Current Research

Beyond Averages: How Do Customers Respond to Wait Time Distributions?

Co-authored with Kyle Hyndman and Andrew Davis.
Waiting is something we encounter daily, whether standing in line at a coffee shop, awaiting a ride-share pickup at the airport, or sitting in a doctor’s office. In this study, we examine how different aspects of waiting affect our preferences among service providers. Our findings reveal that people respond negatively to waits that are more uncertain, more skewed, or less well understood. Read more

Understanding Sequential Decision Strategies

Co-authored with Stephen Leider and Ozge Sahin.
In this paper we look at how people make dynamic (sequential) decisions. We examine decision-making in a range of dynamic problems and find, unsurprisingly, that most people are not ‘forward-looking optimizers’. Rather, decision rules depend on the type of environment: decision rules are static in stopping problems (Stop in round X), but are quite sophisticated in other dynamic problems. Read more

Mentoring in Startup Ecosystems

Co-authored with Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, David Brophy, Thomas Jensen and Melanie Milovac.
In this report (commissioned by the Kauffman foundation) we look at how entrepreneurial accelerators and incubators organize their mentoring initiatives. We distill some of the best practices and discuss the differences between university and non-university accelerators, and the lessons learned for setting up such programs. Read more

Startup Contracting and Entrepreneur-Investor Bargaining

Co-authored with Kyle Hyndman and Anyan Qi.
In this research we study how entrepreneurs and investors divide equity. We use the Nash bargaining framework and test several predictions in the lab. We find that the number of investors can have either a positive or a negative effect on the ability of the entrepreneur to retain equity in their venture. Preferred Stock contracts, which are popular in practice, lead to more aggressive investor bargaining tactics. Read more

Beyond Algorithm Aversion: The Role of Risk and Gatekeeper Aversion in AI Chatbot Adoption

Co-authored with Maqbool Dada and Brett Hathaway.
Chatbot technology can help service firms reduce staffing needs and achieve cost savings. In this paper we use online experiments to examine how people respond to chatbots. We examine when and why chatbots are underutilized and propose a simple nudge to increase chatbot adoption. Read more

On Repeat: Does Iteration Drive Innovation?

Co-authored with Tobias Lieberum, Sebastian Schiffels and Sebastian Jost.
In this paper we examine how agile development principles (iterative sprints, autonomy) affect innovation performance. We find that frequent iterations help improve performance in complex tasks by increasing exploration behaviors. The main mechanism is slower learning under sequential (non-iterative) workflow. Read more

Evgeny Kagan