Theory →
- 25 Sep 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
Colocation and Scientific Collaboration: Evidence from a Field Experiment
In recent years there has been considerable interest in the policy arena on fostering collaborative and especially interdisciplinary collaborations. Yet there is scant evidence on how to do this in practice. To learn how team members find each other in the scientific community and decide to collaborate, the authors designed and carried out an experiment involving Harvard University and its affiliated hospitals. Results suggest that matching between scientists may be subject to considerable frictions, even among scientists in relatively close geographic proximity and in the same organizational system. However, even a brief and focused event facilitating face-to-face interactions can be useful for the formation of new scientific collaborations. Key concepts include: Face-to-face interactions play a central role in the initiation of new collaborations. Creating settings where scientists meet face to face and discuss early-stage research ideas can be useful for fostering collaboration. Matching between scientists is not easy. For example, many factors that affect successful collaboration are not easily observed to both parties until collaboration is well underway, such as personal chemistry and scheduling constraints. Time spent in events that facilitate face-to-face interactions also has opportunity costs. The effect of such activities on scientific productivity and welfare more generally is still unclear. This is the first study to bring field experimental methods to a workplace setting in the scientific community. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 12 Sep 2012
- Research & Ideas
The Unexpected Link Between Cadavers and Careers
Illustrating the strange socializing power of our occupational pursuits, a new study by professor Michel Anteby and colleagues finds a strong association between jobs and corpse donations. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 04 Sep 2012
- Research & Ideas
Why Most Leaders (Even Thomas Jefferson) Are Replaceable
Leaders rarely make a lasting impact on their organizations—even the really, really good ones. Then out of the blue comes a Churchill. Gautam Mukunda discusses his new book, Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 23 Aug 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
Field Evidence on Individual Behavior & Performance in Rank-Order Tournaments
Contests abound in everything from amateur and professional sports to arts, architecture, manual labor, and engineering. Just as large-scale online contest platforms that provide ongoing tournament-based work and compensation have emerged, large industrial companies increasingly use them as a complement to in-house research and development. What difference does increased competition make to individual participants? This paper analyzes data from algorithmic programming contests to shed light on the mechanisms that underlie changes in performance in reaction to increased competition. Three mechanisms may account for a performance decline: reduction in effort, increased risk taking, and deterioration in cognitive processing. The study also shows how the ability of competitors affects their reactions to increased competition. Overall, results suggest that a better understanding of behavioral responses in contests can aid both public policy and contest designers. Key concepts include: The authors analyze contest data on individual effort, risk taking, and cognitive errors. On average, competitors react negatively to an increase in the total number of competitors, and react more negatively to an increase in the number of superstars than non-superstars. These negative effects are strongest in a particular subgroup of competitors: those who are highly skilled, but whose abilities put them near to the top rather than at the top in terms of ability. For competitors who are near-to-the-top in terms of ability, there is no evidence that the decline in performance outcomes stems from reduced effort or increased risk taking. Instead, errors in logic lead to a decline in performance. A small group of very high ability competitors (excluding superstars) reacts positively to increased competition from superstars. Very high ability competitors show some evidence of increased effort and no increase in errors of logic, consistent with both economic and psychological explanations. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 21 Aug 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
Children Develop a Veil of Fairness
