Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
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- December 2023
- Article
Save More Today or Tomorrow: The Role of Urgency in Precommitment Design
By: Joseph Reiff, Hengchen Dai, John Beshears, Katherine L. Milkman and Shlomo BenartziTo encourage farsighted behaviors, past research suggests that marketers may be wise to invite consumers to pre-commit to adopt them “later.” However, the authors propose that people will draw different inferences from different types of pre-commitment offers, and that these inferences can help explain when pre-commitment is effective at increasing adoption of farsighted behaviors and when it is not. Specifically, the authors theorize that simultaneously offering consumers the opportunity to adopt a farsighted behavior now or later (i.e., offering “simultaneous pre-commitment”) may signal that the behavior is not urgently recommended; however, offering consumers the opportunity to adopt that behavior immediately and then, only if they decline, inviting them to adopt it later (i.e., offering “sequential pre-commitment”) may signal just the opposite. In a multi-site field experiment (N=5,196), the authors find that simultaneously giving consumers the chance to increase their savings now or later reduced retirement savings. Two pre-registered lab studies (N=5,080) show that simultaneous pre-commitment leads people to infer that taking action is not urgently recommended, and such inferences predict less adoption of recommended behaviors. Importantly, offering sequential pre-commitment increases inferred urgency, predicting greater adoption. Together, this research advances knowledge about the limits and potential of pre-commitment.
- December 2023
- Article
Save More Today or Tomorrow: The Role of Urgency in Precommitment Design
By: Joseph Reiff, Hengchen Dai, John Beshears, Katherine L. Milkman and Shlomo BenartziTo encourage farsighted behaviors, past research suggests that marketers may be wise to invite consumers to pre-commit to adopt them “later.” However, the authors propose that people will draw different inferences from different types of pre-commitment offers, and that these inferences can help explain when pre-commitment is effective at...
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- 2023
- Working Paper
The Buy-In Effect: When Increasing Initial Effort Motivates Behavioral Follow-Through
By: Holly Dykstra, Shibeal O'Flaherty and A.V. WhillansBehavioral interventions often focus on reducing friction to encourage behavior change. In contrast, we provide evidence that adding friction can promote long-term behavior change when behaviors involve repeated costly efforts over longer time horizons. In collaboration with the Oregon Department of Transportation, we conducted a field experiment (N = 27,227) to test whether adding friction during an initial sign-up process for a new carpooling platform increases usage. Our results support this possibility: while a more effortful sign-up process led to a 25% decrease in sign-ups to the carpool platform, overall intensity of usage increased. Importantly, these results were only partly explained by selection effects: using an intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis, participants who were randomly assigned to the more effortful sign-up process took 1.6 times more carpool trips per day on average during a four-month period as compared to those in the less effortful sign-up process. Of the 9,417 observed trips, the more effortful sign-up group took almost 800 more trips. These effects persisted at eight months, where the ITT estimate was a 33% increase in trips per day. These results suggest that adding friction may be an overlooked strategy that could help to promote behavior change.
- 2023
- Working Paper
The Buy-In Effect: When Increasing Initial Effort Motivates Behavioral Follow-Through
By: Holly Dykstra, Shibeal O'Flaherty and A.V. WhillansBehavioral interventions often focus on reducing friction to encourage behavior change. In contrast, we provide evidence that adding friction can promote long-term behavior change when behaviors involve repeated costly efforts over longer time horizons. In collaboration with the Oregon Department of Transportation, we conducted a field experiment...
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- October 2023
- Case
Making Progress at Progress Software (A)
By: Katherine Coffman, Hannah Riley Bowles and Alexis LefortIn this case, the Human Capital team at Progress Software has identified that some employees have a hard time understanding how to advance within Progress. This realization leads the team to develop several major people-process innovations: the introduction of clear-cut, widely accessible leveling information as well as the development of several other programs, among them an internal mobility program that calls for quarterly conversations between managers and direct reports about professional development called “Career Conversations.” The case details the development of these programs and asks students to consider why some employees might have a harder time than others accessing career information and how managers could play a role in that imbalance.
- October 2023
- Case
Making Progress at Progress Software (A)
By: Katherine Coffman, Hannah Riley Bowles and Alexis LefortIn this case, the Human Capital team at Progress Software has identified that some employees have a hard time understanding how to advance within Progress. This realization leads the team to develop several major people-process innovations: the introduction of clear-cut, widely accessible leveling information as well as the development of several...
About the Unit
The NOM Unit seeks to understand and improve the design and management of systems in which people make decisions: that is, design and management of negotiations, organizations, and markets. In addition, members of the group share an abiding interest in the micro foundations of these phenomena.
Our work is grounded in the power of strategic interaction to encourage individuals and organizations to create and sustain value (in negotiations, in organizations, and in markets). We explore these interactions through diverse approaches: Although many of us have training in economics, we also have members with backgrounds in social psychology, sociology, and law.
NOM seeks to apply rigorous scientific methods to real-world problems -- producing research and pedagogy that is compelling to both the academy and practitioners.
Recent Publications
Save More Today or Tomorrow: The Role of Urgency in Precommitment Design
- December 2023 |
- Article |
- Journal of Marketing Research (JMR)
Inclusion and Diversity at Mars Petcare
- November 2023 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
The Buy-In Effect: When Increasing Initial Effort Motivates Behavioral Follow-Through
- 2023 |
- Working Paper |
- Faculty Research
Making Progress at Progress Software (A)
- October 2023 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Making Progress at Progress Software (B)
- October 2023 |
- Supplement |
- Faculty Research
ghSMART & Co: Building and Scaling a Time Smart Firm
- October 2023 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Emotion Regulation Contagion
- 2023 |
- Working Paper |
- Faculty Research
Speedy Activists: Firm Response Time to Sociopolitical Events Influences Consumer Behavior
- October 2023 |
- Article |
- Journal of Consumer Psychology
Harvard Business Publishing
Seminars & Conferences
There are no upcoming events.