jansen, and Omar N. Solinger. "Developing Moral Muscle in a Literature-based Business Ethics Course." Academy of Management Learning & Education 22, no. 1 (March 2023): 63–87.

Political Ideology and International Capital Allocation

By: Elisabeth Kempf, Mancy Luo, Larissa Schäfer and Margarita Tsoutsoura
  • May 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Journal of Financial Economics
Does investors' political ideology shape international capital allocation? We provide evidence from two settings—syndicated corporate loans and equity mutual funds—to show ideological alignment with foreign governments affects the cross-border capital allocation by U.S. institutional investors. Ideological alignment on both economic and social issues plays a role. Our empirical strategy ensures direct economic effects of foreign elections or government ties between countries are not driving the result. Ideological distance between countries also explains variation in bilateral investment. Combined, our findings imply ideological alignment is an important, omitted factor in models of international capital allocation.
Keywords: Capital Flows; Syndicated Loans; Mutual Funds; Partisanship; Polarization; Elections; Political Ideology; Banks and Banking; Institutional Investing; Behavioral Finance; Decision Choices and Conditions
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Kempf, Elisabeth, Mancy Luo, Larissa Schäfer, and Margarita Tsoutsoura. "Political Ideology and International Capital Allocation." Journal of Financial Economics 148, no. 2 (May 2023): 150–173.

How Do Campaigns Shape Vote Choice? Multi-Country Evidence from 62 Elections and 56 TV Debates

By: Caroline Le Pennec and Vincent Pons
  • May 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Quarterly Journal of Economics
We use two-round survey data from 62 elections in 10 countries since 1952 to study the formation of vote choice, beliefs, and policy preferences and assess how televised debates contribute to this process. Our data include 253,000 observations. We compare the consistency between vote intention and vote choice of respondents surveyed at different points before, and then again after, the election, and show that 17% to 29% of voters make up their mind during the final two months of campaigns. Changes in vote choice are concomitant to shifts in issues voters find most important and in beliefs about candidates, and they generate sizable swings in vote shares. In contrast, policy preferences remain remarkably stable throughout the campaign. Finally, we use an event study to estimate the impact of TV debates, in which candidates themselves communicate with voters, and of shocks such as natural and technological disasters which, by contrast, occur independently from the campaign. We do not find any effect of either type of event on vote choice formation, suggesting that information received throughout the campaign from other sources such as the media, political activists, and other citizens is more impactful.
Keywords: Political Debates; TV Debates; Voting; Political Elections; Decision Choices and Conditions
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Le Pennec, Caroline, and Vincent Pons. "How Do Campaigns Shape Vote Choice? Multi-Country Evidence from 62 Elections and 56 TV Debates." Quarterly Journal of Economics 138 (May 2023): 703–767.

When Scenario Planning Fails

By: Kalle Heikkinen, William R. Kerr, Mika Malin, Panu Routila and Eemil Rupponen
  • April 21, 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Harvard Business Review Digital Articles
How can organizations perform scenario planning when they are hit by shocks outside of leaders’ field of vision? Interviews with Nordic executives, who experienced both the Covid-19 pandemic and were in close proximity to Russia as the country invaded Ukraine, can provide clues. Instead of abandoning the typical “base case / best case / worst case” planning, they adapted their planning to encompass four main strategies other companies can try: stretching the types of scenarios under consideration, using vulnerabilities as a prism, building strong action guidelines and internal communication, and building crisis management into the organizational structure.
Keywords: Planning; Crisis Management; Organizational Structure; Forecasting and Prediction; System Shocks; Organizational Change and Adaptation
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Heikkinen, Kalle, William R. Kerr, Mika Malin, Panu Routila, and Eemil Rupponen. "When Scenario Planning Fails." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (April 21, 2023).

Twitter: The Freedom to Speak Freely and Be Heard

By: Randolph B. Cohen, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Mel Martin
  • April 2023 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
In April 2022, serial entrepreneur Elon Musk announced that he would be interested in purchasing the social media site Twitter for $44 billion. With more than 100 million twitter followers, Musk had historically leveraged the site to engage with the customers of his many businesses such as Tesla and Space X. He also openly shared his beliefs on business, culture, and politics worldwide. In previous years, Musk had commented thought that Twitter’s content moderation was too strict and criticized the company’s leadership for banning users such as former President Donald Trump and censoring unverified information regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. He also thought the company could be more profitable if it made different business decisions such as offering subscription to users wanting more access and influence on the platform. When Musk announced his interest in Twitter, a debate about all such issues the platform erupted. Twitter users argued the ethics of a privately-owned public square, the merits of Elon Musk’s claims about the platforms content moderation, and the potential impact such a sale could have on public discourse. After the deal closed, Musk made it clear that he would make dramatic changes to the platform.
Keywords: Values and Beliefs; Technology Industry; Communications Industry; Public Relations Industry; United States
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Cohen, Randolph B., Carin-Isabel Knoop, and Mel Martin. "Twitter: The Freedom to Speak Freely and Be Heard." Harvard Business School Case 223-026, April 2023.
More Publications

Faculty

Max H. Bazerman
Teresa M. Amabile
Lynn S. Paine
Francesca Gino
Rosabeth M. Kanter
Boris Groysberg
Michael I. Norton
Robin J. Ely
Joshua D. Margolis
Kathleen L. McGinn
V. Kasturi Rangan
Linda A. Hill
→See All

HBS Working Knowlege

    • 23 May 2023

    Face Value: Do Certain Physical Features Help People Get Ahead?

    Re: Shunyuan Zhang
    • 28 Feb 2023

    Can Apprenticeships Work in the US? Employers Seeking New Talent Pipelines Take Note

    Re: Joseph B. Fuller
    • 19 Jan 2023

    What Makes Employees Trust (vs. Second-Guess) AI?

    by Rachel Layne
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Harvard Business Publishing

    • September–October 2022
    • Article

    The Essential Link Between ESG Targets and Financial Performance

    By: Mark R. Kramer and Marc W. Pfitzer
    • March 2023 (Revised April 2023)
    • Case

    Independent Governance of Meta’s Social Spaces: The Oversight Board

    By: Jesse M. Shapiro, Natalia Rigol, Benjamin N. Roth and William R. Kerr
    • 2021
    • Book

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

    By: Colleen Ammerman and Boris Groysberg
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