Is children's fair behavior motivated by a desire to be fair —or merely the desire to appear fair? The results of several experiments suggest that as children grow older they become increasingly concerned with appearing fair to others, which may explain some of their increased tendency to behave fairly. Since even young children can radically shift their behavior from fair to unfair based on whether authority figures are aware of their behavior, it might be naive to believe that shrewd adults will be fair without similar oversight. By understanding the limitations of fairness, policymakers can discover how to leverage fairness to increase socially desirable behavior in some circumstances, while limiting its occasional wastefulness. Key concepts include: The experiments documented in this paper investigate children's motivation to appear fair to third parties, an important step forward in understanding how children develop self-presentational concerns. Children modify their behavior in order to improve their reputations with third parties. Children's fair behavior throughout middle childhood is at least partly motivated by wanting to appear fair to others. The research provides empirical support for the notion that people are especially likely to be unfair when there is a lack of knowledgeable oversight and when they can gain materially. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 15 Aug 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
Legislating Stock Prices
This paper examines the importance of firms' relationships with their legal and political environment, and the actors who form this environment. Governments pass laws that affect firms' competitive landscape, products, labor force, and capital, both directly and indirectly. And yet, it remains difficult to determine which firms any given piece of legislation will affect, and how it will affect them. By observing the actions of legislators whose constituents are the affected firms, the authors gather insights into the likely impact of government legislation on firms. Specifically, the authors demonstrate that legislation has a simple yet previously undetected impact on firm prices. Key concepts include: The measurement of which firms are materially impacted by a given bill is the crux of this paper. Focusing attention on the legislators who have the largest vested interests in firms affected by a given piece of legislation gives a powerful lens into the impact of that legislation on the firms in question. Legislators who have a direct interest in firms often vote quite differently than other, uninterested legislators on legislation that impacts the firms in question. A long-short portfolio based on these legislators' views earns abnormal returns of over 90 basis points per month following the passage of legislation. These returns show no run-up prior to bill passage and no announcement effect directly at bill passage. The returns continue to accrue past the month following passage. The more complex the legislation, the more difficulty the market has in assessing the impact of these bills. The effect the authors document has been becoming stronger over time. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 19 Jul 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
Charitable Giving When Altruism and Similarity are Linked
This paper presents a model to help explain several aspects of charitable giving. First, individuals do not appear to reduce their contributions to a charity significantly when they learn that the government or other individuals have increased the funds that they devote to the charity's beneficiaries. Indeed, sometimes people increase their contributions when they hear that others have contributed more. Second, there are often several distinct charities that contribute to the same beneficiaries, and these charities frequently differ by the donor population to whom they target their appeal. Lastly, the extent to which individuals contribute to charity differs greatly, even among countries that appear otherwise quite similar. Rotemberg's model shows that two assumptions grounded in evidence from psychology are helpful in explaining these regularities. Specifically, the combination of (1) letting altruism be larger towards like-minded people and (2) having self-esteem depend on the number of people that agree with oneself is consistent with small reductions in one's own giving in response to larger giving by others. Key concepts include: Two human tendencies can help explain patterns of charitable giving. The first tendency is that people are happier when they learn that there is more agreement with their point of view. The second tendency is that people have warmer feelings towards, and are more willing to help, individuals whom they perceive as sharing their beliefs or, more generally, individuals who are more similar to themselves. There are parallels between voting and charitable giving. Both charitable contributions and voting involve the expression of beliefs about how resources ought to be distributed to others. However, democratic voting systems give one vote to each person regardless of income. Charitable contributions, on the other hand, do vary by income. Particularly in the case of large contributions, many contributions are visible to others. This paper's emphasis, by contrast, is on contributions whose total is visible to others but whose constituent individual contributions are not. Examples of anonymous contributions include those made via SMS messages. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 02 Apr 2012
- Research & Ideas
Do Online Dating Platforms Help Those Who Need Them Most?
