Kariyushi Rao
Warwick Business School
University of Warwick, Scarman Road
Coventry CV4 7AL

Research interests: Causal reasoning, responsibility attribution, organizational
learning, social learning strategies, social networks

EDUCATION

The University of Chicago                                                                                         Chicago, IL
Doctor of Philosophy in Behavioral Science                                                               March 2021

  • Dissertation area: Behavioral Science (support area: Organizations and Markets)
  • Dissertation: “Collective response to scarcity: How the resource environment
    shapes social networks” (Rao, Kariyushi. The University of Chicago, ProQuest
    Dissertations Publishing, 2021. 28414556) [GitHub] [Dissertation Manuscript]
  • Advisors: Reid Hastie (Chair), Richard Thaler, Ronald S. Burt, Emir Kamenica, John Levi Martin, Michael Gibbs

Master of Science in Computer Science                                                               December 2016

  • Focus: Software Engineering
  • Languages: Java, Python, Ruby (on Rails), R, SQL, PHP, HTML, JavaScript, CSS

Master of Business Administration                                                                       December 2012

  • Concentrations: Organizational Behavior, Strategic Management, Economics, Entrepreneurship
  • Honors & awards: Dean’s Award of Distinction (2012)

Stanford University – Center for Professional Development                         Palo Alto, CA
Stanford Certified Project Manager (SCPM)                                                      November 2009

Bowdoin College                                                                                                  Brunswick, ME
Bachelor of Arts                                                                                                               May 2007

  • Majors: Government, Romance Languages (Minor: Asian Studies)

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

Warwick Business School                                                                                    Coventry, UK
Houlden Postdoctoral Teaching & Research Fellow,                        September 2022 – Present
Behavioural Science Group

The University of Chicago Booth School of Business                                          Chicago, IL
Graduate Research & Teaching Assistant,                                     May 2016 – September 2022
Behavioral Science Department

Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University                          Evanston, IL
Postdoctoral Scholar, Center for Science of Science and                         March–October 2021
Innovation

PUBLICATIONS

Rao, Kariyushi, and Hastie, Reid. (2023). Predicting outcomes in a sequence of
binary events: Belief updating and gambler’s fallacy reasoning.  Cognitive
Science, 47: e13211. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13211
Links: [OSF] [GitHub] [Supplementary Material]
Description: Previous investigations of the hot hand and the gambler’s fallacies
conflated qualitative descriptions of an outcome-generating process with beliefs about
the base rate at which that process produces different outcomes. The present research distinguishes between beliefs about the causal generator versus beliefs about the base
rate. In six behavioral studies, we manipulate participants’ beliefs about the base rate of
three processes: a random mechanical device, an intentional agent, and a market. We
find that hot hand patterns arise when the base rate is uncertain, while gambler’s fallacy patterns only (partially) appear when people hold strong prior beliefs about the base
rate, and the data generating process is described as a random mechanical device.

WORKING PAPERS

Rao, Kariyushi. (Revise & Resubmit, Organization Science). Communication networks under crisis: The effect of competition and resource shocks on information sharing. 
Links: [GitHub] [Working Paper]
Description: The present study investigates the underlying mechanisms that drive changes in the structure of communication networks under crisis.  The present experiments are the first to cleanly separate the effect of downward shifts in resource levels from that of competition, two factors that are often confounded in prior research.  I introduce interactive groups of experimental participants to a novel n-armed bandit task with a reward distribution that is either stable or subjected to (upward or downward) shifts in reward levels. Participants choose whether or not to supply information about their choices and outcomes to their peers, and whether to seek this information from their peers. Half of the experimental groups are exposed to interpersonal competition through a bonus scheme based on relative performance. The bonus amounts are trivial compared to the expected increase in individual rewards under full information sharing.   I find that competition independently decreases willingness to supply information to peers.  Information seeking also declines as a result of this decrease in supply.  These changes in information sharing at the individual level produce a pattern of contraction at the network level, including a decrease in density and an increase in centralization.  I do not find evidence that resource shocks affect information sharing behavior.  However, negative (but not positive) resource shocks affect individual search strategies.  Participants exposed to negative resource shocks explore more and exploit less often than participants exposed to positive shocks or to a stable environment.

