Recent Publications

• RECENT PUBLICATION: Article

  Article | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | August 28, 2018

  How Intermittent Breaks in Interaction Improve Collective Intelligence

  Ethan Bernstein, Jesse Shore and David Lazer

  People influence each other when they interact to solve problems. Such social influence introduces both benefits (higher average solution quality due to exploitation of existing answers through social learning) and costs (lower maximum solution quality due to a reduction in individual exploration for novel answers) relative to independent problem solving. In contrast to prior work, which has focused on how the presence and network structure of social influence affect performance, here we investigate the effects of time. We show that when social influence is intermittent it provides the benefits of constant social influence without the costs. Human subjects solved the canonical traveling salesperson problem in groups of three, randomized into treatments with constant social influence, intermittent social influence, or no social influence. Groups in the intermittent social-influence treatment found the optimum solution frequently (like groups without influence) but had a high mean performance (like groups with constant influence); they learned from each other, while maintaining a high level of exploration. Solutions improved most on rounds with social influence after a period of separation. We also show that storing subjects’ best solutions so that they could be reloaded and possibly modified in subsequent rounds—a ubiquitous feature of personal productivity software—is similar to constant social influence: it increases mean performance but decreases exploration.

  Keywords: transparency; social influence; Collective Intelligence; Interaction; problem solving; collaboration; intermittant; Breaks; always on; communication technologies; communication; Communication; Design; Information; Management; Leadership; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Performance; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information Technology;

  Citation:

  Bernstein, Ethan, Jesse Shore, and David Lazer. "How Intermittent Breaks in Interaction Improve Collective Intelligence." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 115, no. 35 (August 28, 2018).  View Details

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• RECENT PUBLICATION: Article

  Article | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | August 21, 2018

  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 of the United States of America 115, no. 34 (August 21, 2018).  View Details

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• RECENT PUBLICATION: Case

  Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2018

  Christine Lagarde

  Julie Battilana, Carin-Isabel Knoop, Vanessa Ampelas and Noemie Assenat

  For a modular presentation of the same material, please see “Christine Lagarde (A): A French Prime Minister Calls” (HBS No. 419-017), “Christine Lagarde (B): Being a Public Servant” (HBS No. 419-018), and “Christine Lagarde (C): Managing the IMF” (HBS No. 419-019). These full-length cases describe various stages of Christine Lagarde's career. They are stand-alone cases that can also be used over several classes. The entire series, including its video products, was designed to be modular. The case covers the youth and career trajectory of Christine Lagarde across her time at Baker & McKenzie, as a minister in the government of France, and as the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The case highlights the challenges and opportunities she faced during each phase of her career and how she managed them. Lagarde started her career in 1981 as a lawyer at the global law firm Baker & McKenzie, which employed approximately 2,500 lawyers across 35 countries by 1999, when she became the firm's first non-American and female chairman. In 2005, she became France's Minister for Foreign Trade in President Jacques Chirac's administration and was the EU's de facto finance minister when the financial crisis was most acute. In 2011, she was selected to head the IMF. Since 2011, Lagarde worked to build the foundation for the IMF's adaptation to the realities of the 21st century. By 2017, shortly after Lagarde began her second term as the managing director of the IMF, the world faced both opportunities and challenges as a result of the rapidly evolving, hyper-connected global economy, including deeper cross-border integration, the rise of emerging economies, technological change, and growing wealth and income inequality within countries. These interrelated dynamics were playing out alongside heightened anxiety within the populations of some major advanced economies about what these changes meant for them. The concerns manifested themselves in an inward focus, rumblings of protectionism, and questions about the worth of international cooperation and the multilateral system itself. Lagarde believed that the challenges facing the world economy warranted not less but more global cooperation. In this context, she had to determine how the IMF—as the leading advocate of global economic cooperation since its creation—could better demonstrate its effectiveness. She knew that it was a critical moment.

  Keywords: power and influence; leadership; gender; Change; Personal Development and Career; Power and Influence; Leadership; Gender; Leading Change;

  Citation:

  Battilana, Julie, Carin-Isabel Knoop, Vanessa Ampelas, and Noemie Assenat. "Christine Lagarde." Harvard Business School Case 419-016, August 2018.  View Details

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