The $2 billion online dating industry promises the possibility of a priceless product: romantic love. Associate Professor Mikolaj Piskorski investigates whether these sites are helping the lonely—or just making life easier for young singles who are popular already. Key concepts include: Researchers studied a random sample of 500,000 OKCupid members, focusing on two important stages of forming a relationship: spotting a potential mate, and initiating contact. Older, shorter, and relatively overweight men tended to view more profiles than their younger, taller, slimmer counterparts. However, those who were most likely to view lots of profiles were least likely to initiate contact with an e-mail message. Some of the features on OKCupid helped users to overcome the normative restrictions of the offline world, while others only served to help those who really needed the least help. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 27 Jan 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
Discretion Within the Constraints of Opportunity: Gender Homophily and Structure in a Formal Organization
Research has demonstrated that people associate most with others who are similar to themselves, including others of the same sex. What are the implications of such patterns for organizations? This study, written by Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart, and Michael L. Tushman, offers evidence of how and by whom formal lateral structures serve to link together an otherwise siloed organization. Analyzing millions of e-mail interactions among tens of thousands of employees of a single large firm, the researchers find that it is women more than men who tend to bridge formal structural boundaries in organizations. Thus women play a potentially valuable role in creating ties throughout an otherwise siloed multidivisional corporation. Despite the influence of a firm's formal organizational structure, people often have plenty of discretion to exercise choice. Same-sex interaction results from discretionary choice within the boundaries of the firm's opportunity structure. These results suggest (but do not prove) that same-sex interaction especially by woman can help to span formal organizational boundaries that are otherwise difficult to traverse. The findings raise questions for future research about whether conventional wisdoms regarding gender differences in social network structure remain accurate in current-day organizations. Key concepts include: There are significant differences in how gender interacts with organizational and geographic boundaries to influence individuals' tendency to communicate with members of their same sex. In the large company under study, men engage in same-sex interaction within the opportunity structure created by organizational structure, while women tend to connect with other women who are outside their business units and offices. It is business unit and office boundaries that most strongly influence the opportunity set of potential interaction partners for organizational actors. One of the conventional wisdoms is that same-sex interaction among marginalized people tends to reinforce the stratification of power in organizations. But these findings suggest that communication among women could serve to reinforce, not undermine, their positions in the organization. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 05 Dec 2011
- Research & Ideas
It’s Alive! Business Scholars Turn to Experimental Research
Business researchers are turning increasingly to experiments in the lab and field to unlock the secrets of what motivates CEOs, consumers, and policymakers. Key concepts include: Interest in experimental research may have been ignited by prominent behavioral economist Danny Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002, and by journalist Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink. Researchers use field and lab experiments to better understand the logic of real-world decisions, which sometimes fly in the face of established economic theory. Experimental research can be considered a leg on a three-legged stool that also includes field data and theory. While agreeing to be part of a field experiment can be time-consuming for a company, the results can be invaluable—and more cost-effective than paying a market research firm or a consultant. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 28 Oct 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
Fairness, Efficiency, and Flexibility in Organ Allocation for Kidney Transplantation
For many people who suffer end-stage renal disease, a kidney transplant is considered a potentially life-saving gift. Allocation policies for kidneys from deceased donors are thus of central importance and have to accomplish major objectives in alleviating human suffering, prolonging life, and providing nondiscriminatory, fair, and equal access to organs for all patients. In this paper, the authors focused on national allocation policies in the United States and the recent effort to revise the current policy. Their design of a national allocation policy focuses on perhaps the simplest, most common and currently used priority method, namely a point system. They also present four case studies in which they designed new policies under different scenarios. Key concepts include: This is a novel method for designing allocation policies based on point systems in a systematic, data-driven way. The method offers flexibility to policymakers to select the fairness constraints desired, as well as the prioritization criteria on which the point system will be based. Critically, this method achieves an 8 percent increase in anticipated extra life-year gains, as demonstrated by numerical simulations, which are based on the statistical and simulation tools currently in use by US policymakers. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 29 Jun 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
Better-reply Dynamics in Deferred Acceptance Games
