Funded Research Proposal Archives

Recommendation Systems Fatigue: Capturing Effort Availability in Consumers

Recommendation systems have become integral to our daily lives, with apps suggesting what we might want to watch, eat, read, or invest our time and energy in. The average American consumer uses daily at least 3 apps involving some sort of recommendation system (Medium, 2021) and spend around $200 monthly on subscription systems (Yahoo Finance, 2024), 60% of YouTube searches come from recommendations and 40% of the apps present on Google Play offer in their services a recommendation system (GoogleDevelopers, 2024). However, 75% of users complain that these apps do not actually reflect their taste (The New York Post, 2024), rather leading them to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of products offered (CNET, 2024). In particular, in online media markets, streaming platforms like Netflix rely on recommendation systems for 75% of its revenue (Medium, 2019) while companies like Amazon attribute approximately 35% of their e-commerce revenue to product recommendations (Quartz, 2018) and yet viewers lament a complete inadequacy of their algorithms (HBR, 2024). How is this misalignment becoming possible and how do we fix it? In our research, we hypothesize that integrating the current algorithms with consumers’ time and energy availability estimations might improve recommendation systems, increasing both consumers’ satisfaction levels and companies’ revenues.
Specifically, we propose a model where effort and time estimation can improve both the choice of content users select to watch – and their satisfaction with it – and the recommendation systems output. By factoring in the effort and time a user is willing to invest, the recommendation system can tailor content that aligns more closely with the user’s current state, thereby improving both the selection process and overall satisfaction.…Read More

How Posting on Social Media Impacts Goal Persistence

Companies often encourage their customers to share their progress toward personal goals, such as their fitness journey, on social media. In this research, we investigate how doing so impacts motivation. While documenting goal pursuit online may increase motivation through immediate social rewards (likes, comments), accountability, and social support, it could also have no effect of even backfire—especially if people focus on social media engagement rather than the underlying goal, or become discouraged by lower-than-expected feedback. We test these possibilities through a preregistered field experiment (N = 500) in which participants are assigned to either document their goal progress by posting on Instagram or by completing a private survey. Over a three-month period, we measure their gym attendance and social media engagement. The findings of this paper would provide theoretical insight into how social media interacts with goal pursuit and potentially offer practical implications for designing scalable, low-cost interventions to promote goal achievement.…Read More

Private Equity, Corporate Acquirers, and Product Innovation in Technology Acquisitions

Private equity has become an increasingly active player in technology acquisitions in recent years, yet most prior scholarship has focused on the effects of corporate acquirer ownership on performance and innovation outcomes. As a result, research provides little guidance on how firms should choose between the two acquirer types. To remedy this gap, I construct a panel data set of acquisitions in the chemical, biopharmaceutical, and medical device industries between 1990 and 2019, tracked yearly through 2022. Then, I examine how private equity and corporate acquirers differentially affect product innovation at acquired technology targets using USPTO trademark, FDA orange book, and hand-collected new product introduction data. Our results illuminate the opportunities and tradeoffs facing managers at technology companies in choosing between private equity and corporate acquirers.…Read More

Silent Discrimination: How AI Watermarking Systems Create Digital Accents in Non-Native English Writing

As language model providers develop watermarking techniques to identify AI-generated content, important questions arise about their potential impact on non-native English speakers in academic settings. This study examines how proposed watermarking systems might create “digital accents”—systematic biases that could flag legitimate writing assistance used by non-native English speakers as potential AI-generated content. Through analysis of 1,500 TOEFL essays and three distinct levels of AI assistance, we demonstrate how current watermarking techniques could disproportionately impact international students who use AI tools for language learning and writing improvement. We propose a novel detection framework that reduces potential false positive rates by integrating conformal outlier detection techniques in statistics while maintaining detection accura…Read More

When Reminders Backfire: How Thinking More (vs. Less) Frequently About an Experience Affects Excitement Over Time

Thinking about a future positive experience can be enjoyable and exciting. However, we suggest that thinking too much about a future positive experience can backfire. In particular, we investigate whether people would become less excited initially when they are reminded more (vs. less often) about a future positive experience. We suggest that people can adapt to the thought of a future experience and thus would become less excited about the experience. We examine how people’s anticipatory enjoyment changes over time and how many (vs. few) reminders affect this trajectory. Further, we will also explore the downstream consequences of many (vs. few) reminders, such as a reduction in enjoyment of the planned activity and a greater likelihood of changing the planned activity.…Read More

