Pick of the day

Emotional Manipulation By AI Companions

Julian De Freitas, Zeliha Oğuz-Uğuralp, Ahmet Kaan-Uğuralp

HBS Working Paper, 2025

AI-companion apps such as Replika, Chai, and Character.ai promise relational benefits—yet many boast session lengths that rival gaming platforms while suffering high long-run churn.

A New Framework For Reducing Healthcare Disparities

Susanna Gallani, Mary Witkowski, Lidia Moura, Katie Sonnefeldt

Article, 2025

Despite decades of initiatives to address healthcare inequities in the U.S., disparities across race, gender, geography, and income remain stubbornly persistent.

Gender Disparities In Compensation Of Practicing Cardiothoracic Surgeons: Analyzing The Society Of Thoracic Surgeons Compensation Survey

Cherie Erkmen, Anastasiia Tompkins, Shanda Blackmon, Larry Kaiser, Susanna Gallani, Jennifer Romano, Thomas MacGillivray, Michael Mack

Article, 2025

BACKGROUND: Gender-based pay disparity in compensation is widespread.

Employee Stress Is A Business Risk—Not An HR Problem

Marion Chomse, Lydia Roos, Reeva Misra, Ashley Whillans

Editorial, 2025

Workplace stress, on the rise for decades, has been treated by many organizations as a personal issue instead of a business-critical risk that merits executive oversight.

Eliciting Advice Instead Of Feedback Improves Developmental Input

Hayley Blunden, Ariella Kristal, Ashley Whillans, Jaewon Yoon, Hannah Burd, Georgina Bremner, Michael Yeomans

Article, 2025

Most organizations encourage employees to provide feedback to one another to support learning, personal growth, and career advancement.

Unregulated Emotional Risks Of AI Wellness Apps

Julian De Freitas, Glenn Cohen

Article, 2025

We propose that AI-driven wellness apps powered by large language models can foster extreme emotional attachments and dependencies akin to human relationships—posing risks like ambiguous loss and dysfunctional dependence—that challenge current regulatory frameworks and necessitate safeguards and informed interventions within these platforms.

Don’t Let An AI Failure Harm Your Brand

Julian De Freitas

Article, 2025

How companies market their AI systems affects the repercussions they face when their products fail. Marketers must promote their AI products with potential failure in mind.

Balancing Engagement And Polarization: Multi-Objective Alignment Of News Content Using LLMs

Mengjie Cheng, Elie Ofek, Hema Yoganarasimhan

HBS Working Paper, 2025

We study how media firms can use LLMs to generate news content that aligns with multiple objectives—making content more engaging while maintaining a preferred level of polarization/slant consistent with the firm’s editorial policy.

Ideation With Generative AI—In Consumer Research And Beyond

Julian De Freitas, Gideon Nave, Stefano Puntoni

Article, 2025

The use of large language models (LLMs) in consumer research is rapidly evolving, with applications including synthetic data generation, data analysis, and more.

Why People Resist Embracing AI

Julian De Freitas

Article, 2025

The success of AI depends not only on its capabilities, which are becoming more advanced each day, but on people’s willingness to harness them.

Disclosure, Humanizing, And Contextual Vulnerability Of Generative AI Chatbots

Julian De Freitas, I. Glenn Cohen

Article, 2025

In the wake of recent advancements in generative AI, regulatory bodies are trying to keep pace.

Overcoming Barriers To Employee Ownership: Insights From Small And Medium-Sized Businesses

John Guzek, Ashley Whillans

Article, 2025

This research investigates the limited adoption of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) among small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) in the U.S.

Reducing Prejudice With Counter-Stereotypical AI

Erik Hermann, Julian De Freitas, Stefano Puntoni

Article, 2025

Based on a review of relevant literature, we propose that the proliferation of AI with human-like and social features presents an unprecedented opportunity to address the underlying cognitive and affective drivers of prejudice.

AI Companions Reduce Loneliness

Julian De Freitas, Zeliha Oğuz-Uğuralp, Ahmet Uğuralp, Stefano Puntoni

Article, 2025

Chatbots are now able to engage in sophisticated conversations with consumers in the domain of relationships, providing a potential coping solution to widescale societal loneliness.

How Firms Respond To Worker Activism: Evidence From Global Supply Chains

Yanhua Bird, Jodi Short, Michael Toffel

HBS Working Paper, 2025

Social movement pressures can lead organizations to concede and improve social performance to avoid disruption costs, but we theorize that such responses evoke concession costs that prompt organizations to shift resources and attention from other social domains whose performance suffers.

An Empirical Examination Of Business Climate Alliances: Effective And/Or Harmful?

Matteo Gasparini, Peter Tufano

HBS Working Paper, 2025

This research studies business alliances that seek to address climate change, offering empirical evidence to address claims advanced by alliance supporters and critics.

Data-Driven Technologies And Local Information Advantages In Small Business Lending

Wilbur Chen, Jung Koo Kang, Aditya Mohan

HBS Working Paper, 2025

We investigate whether banks' adoption of data-driven technologies influences competitive dynamics in local small business lending by diminishing the information advantages traditionally held by local banks.

What Board-Level Control Mechanisms Changed In Banks Following The 2008 Financial Crisis? A Descriptive Study

Shelly Li, Shivram Rajgopal, Suraj Srinivasan, Yu Ting Wong

Article, 2025

Following the 2008 financial crisis, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) identified major shortcomings in bank board governance, contributing to systemic risk management failures.

With A Little Help From My Family: Informal Startup Financing

Brian Baik, Johan Ludvig Karlsen, Katja Kisseleva

HBS Working Paper, 2025

Using Norwegian administrative data, we identify family equity investments in startups and examine their effects on investor returns and firm behavior.

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