While business scholars traditionally have depended on hard corporate data and previous studies to perform research, they are also hinging their hypotheses on proactive sociological and psychological experiments—both in the lab and in the field. These experiments are proving integral in learning not only what makes people tick, but also how that matters for business.
So, in addition to asking firms to provide data for them to analyze, researchers increasingly are proposing partnerships in which scholars and firms do experiments together. Agreeing to be part of a field experiment can be time-consuming for a company, but the results can be invaluable in showing firms why certain operating procedures do or don’t work.
HBS Working Knowledge recently launched The Research Exchange, a place for Harvard Business School faculty to post field studies in which firms may wish to participate. The ultimate goal: to solve various dilemmas facing companies all over the world.
For example, Doctoral Student Andrew Brodsky is studying how Internet access at work affects employee productivity. And Assistant Professor Ryan Buell is studying the extent to which the price you charge for service affects how much it costs you to provide that service.
Click on The Research Exchange to find out whether any of the listed field studies might be a good fit for your company. By forming a collaborative partnership with an HBS faculty member, your firm could gain the competitive advantage of finding answers first—and, ultimately, make a difference for the world of business.
– Carmen Nobel