Matthew Bird

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Matthew Bird is an Associate Professor at the Universidad del Pacífico Graduate School of Business in Lima, Peru, where he also consults for private and non-profit clients helping them address social impact challenges. His research seeks to design and evaluate innovative interventions that better harvest local solutions to solve common social challenges. Areas of focus include the leveraging of digital technologies and behavioral insights in the areas of financial inclusion, entrepreneurship, migration, and post-conflict reconstruction.

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Papers by Matthew Bird

The Impact of Emergency Cash-Transfers During COVID-19: Evidence from Peru

The pandemic and the health and economic crisis associated with it have had disruptive effects in... more The pandemic and the health and economic crisis associated with it have had disruptive effects in households around the world, with greater effects among poor and vulnerable populations. The most effective containment measures imposed varying degrees of mobility restrictions that have had a devastating effect on the economy. As lockdown measures are lifted, several service-intensive sectors have a hard time recovering, leaving several unemployed. A recent study shows that only a few are able to work from home, and this share is further reduced in middle and low income countries (Sanchez et al., 2020). In economies with large informal sectors such as Peru, the effects of the pandemic have pushed several households into poverty due to a sudden loss of their main income and lack of financial resilience. The COVID-19 pandemic has also taken a toll on phycological well-being. In Peru, lockdown measures have been extreme and extended, forcing households to remain at home for over three an...

Everything that Rises Must Converge: Huaicos, the Spirit of Solidarity and the Asymmetrical Uses of Humanitarian Aid in Peru

The huaicos and flooding caused in 2017 by the El Nino Costero phenomenon mobilized Peruvian soci... more The huaicos and flooding caused in 2017 by the El Nino Costero phenomenon mobilized Peruvian society to give humanitarian aid. But to what extent did the humanitarian agenda and the victims’ needs misalign, and what are the implications for this asymmetry for the reproduction of pre-existing social relations? We answer these questions via a qualitative study with 80 interviews and 30 participant observation notes covering state and private actors and victims. The disaster created by the huaicos challenged the response capacity and accentuated social hierarchies. Humanitarian aid temporarily activated a spirit of solidarity that created an asymmetrical exchange of material and symbolic goods, which resulted in multiple uses for the aid. For example, those who donated goods also received recognition from the victims generating warm glow and prestige. But to what extent were the voices of the affected heard? This research contributes to the identification of practical ways to make huma...

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COVID-19 Cash Transfers for Venezuelan Migrants in Peru

AEA Randomized Controlled Trials, 2020

How Leaders Use Values-based Guidance Systems to Create Dynamic Capabilities

The Oxford Handbook of Dynamic Capabilities, 2015

How do strategic leaders create change-adept organizations? Based on qualitative field research, ... more How do strategic leaders create change-adept organizations? Based on qualitative field research, this chapter argues that well-defined institutionalized purpose, values, and principles act as an organizational guidance system that integrates and strengthens the micromechanisms which enable leaders to build dynamic capabilities and, therefore, change-adept organizations. From empirical case studies, we distill micromechanisms through which organizational guidance systems create fertile soil for dynamic capabilities. The five micromechanisms are values-based decision heuristics; intrinsic motivation with positive emotions; an organizational control system based on entrepreneurial self-organization, self-management, and peer regulation; an organizational identity that (a) fosters a longer-term perspective and (b) widens the firm’s scope; and ecosystem creation. While much of the dynamic capabilities literature has focused on testing causal relationships between key performance variable...

Hacia un nuevo modelo de las decisiones de compra: lógicas de consumo en jóvenes universitarios limeños

Repositorio de la Universidad del Pacífico - UP, 2014

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Looking through the glass, darkly

The Rise and Fall of Global Microcredit

Rosabeth Moss Kanter: A Kaleidoscopic Vision of Change

The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers

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‘Race,’ Ethnicity, and Forced Displacement

The Handbook of Displacement

Racial discrimination conditions the reception of displaced people within and beyond national bor... more Racial discrimination conditions the reception of displaced people within and beyond national borders and remains a critical component in contemporary refugee laws and policies. Freier et al. take a much-needed cross-regional look at the social and legal reception of forcibly displaced people as related to the sociocultural constructs of ‘race’ and ethnicity. They highlight the literature’s geographical bias, which impedes a broader historic, global, and thus theoretical understanding of the relationship between racism, citizenship, and displacement. Processes of racial discrimination and ethnic violence play out differently across the Global South, given countries’ respective histories. Based on their in-depth discussion, Freier et al. highlight avenues for further research on race, ethnicity, and forced displacement in postcolonial settings.

