Author: EconLearner

“Humans are natural social learners. We’re constantly scanning the environment to understand what other people are doing and what we can learn from it,” says William Brady, assistant professor of management and organizations at Kellogg. “Social learning happens whenever we observe people, get feedback from them, imitate them, and incorporate that information into our understanding of the rules.”Social media represents a new frontier for this type of learning. What happens when this all-important observation and imitation of others is mediated by algorithms controlled by tech companies whose goals are to keep people’s attention on platforms?All kinds of problems, according to…

While private sector organizations can use such inducements and threats to increase motivation and performance, public sector executives often cannot offer performance-based pay and have difficulty firing underperforming employees.These organizations often rely on promotional incentives. To earn a higher salary, workers are told, you have to work hard and climb the ladder.Erika Deserrano, associate professor of managerial economics and decision science at Kellogg, wanted to find out how well this approach actually works. There was little existing research to support the idea that merit promotions—and the associated pay increase they bring—act as a powerful motivator for employees.So to learn more,…

One obvious answer is politics: as candidates, all four men had sharply different visions for the country’s future.But new research by William Brady, assistant professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School, highlights another important way in which US presidential candidates stand out from one another: moral language.The study — they co-sign Kobe Hackenburg of Oxford University and Manos Tsakiris of the University of London — is based on analyzes of candidate tweets from the 2016 and 2020 elections. It reveals that Democrats and Republicans rely on morally charged language, but do so in very different ways.”Specifically,” Brady explains,…

A new paper by Tessa Charlesworth, assistant professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School, explores this complex question by computationally analyzing language use over 115 years, from 1900 to 2015. Specifically, Charlesworth and her colleagues — Nishanth Sanjeev of New York University and Mark L. Hatzenbuehler and Mahzarin R. Banaji of Harvard University—examined how the characteristics associated with various social groups have changed over time.They explored both the manifest and implicit meanings of these stereotypes. “I often give the analogy of an iceberg,” says Charlesworth. “There is the tip of the iceberg that we can see above the…

And yet other online communities, such as Stack overflowthey have thrived.The demise—or success—of sites like these is of interest Ahal Basabu, Kellogg professor of business. It seeks to understand how these types of online communities work, in particular, because they are a growing trend in customer service.”A big thing that’s happening in customer support is that people have moved to self-help because they don’t want to wait in call centers,” says Bassamboo. “And the FAQ is available, but the next level is making it more dynamic so people can ask questions and others can help them.”A wide range of businesses…

Lyft has always used an algorithm to match drivers and passengers, so they thought they could tweak it to make their plan work for Covid. But it turned out to be much more difficult than expected. “It showed the limit of the system,” he says Swallowwho is now an assistant professor of Operations at the Kellogg School.The main issue, Martin explains, is that simple algorithms — like matching the nearest driver to a passenger — don’t actually work that well.It got Martin thinking about how the matching algorithm could be improved, even after shares have recovered from the pandemic. What…

But what might this look like in practice? Here are five ideas to consider, each based on research from the Kellogg faculty.Tackle the hard stuff firstWhen you have a lot on your plate, it can be tempting to check off some of the easier items on your to-do list first. And then, maybe, just a few more easy ones.”You feel like you’re making more progress,” she says Mariam Kouhakiwhose research found that people gravitate toward simpler tasks when struggling with heavy workloads.She and her colleagues found, for example, that when ER doctors were given a choice of which patients to…

That’s the question users (referred to as “hosts”) on platforms like Airbnb and car-sharing company Turo face when deciding when to list their homes, vehicles and other items for rent.It is also a matter of interest Ahal Basabu, Kellogg business professor. Platforms like these are expected to increase revenue 335 billion dollars by 2025, so it is important to understand their dynamics. While previous research has mostly looked at how shoppers act on such platforms, Bassamboo and doctoral student Kellogg Neha Sharma were interested in the seller’s behavior: specifically, “if they report [their items] once they know they have availability…

But maintaining these partnerships is complicated and many don’t last, according to Karen Smilovichprofessor of Operations at the Kellogg School.In an era of cash-strapped schools, it’s important to understand what goes into a long-term partnership. “Public schools and others are facing budget constraints, so it’s important to think about … what makes their relationships with external partners more likely to survive,” he says. “A lot goes into whether these relationships succeed and endure.”In one previous studySmilowitz et al Samantha Kepler (then a PhD student working with Smilowitz) and Paul Leonardi of UC Santa Barbara interviewed principals, teachers and parents at…

But how should administrators adapt their roles to embrace ChatGPT?Kellogg’s Robert Bray has given much thought to the subject. Not that he had much of a choice. Just last year, he published a handbook for MBA students on how to use the popular programming language R. Then came ChatGPT. The powerful language model could handle the most difficult coding problems of its students. And while much about ChatGPT remained (and remains) uncertain, one thing was immediately clear: its long-awaited textbook—and the entire course it had designed around it—was now obsolete.So Bray regrouped and redesigned his course to incorporate ChatGPT. Along…