WORKS IN PROGRESS

Rao, Kariyushi. (In Preparation). Do people undervalue random samples of the environment? Comparing people’s appetite for random versus social side observations in an explore-exploit task.
Links: [GitHub]
Description:People often have to choose between sticking with the best option they’ve found so far, or searching for something new and better. The way people manage this exploration-exploitation dilemma has been well-studied in organizational, individual, and natural (non-human animal) contexts.  In its original form, the dilemma is presented as a choice between directly sampling the environment (exploration) or exploiting options that were directly sampled in the past.  An important extension incorporates access to side observations.  Side observations are indirect samples of the environment that do not directly affect an agent’s payoffs.  For example, Social Learning Strategies (SLS) Theory ([Giraldeau, L. A., & Caraco, T. (2000). Social Foraging Theory. Princeton University Press]) articulates the general rules by which people (and animals) choose to learn by observing their peers’ choices and outcomes.  The primary goal of the present research is to investigate the effect of resource shocks on people’s search strategies in an explore-exploit task.  In particular, I am interested in the way resource shocks affect rates of exploration, exploitation, and appetite for side observations.  An important secondary goal is to test whether people value side observations differently depending on their source.  I contrast experimental participants’ appetite for social side observations generated by their peers with their appetite for side observations that are generated by a random sampling algorithm.  I find that: (1) people exposed to a negative resource shock increase exploration and decrease exploitation, (2) people exposed to a positive resource shock decrease exploitation while exploration remains unchanged, (3) the first two results disappear in the presence of side observations, and (4) people are more likely to ignore random side observations than social side observations.  Contrary to recent research by Winet and colleagues [Winet, Y. K., Tu, Y., Choshen-Hillel, S., & Fishbach, A. (2022). Social exploration: When people deviate from options explored by others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 122(3), 427.], I find that people explore less in a social context than when information about their options is provided by a random sampling device.

TEACHING 

  • Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, undergraduate, masters, and doctoral programs (Autumn 2022 – Present): Big Data Analytics, Behavioural Finance & Big Data, Business Statistics, Data Driven Decision Making, Machine Learning and Data Analytics
  • The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Full-Time, Part-Time, and
    Executive MBA Programs (Winter 2014 – Present): Effective Management of Groups and Teams, Leadership Capital, Managerial Decision Making, Managing the Workplace, New Venture Strategy, Organizations and Incentives, Power and Influence in Organizations, Strategies and Processes of Negotiation, Strategic Leadership
  • The University of Chicago Masters Program in Computer Science (Winter 2022–
    Present): Applied Software Engineering, Human-Computer Interaction, Introduction to Software Engineering,
  • The College at the University of Chicago (Winter 2022): Managing in Organizations
  • Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Full-Time MBA
    Program (Autumn 2020): Social Dynamics and Network Analysis
  • The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, Double Executive
    Masters in Health Policy (Spring 2019): Leadership, Negotiation, and Advocacy in
    Health Policy: Strategies and Tactics

AWARDS & GRANTS

Outstanding TA Award, EXP-27 Cohort, The University of Chicago Booth School
of Business Executive MBA Program.  June 2022.

Outstanding TA Award, XP-91 Cohort, The University of Chicago Booth School
of Business Executive MBA Program.  June 2022.

Co-PI, “DOCTORAL DISSERTATION RESEARCH IN DRMS Collective Response to
Scarcity: How the Resource Environment Shapes Social Networks”, National Science Foundation (NSF) Award #2018173, $39,191, 08/2020 – 07/2021.

PI, “Theory-of-Mind Reasoning in P-Beauty Contests: How Knowledge of
Counterparts’ Experience and Expertise Matters,” Center for Decision Research,
The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, $3,000.  Winter 2018.