Gender and entrepreneurial propensity: risk-taking and prosocial preferences in labour market entry decisions

Social Enterprise Journal

Purpose This study aims to examine gender differences in risk-taking and prosociality through a h... more Purpose This study aims to examine gender differences in risk-taking and prosociality through a hypothetical labour market entry choice experiment. Design/methodology/approach To explore differences between male and female subjects by risk levels and framing effects, a labour market entry choice task that manipulated risk conditions was administered to business school students whereby subjects chose between a managerial job at a company, starting a commercial business or starting a social enterprise. The experimental design isolated and tested the influence of the type of value creation, risk propensity and framing effects. The results were then statistically analysed to test for significant differences between the two gender groups. Findings Results indicate that in low-risk conditions women prefer the prosocial entrepreneurial option while men opt for purely commercial entrepreneurial activities. As risk increases, differences between men and women initially converge and then reve...

A will in search of a way: philanthropy in education in Peru

Philanthropy in Education

Due mostly to increased mining exports in the early 2000s, the World Bank reclassified Peru as an... more Due mostly to increased mining exports in the early 2000s, the World Bank reclassified Peru as an upper middle-income country, which prompted overseas development assistance (ODA) organisations, comprised of multilateral and private institutions, to shift resources outside the country and call on local entities to better channel wealth to address social issues. Local philanthropists sought to meet the challenge, with over half of the country's philanthropic organisations founded after 2000. Still, Peru's human capital remains that of a lower middle-income economy and its educational achievements rank low in international evaluations (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2016). This lack of human capital spurred the creation of new local education-focused philanthropies, which account for the majority of the country's philanthropic organisations and a third of the philanthropic capital, according to a national survey (León & Bird, 2018). The will exists for change in Peru's education sector, yet clear pathways for how to scale these initiatives have yet to appear. But what new philanthropic and social investment models are emerging and what lessons does Peru offer to other countries caught in what we consider the middle-income social investment trap? We base our responses on an original qualitative and quantitative survey of 157 philanthropic and social investment organisations in Peru's 10 largest cities. First, we frame the role of philanthropy in education in Peru in the context of the development of philanthropy in the education sector and its relationship with the state. We then explain how Peru's strong economic performance since the year 2000 led to its reclassification as an upper middle-income country and the challenge this posed as international aid dwindled. We show how Peru's middle-income status did not translate into an improvement in quality of life indices, particularly education, as Peru's weak performance in international student assessments demonstrate. After detailing our methodology, we map the philanthropic organisations working in education in Peru and discuss characteristics such as the size of their investments, age, revenue models, beneficiaries and geographic scope. We then analyse how the organisations' transparency, governance and operational mechanisms reflect institutional quality in the sector, before concluding with questions about how the aforementioned components of institutional quality may provide a prescription for pathways to scale with impact not only in Peru but in other middle-income countries. <b>Philanthropy, Education and the State Philanthropic investment in education has been present since the birth of modern philanthropy in the United States, where in the late 1800s the education sector attracted private capital from the globe's first modern philanthropic institutions. In some respects, the U.S. case offers lessons for understanding the role philanthropy plays in education in emerging markets, especially among middle-income countries.

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Kanter, Rosabeth Moss: A Kaleidoscopic Vision of Change

The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers

Everything that Rises Must Converge: Huaicos, Communitas, and Humanitarian Exchange in Peru

Human Organization

While terms such as solidarity and communitas are invoked, sometimes interchangeably, to characte... more While terms such as solidarity and communitas are invoked, sometimes interchangeably, to characterize the feeling of togetherness supporting mutual aid during the emergency phase of disasters, they are not identical phenomena. This article examines the 2017 Peruvian huiaco disaster to understand the role communitas and reciprocity play in the mobilization of emergency aid and the growing sense of togetherness buttressing its distribution. Via an in situ qualitative study conducted as the disaster unfolded, we analyze how the huaicos or flashfloods and mudslides caused by the El Niño phenomenon activated a temporary but structured humanitarian exchange that filled voids left by disrupted markets and debilitated local, regional, and national governments. This aid resulted from a media-fueled sense of togetherness that motivated an asymmetric exchange based on principles of redistribution and generalized reciprocity. While the short-term feeling of togetherness offered a glimpse of pos...

The migration journey and mental health: Evidence from Venezuelan forced migration

SSM - Population Health

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Hacia el fortalecimiento de la filantropía institucional en América Latina

Agenda de acción para el fortalecimiento de la filantropía institucional en América Latina Refere... more

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Freeing Financial Education via Tablets: Experimental Evidence from Colombia

for research assistance at the Universidad del Pacífico. The views expressed herein are those of ... more for research assistance at the Universidad del Pacífico. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

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Procter & Gamble Brazil (TN) (A) and (B)

Transforming Verizon: A Platform for Change (TN)

Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global (TN)

Since the 1980's, Procter & Gamble had leveraged its purpose, values, and principles (PVP... more Since the 1980's, Procter & Gamble had leveraged its purpose, values, and principles (PVP) to create a global company. When P&G faced difficult times in 2000, the new CEO, A.G. Lafley, leveraged the PVP to drive P&G's turnaround, integrate global operations, and guide decision-making in all facets of the business. But the Gillette acquisition posed a new challenge.