There's an inherent problem in the market design theory known as mechanism design, in that the players in the market may not understand the design, and thus may make bad choices until they learn to work the system better. This paper explores the issue of learning the design. It focuses on a particular mechanism, the Deferred Acceptance algorithm for two-sided matching markets, which is used in many real-life markets. Research was conducted by Guillaume Haeringer of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and Hanna Halaburda of Harvard Business School. Key concepts include: In the Deferred Acceptance algorithm, matches are made in a series of rounds, until everyone is matched up. The matching achieved through DA has a special property of "stability." In a stable matching, if an individual tries for a better choice than the one initially assigned by the matching, he learns that his ideal choice is already taken—matched to someone more preferred than he is. The researchers discuss several possibilities of "better-reply dynamics," in which savvy players figure out what is the optimal strategy for getting the best possible match. They find that even in simple two-sided matching models, the learning is difficult and takes a long time. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 05 Apr 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
The Power of Political Voice: Women’s Political Representation and Crime in India
Protecting the rights of disadvantaged citizens remains a challenge in both developing and developed countries. These individuals often are targets of verbal abuse, discrimination, and violent crime. Using evidence from India, this paper shows that political representation of disadvantaged groups is an important means of giving them a voice in the criminal justice system. Research was conducted by Lakshmi Iyer of Harvard Business School, Anandi Mani of the University of Warwick, and Prachi Mishra and Petia Topalova of the International Monetary Fund. Key concepts include: An Indian law enacted in 1993 mandated that at least one-third of council seats at the village, intermediate, or district level must be filled by women. The rise in female representation led to a rise in the number of reported crimes against women. The researchers take these statistics as positive news for women's empowerment. They provide supporting evidence that this is an indication of women now being more likely to report when they are attacked, rather than an increase in the actual incidence of crime. Female political representation at the local level also induces law enforcement officials to be more responsive to crimes against women. The researchers found similar results in the case of crimes against Scheduled Castes (SC)-the so-called untouchables that have historically been at the bottom of the Hindu caste system. An increase in SC political representation led to an increase of documented crimes against SCs. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 24 Mar 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
Individual Rationality and Participation in Large Scale, Multi-Hospital Kidney Exchanges
As kidney exchange moves from local networks to a national level, a new set of problems arises. One central issue, for example, is how individual hospitals can be motivated to participate. This paper by Itai Ashlagi (Sloan School of Management, MIT) and Alvin E. Roth (Harvard Business School) provides a theoretical framework to study and overcome the kinds of problems that can be anticipated. Key concepts include: The paper addresses the growing problem of providing hospitals with incentives to participate fully in a national kidney exchange, in order to achieve the gains that exchange on a large scale makes possible. Hospitals might be reluctant to enter a national exchange if it means they would have to give up kidneys to other institutions that could be used in their own patients. In large markets it is possible to redesign the matching mechanisms to guarantee individually rational allocations to hospitals at very modest cost in terms of "lost transplants." If care is taken in how kidney exchange mechanisms are organized, the problems of participation may be less troubling in large exchange programs than they are starting to be in multi-hospital exchanges as presently organized. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 17 Mar 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
Marketplace Institutions Related to the Timing of Transactions
Certain markets face the problem of "unraveling," in which competition for good talent leads a firm to make job offers earlier and earlier, without sufficient knowledge about any given applicant—and in which applicants are forced to decide whether to accept a job before they really know much about working for that firm. Harvard Business School professor Alvin E. Roth discusses how this issue affects the labor markets for new lawyers and gastroenterology fellows, as well as the market for postseason college football bowls. Key concepts include: The market for postseason college bowls is one in which the negative effects of unraveling can be easily quantified: If two teams are matched to play a postseason game before they have finished the regular season, it's possible that one or both will lose some of their remaining regular season games, making the postseason bowl game less attractive to potential TV viewers than it would have been if it had featured more successful teams. Efforts to stop the problem of unraveling in the market for law graduates have generally been unsuccessful, as have attempts to establish uniform dates for recruiting and hiring. This proves that unraveling is a problem even in markets such as law, where salaries are easily adjustable. On the other hand, the market for new medical residents has faced little unraveling ever since that market introduced a stable resident matching system. This negates the idea that rigid pricing is the cause of unraveling, because the medical field generally pays its new residents uniformly across the board. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 10 Mar 2011
- What Do You Think?
To What Degree Does the Job Make the Person?