Checking Current Status More Frequently Decreases Satisfaction

From the time remaining for an Uber’s arrival to the number of likes on an Instagram post, new technologies have made it easier to check the status of desired outcomes than ever before. Smartphones and other devices enable consumers to receive updates, such as a delivery driver’s status, in real-time. But is such frequent checking always beneficial? This research explores a potential downside to checking the status of desired outcomes more…Read More

Platform Bundling and Competition in the Video Streaming Market

This project investigates the welfare impact of bundling between platforms affects in the video streaming market. Platform bundling has become increasingly common in recent years. For example, comcast offers an ad-supported bundle of Netflix, Apple TV, and Peacock for just $10 per month. Similarly, a bundle of Hulu, Disney Plus, and Max allows consumers to subscribe all three with a nearly 40% discount. However, the effects of such bundling on consumers remain unclear. Existing literature shows that when competing firms offer mixed bundles of their own products, bundling enables more efficient price discrimination, which harms consumers; but also intensifies competition, which benefits consumers. The streaming market presents a unique and intriguing case because these bundles often include platforms with distinct ownership. This separate ownership of bundling platforms creates potential inefficiencies, as platforms may “freeride” own their bundling partners’ content investments while reducing their own. In this project, I will develop a structural model and apply data-driven methods to quantify the impact of mixed bundling between independently owned platforms on competition and consumer welfare.…Read More

Employee Interviews on Perspective-Changing Practices

As organizations seek evidence-based approaches to enhance leadership effectiveness and employee creativity, psychedelic research presents a promising opportunity to understand perspective-changing interventions in professional contexts. The convergence of long-standing scientific interest in psychedelics, growing demand for evidence-based information on the impact of these medicines on leaders, and mounting empirical evidence…Read More

Wisdom of the Algorithmic Crowd

Ensemble models, a class of machine learning algorithms that combine the predictions of multiple algorithms to form more accurate predictions, are widely used in marketing applications. This research explores ways to enhance the adoption and perceived accuracy of these models. Thirteen experimental studies (ten in the main paper and three in the Web Appendix) collectively demonstrate that consumers have an intuitive grasp of the “wisdom of the crowd,” and they perceive machine ensembles as more accurate than single algorithms. Framing algorithms as a collection of models rather than a single algorithm boosts perc…Read More

Who Bears the Property Tax Burden? Evidence of Ethnic Targeting from Nigeria

Inter-ethnic tensions have been well documented as one of the main inhibiting factors behind the slow economic progress of developing countries. For example, government leaders have shown to prioritize their ethnic supporter base in providing public goods and services (Franck and Rainer 2012; Kramon and Posner 2016), often resulting in suboptimal distributions. However, relatively little is known about the role of ethnicity in taxation. Specifically, how ethnicity influences the distribution of tax burden and what the costs of such ethnic targeting are, if existent, remain largely unknown. My proposed project will study the role of ethnic targeting in the building of the property tax system in Nigeria.…Read More

Adversarial Collaboration on the Forecaster Benefits of Teams and Training

Psychological Science, a leading journal in the field of psychology, recently published a paper by Hauenstein et al. (2024) in which the authors reanalyzed data from the Good Judgment Project (e.g., Mellers et al., 2014) and argued that IARPA’s tournaments permitted method variance; forecasters could select their own questions and make their own forecasts whenever they wished while the forecast window was open.…Read More

Consumer Behavior and Cryptocurrency Confidence

In our endeavor to grasp the driving forces behind cryptocurrency prices, we have developed the Consumer Cryptocurrency Confidence Index (c3i), derived from a set of questions asked monthly to consumers across the United States. Our analysis has uncovered several initial results and pointed to an extensive, exciting research program on consumer behavior that shapes the cryptocurrency markets. Firstly, we are rigorously validating to what extent the c3i can accurately predict changes in cryptocurrency prices as a leading indicator by exploring whether this relationship is merely correlation or potentially causal. Furthermore, we are investigating if consumer characteristics such as age, gender, and political leanings can enhance the accuracy of our index in predicting cryptocurrency prices. We are also examining if the relationship observed between c3i and cryptocurrency prices extends to broader stock market indices like the S&P…Read More

Algorithmic Governance: How Distributing Decision Rights Can Erode Participation

Algorithms play an increasingly important role in today’s digital economy. An emerging view highlighted the viability of utilizing algorithms as a governance device. With innovations in blockchain infrastructure and smart contracts algorithms, platforms can delegate formal authority to exchange partners and involve them in organizational decision-making processes. While some are optimistic that this governance innovation can bring about a more collaborative and democratic digital economy, this paper highlights potential challenges associated with decentralized governance systems. I argue that decentralized governance shifts the locus of opportunism from platform owners to a body of diffuse exchange partners. Appropriation no longer come…Read More

