Employee Motivation - Publications - Faculty & Research

01 Jun 2007
What Do You Think?

How Should Pay Be Linked to Performance?

employees for their) competence. So beyond paying for (their) performance, why don't we think more about (paying to retain them) for (their) competence?" Pallavi Marathe concurs, saying that "Salary and retention are interlinked... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

24 Oct 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, October 24, 2017

motivation, perspective-taking, and performance, such that identity conflict negatively and enhancement positively affect all three variables above and beyond average identification. Intrinsic motivation further mediates the relationships... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

03 Dec 2020
Research & Ideas

Cut Payroll Costs with Transparency, Fairness, and Compassion

Engaged and Motivated Good Leadership Is an Act of Kindness Some companies have opted to make pay cuts commensurate with salary ranges, with higher-paid employees taking a larger percentage cut than... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott

17 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

Why Quiet Quitters Need More Than Money to Re-Engage

employers and employees as ones of material benefits.” After all, it’s not all about making money, says DeLong, a Baker Foundation Professor of Management Practice at HBS. What employees really crave, the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

02 Apr 2020
What Do You Think?

What Are Lessons for Leaders from This Black Swan Crisis?

outbreaks Climate change and its ensuing environmental, economic and social disasters is the next White Swan.” JSD saw a possible motive behind the debate when he opined that, “In the corporate sector, the continuing effort to brand the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

20 Dec 2010
Research & Ideas

Panama Canal: Troubled History, Astounding Turnaround

sufficiently motivated group of commandos) could knock the canal out for at least a year. Sabotage would be harder during wartime, of course—the only battle during World War II that would have been affected by adding 17 days of additional... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Transportation

03 Oct 2017
First Look

First Look at Research and Ideas, October 3, 2017

Tatiana Sandino Abstract—Using retail chain data, we study the effects of a tournament incentive plan incorporating objective and subjective criteria. In principle, such plans could motivate employees to... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

09 Feb 2015
Research & Ideas

Professional Networking Makes People Feel Dirty

partner level because they hadn't been turned off by networking. To further suss out the psychological effect of power, the team conducted a carefully constructed role-playing task, in which 149 college students were assigned to the role of either a low-power View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

22 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Bringing ‘Lean’ Principles to Service Industries

Wipro Technologies, an Indian outsource provider of software services, launches its own lean initiative. "In terms of operations and improvements, the service industries in general are a long way behind manufacturing," Upton says. "The View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Computer

01 Nov 2021
Op-Ed

Team Success Starts with the Individual—and with Love

thrive? Carroll’s inquiry into unleashing human potential began with a well-known idea dating back to the psychologist Abraham Maslow and others: the notion that intrinsic, not just extrinsic, rewards motivate people to excel. My own... View Details

Keywords: by Ranjay Gulati; Sports

13 Feb 2006
Research & Ideas

When Gender Changes the Negotiation

negotiations. After all, analysts in the investment management industry have highly portable skills and are frequently poached by competing firms. And though all of Park's employees were performing roughly the same work, they had... View Details

Keywords: by Dina W. Pradel, Hannah Riley Bowles & Kathleen L. McGinn

28 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Making the Decision to Franchise (or not)

demographic characteristics. Motivated Managers That is one of the biggest decisions a business can make, Campbell says. Franchising creates a strong motivation for local managers to maximize performance,... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

04 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Is Web Surfing Distracting Your Workers?

such as cutting access to the Internet, companies should enact policies that minimize the distraction on employees. "There are many companies that are prohibiting the private Internet use during official hours," says Piovesan. "It means View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

02 Jul 2018
Research & Ideas

Corporate Tax Cuts Don't Increase Middle Class Incomes

0.5 percent. The federal tax cut reduced rates by 14 percent, so the income-shifting motivation is likely to be much stronger.” Prior research largely focused on how personal taxes impact income inequity, and Rouen wanted to take a... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland

22 Mar 2013
Research & Ideas

Pulling Campbell’s Out of the Soup

to imagine that we could inspire high performance with no employee engagement." Conant decided to grow the soup business, and he championed the idea of "winning" on two fronts--in the workplace and in the marketplace. To... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Food & Beverage

11 Aug 2008
Research & Ideas

Strategy Execution and the Balanced Scorecard

fourth book, Alignment, described principle #3, how to create and capture corporate synergies through vertical and horizontal alignment of business and support units. The fourth book also contained material on principle #4, aligning and View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

11 Oct 2016
First Look

October 11, 2016

Fails—and What to Do about It By: Beer, Michael, Magnus Finnström, and Derek Schrader Abstract—U.S. corporations spend enormous amounts of money—some $456 billion globally in 2015 alone—on employee training and education, but they aren't... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Feb 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: February 21

explores how language shapes the ways in which employees who work in global organizations communicate and negotiate linguistic and cultural differences. Bringing together 650 interviews conducted across Rakuten’s locations in Brazil,... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

05 Oct 2020
Book

Want to Be Happier? Make More Free Time

research shows that supervisors are actually more willing to grant extensions than employees realize; in fact, they tend to view those who request extra breathing room as highly motivated View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

11 Apr 2022
Research & Ideas

A World of Difference: What Keeps Companies from Becoming More Inclusive

organizations that want to change, it’s completely accessible. You see both the capability and the motivation, whereas before maybe you had the motivation but not the capability. And now the business case for DEI is overwhelmingly clear.... View Details

Keywords: by Jen McFarland Flint

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