Summing Up: Jobs shape us as much as we shape our jobs, Jim Heskett's readers suggest. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 04 Mar 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
From Social Control to Financial Economics: The Linked Ecologies of Economics and Business in Twentieth Century America
No transformation looks more consequential for the history of American higher education than the extraordinary rise of business schools and business degrees in the twentieth century. Marion Fourcade (UC Berkeley) and Rakesh Khurana (HBS) analyze the changing place of economics in American business education as reflected in the teaching of three elite business schools over the course of the twentieth century: the Wharton School (1900-1930), the Carnegie Tech Graduate School of Industrial Administration (post World War II), and the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago (1960s-present). Key concepts include: Wharton is an illustration of the earliest trends and dilemmas, when business schools found themselves caught between their business connections and their striving for moral legitimacy in higher education. The Carnegie Tech Graduate School of Industrial Administration reflects a new vision, starting in the 1950s, of the contribution of business to society with the rise of "management science"-a new formation that broke from the existing disciplinary system and sought to legitimatize itself through its hard-core technical capabilities. The University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business marks the decisive ascendancy of economics, and particularly financial economics, in business education over the other behavioral disciplines. This transformation helped produce and sustain new understandings of the nature of the firm, with far-reaching consequences for business practices and economic relations in society. Theories from each period provided a new language, and new categories of understanding and action, that not only became naturalized in the teachings of American business schools but also came to sustain and even instigate profound alterations in the nature of American corporations and markets-at least until the next series of tools, concepts, and business recipes came along. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 01 Mar 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
How Foundations Think: The Ford Foundation as a Dominating Institution in the Field of American Business Schools
What causes institutions to change? This paper adds organizational and exogenous perspective to existing theories by looking at the idea of "dominating institutions"—a class of formal organizations purposively designed to change other institutions. HBS professor Rakesh Khurana and colleagues look at the Ford Foundation and its work reshaping America's graduate schools of management between 1952 and 1965 through funding of "centers of excellence" at a number of schools, including Harvard Business School. Key concepts include: The goal of this paper is to describe the structural characteristics and associated behaviors of dominating institutions, specifically the Ford Foundation, as they incite change within other institutions. Through its analysis and recommendations, the Ford Foundation reshaped America's graduate schools of management between 1952 and 1965 from a vocationally disparate, but "successful" field to a more academically and discipline-based orientation. The researchers anchor their work around two questions: What are the structural characteristics of a dominant institution? What key behaviors do dominant institutions use to allow them to significantly reshape an existing institution? The power of these institutions to change other institutions resided in their ability to broker personnel and practices across institutional sectors, elevating and legitimating particular practices, and providing resources in ways that increase the interdependence between the foundations and their beneficiaries. Large-scale institutional change does not occur in isolation, the findings suggest, but rather has to be understood in relation to what is happening in other institutional fields. Scholars studying institutional change should make an analytical distinction between the structure of the position of organizational actors in an institutional field and the interactions among the organizations in that field. Both are important in understanding the processes of institutional change. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 03 Feb 2011
- What Do You Think?
Are We Going “Back to the Future” In Researching Management?
Summing Up Jim Heskett's readers wonder whether the best business management ideas over the next decade will be for cleaning up the messes from the previous one. (Online forum has closed; next forum opens March 10) Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
License to Cheat: Voluntary Regulation and Ethical Behavior
One powerful tool, at least in theory, that policymakers can rely on to stem cheating is regulation through monitoring and sanctions. But regulation does not really help when individuals and firms who are supposed to be regulated may have the ability to determine how much regulation they face, or even whether they face it at all. This paper studies what happens when individuals can avoid or circumvent regulation and monitoring intended to curb unethical conduct. Results from several experiments show significantly more misreporting under voluntary regulation (where participants have a choice of whether to be regulated) than when they are either all submitted to mandatory regulation or when no opportunity for regulation exists. These findings have several practical implications: For example, policies imposing either no regulation or total regulation may be preferable to policies that allow for regulation that is easily circumvented. Key concepts include: Easily avoidable regulation may lead to outcomes that are worse than simply having no regulation. When individuals can choose whether to be voluntarily subject to regulation, they might conduct greater unethical behavior than when behavior is completely unregulated. Policymakers have the tool of increasing the visibility of the choice to be regulated, in order to enhance the voluntary adoption of regulation and decrease subsequent unethical behavior. Policymakers' choices concerning the presence of regulation in one domain can affect behavior in other, unregulated contexts. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.