High-Flying Analytics: Harnessing Wearable Sensors and AI to Safeguard Military Aviators

For military aviators, functioning without fail within a high-stress work environment is a necessity. In order to complete critical missions, they make split-second decisions while piloting 44,000 lbs of hurtling machinery accelerating at up to 9G’s in high-altitude conditions. For less experienced pilots, managing the associated physical and mental fatigue is an integral and challenging component of executing flights safely and well. We collaborate with a pioneering company that innovatively outfits aviators at 22 USAF bases with wearable sensors that record both the physical stresses of sorties (flights) and the biophysical states and reactions of pilots in real time. Then, we develop analytical methods to make timely and accurate use of such novel wearable…Read More

Premium or Penalty? Differential Effects of Gender and Race on Internal Promotions to Top-Management Positions

Our groundbreaking research explores the evolving landscape of leadership diversity in top management. Despite the pressure on organizations to improve diversity, empirical evidence remains mixed. Our study uniquely examines the disparities in promotion outcomes for women and racial minorities, leveraging a vast dataset of approximately 100 million online job profiles from 7,000 large U.S. firms (2014-2023). We propose a new theory combining institutional and categorical inequality perspectives to explain why gender diversity has progressed more than racial diversity in top management. This research provides critical insights into the conditions that foster effective diversity initiatives in senior corporate roles.…Read More

E-Governance and Digital Infrastructure in India

Philip Nichols, Legal Studies & Business Ethics, The Wharton School Abstract: An in depth, qualitative and descriptive examination of India’s digital infrastructure and the e-governance functions it enables. The research should produce (1) a descriptive white paper, with an intended audience of (a) policymakers in other emerging economies, (b) scholars…Read More

Can Artificial Intelligence Mitigate Inventor Productivity Decline after Co-Inventor Premature Death?

Although it is well documented that disruptive events, such as an inventor’s premature death, cause a large and persistent decline in their co-inventor’s innovation performance, strategies to mitigate these negative effects remain unexplored. This project aims to understand how an inventor’s skill and proficiency in artificial intelligence (AI) could counteract the productivity decline resulting from a co-inventor’s demise. We intend to first identify the specific challenges facing inventors in staying innovative after the unexpected death of their close collaborators. Furthermore…Read More

Strategic bootstrapping and startup experimentation

New ventures are grappling with the rising costs of capital (both debt and equity). As a result, investors of high-growth, technology-based startups are shifting focus to companies that can generate immediate cash. That is, investors are prioritizing cash flow positivity over growth. A recent report has documented that high-growth, technology-driven startups that are bootstrapped outperformed those that are VC-backed on both profitability and growth. Yet, the reason for this performance differential is poorly understood given that bootstrapping is an underexplored phenomenon due to the unavailability of large datasets to answer important questions. Through this study, we first seek to build a large, novel dataset that can facilitate research on bootstrapping. In addition, we immediately respond to two important questions pertaining to why bootstrapped startups may be better able to manage the balance between cash flow positivity and growth…Read More

Perceived Momentum in Media Consumption: Optimizing Binge-Watching

Every day, millions of people engage in the popular behavior called “binge-watching”, a type of media consumption where multiple episodes of the same TV show are seen in a row (Schweidel and Moe, 2016). Given how popular “binge-watching” is and how much streaming platforms are relying on it to recommend and create new content to stream, it is very important to understand whether consumers are satisfied by their binging sessions and whether recommendation systems are well calibrated in suggesting binge-worthy content that will maximize this satisfaction.…Read More

A Second Opinion: Impact of Generative AI on Information Acquisition Processes, Performance, and Service Quality

Since ChatGPT’s launch in November 2022, a surge of studies has underscored generative AI’s potential across a wide range of applications, including improving entrepreneurial performance, spurring innovation, and even providing more ethical advice. Less attention has been garnered about how AI impacts the efficiency of a decision-maker’s information search process. In the context of health care, medical providers review existing patient information (i.e., their medical history) and then must ask a series of questions to the patient or run diagnostic tests to make their diagnosis. While there is inherent uncertainty, the provider faces a trade-off between acquiring additional information from the patient to increase certainty over a diagnosis and…Read More