PRESENTATIONS & INVITED TALKS

“Confronting Challenges in the Design and Execution of Interactive Online Experiments,”
Experimental Organization Science (EOS)  Masterclass. October, 2023.

“How scarcity affects the emergence and evolution of communication networks among strategic human decision-makers,” INSNA/Sunbelt Conference.  Portland, OR.  June, 2023.

“Do people undervalue random samples of the environment? Comparing people’s appetite for random versus social side observations in an explore-exploit task,” SOD Seminar.  Odense, Denmark.  April, 2023.

“The Sales Game: A multiplayer multi-armed bandit game,” Collaboratorium, Aarhus University.  Aarhus, Denmark.  February, 2023.

“Collective response to scarcity: How the resource environment shapes social
networks,” Theoretical Organizational Models (TOM) Society Annual Meeting.
Rome, Italy.  June, 2022.

“Predicting outcomes in a sequence of binary events: A belief-updating account of
hot hand and gamblers fallacy judgment patterns,” The Society for Judgment and
Decision Making Conference.  Montréal, QC, Canada.  November, 2019.

“Women at Work: Challenges and Opportunities,” Power of Women Inaugural
Meeting.  AllianceBernstein.  Chicago, IL.  June, 2018.

SERVICE

  • Ad Hoc Reviewer
    • Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
    • Peer Community In
    • Organization Science
    • Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
  • Member, Editorial Board (Special Issue)
    • Special Issue on Analytical Creativity, Information Systems Research
  • Member, PhD Brown Bag Organizing Committee, Theoretical Organizational Models
    (TOM) Society (2022-Present)
  • Member, PhD Program Student Advisory Committee, The Booth School of Business
    (2019-2020)
  • Incoming PhD Student Mentor, The Booth School of Business (2017 – 2021)
  • Member, Dean’s Student Advisory Council, The University of Chicago Physical
    Sciences Division (2015 – 2016)

SKILLS

  • Statistical analysis languages and software: R, HLM, MMWS, Stata, SPSS
  • Web-based experimental design languages, platforms, and software: oTree,
    Django, psiTurk, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Ruby (on Rails), Qualtrics, Mechanical
    Turk, Heroku, AWS
  • Programming languages: Java, Python, SQL
  • Human languages: Intermediate French (conversation, reading), intermediate
    Spanish (conversation, reading), native English

PATENTS

Rao, Kariyushi.  Methods, Systems and Media for Presenting Commerce Information Related to Video Content. October 15, 2015. US Patent Publication No. US20150296250. European Patent Publication No. EP3129940. Chinese Patent Publication No. CN106462874. PCT Patent Publication No. WO2015157714.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Google, Inc.                                  Mountain View, CA (2007-08) / Chicago, IL (2008-2015)
The ZOO, Global Creative Services Team                                                                  2011 – 2015

  • Account Director (January 2014 – April 2015): Developed and implemented large-scale, global advertising and marketing programs (min $2M investment) for Google’s
    top clients.
  • Interactive Project Manager / Producer (October 2011 – February 2014): Led
    development and launch of large-scale advertising programs and custom
    mobile/web platforms (min $1.5M client investment).

Global Learning and Development                                                                            2013 – 2015

  • (Volunteer) Global Program Manager: Managed global project management training program (100+ volunteer trainers, 120+ sessions a year), developed curriculum, and designed and delivered custom programs.

Affiliate Network                                                                                                          2008 – 2011

  • Business Strategist (May 2010 – October 2011): Managed team of 10 offshore
    contractors. Streamlined key business processes, and developed actionable business intelligence tools.
  • Publisher Support Associate (December 2008 – June 2010): Managed client-facing
    help center, authored technical articles, delivered reactive and proactive support to
    site-owners and merchants.

People Operations                                                                                                      2007 – 2008

  • HR Business Partner Rotational Associate (May 2008 – December 2008): Led human resources analytics and staffing programs and projects. Led global overhaul of
    engineering job ladders.
  • People Programs Rotational Associate (July 2007 – May 2008): Managed hiring
    process and advised senior executives on hiring decisions.