Employee Motivation - Publications - Faculty & Research

10 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Do You Have Change Fatigue?

bubble has burst: no longer obsessed with the need for larger-than-life leaders and their grand strategies, we can now focus on a quieter, more evolutionary approach to change, one that relies on employee View Details

Keywords: by Nick Morgan

18 Nov 2002
Research & Ideas

Where Morals and Profits Meet: The Corporate Value Shift

working in this area, the field was just beginning to emerge. At the time, corporations were being taken to task for a host of moral failings—neglecting consumer and employee safety, ignoring civil rights, polluting the environment,... View Details

Keywords: by Carla Tishler

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

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

18 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

Looking in the Mirror: Questions Every Leader Must Ask

an organization where employees are expending their energies in a number of divergent and uncoordinated directions." Leaders need to ask whether they articulate a clear vision and, just as importantly, whether their key View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

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

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

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

03 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Articles of 2010

more effective negotiator, and motivating great work from others. Here are the Top 10 articles and Top 10 working papers that appeared in HBS Working Knowledge in 2010. Now turn your attention to 2011 and tell us in the Comment section... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

31 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 31

Despite the increasing importance of social and environmental practices, they also had a cost for the firm and its portfolio companies. How could the firm most effectively motivate its portfolio companies to actively integrate social and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

The Pandemic Conversations That Leaders Need to Have Now

conversations with individual employees during this critical time. Conversations are the best way to get leaders and employees back into the practice of relating to one another in person. How are people... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg, Robin Abrahams, and Katherine Connolly Baden

16 Jan 2006
Research & Ideas

Adam Smith, Behavioral Economist?

long-term interests with short-term pulls, etc. One of the most unexplored areas, which we are only now beginning to be able to measure, is the degree to which people are motivated by the "aerial coin of praise" and social... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen

October 2000 (Revised June 2017)
Case

Vyaderm Pharmaceuticals: The EVA Decision

By: Robert Simons and Indra A. Reinbergs

In 2016, the new CEO of Vyaderm Pharmaceuticals introduces an Economic Value Added (EVA) program to focus the company on long-term shareholder value. The EVA program consists of three elements: EVA centers (business units), EVA drivers (operational practices that... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Employee Relationship Management; Economic Growth; Economic Systems; Management; Motivation and Incentives; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Performance Evaluation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Pharmaceutical Industry; Washington (state, US)

Citation

Educators

Purchase

14 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restarting Under Uncertainty: Managerial Experiences from Around the World

additional informational benefit, allowing firms to fully grasp the magnitude of the pandemic in its early days, when exact information on COVID-19 was still scarce. This was the case of VacuumCo, a German company with over 3,500 View Details

Keywords: by Raffaella Sadun, Andrea Bertoni, Alexia Delfino, Giovanni Fassio, and Mariapaola Testa

03 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Dealing with the ‘Irrational’ Negotiator

as irrational. We will also describe the dangers of doing so and explain how to avoid making such mistakes. Mistake 1: They Are Not Irrational; They Are Uninformed An executive (who is one of Deepak's students) was recently involved in a dispute with an ex-employee.... View Details

Keywords: by Deepak Malhotra & Max H. Bazerman

27 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

Can Being the ‘Token’ Give Women and Minorities a Competitive Edge?

steps toward addressing institutional racism Companies have long used competition to motivate employees to think creatively and push themselves. Law firms, consultancies, and other adherents to the “up or... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

03 Jul 2012
First Look

First Look: July 3

"magic"-the tight strategic alignment, the high level of employee engagement-that drove and animated their organization when it was a start-up? As more and more executives have discovered in recent years, the answer to this... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

Negotiating in Three Dimensions

purchasing agent may be motivated by monthly targets and pennies ground out of suppliers. To succeed, the supplier may need to create a more promising set-up with more sympathetic parties involved in the negotiation. When talks stall,... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

09 Jun 2021
Research & Ideas

How Tennis, Golf, and White Anxiety Block Racial Integration

interacting with racial minorities motivates White people to self-segregate, says Harvard Business School professor Jon M. Jachimowicz. And White people often attempt to erect barriers—even seemingly innocuous ones like stricter dress... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald

09 Jan 2006
Research & Ideas

When Benchmarks Don’t Work

motivates employees to execute strategy effectively. The value of these programs is measured by the value they create in the enterprise, not by how little is spent on them. An adequate technology... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan; Service

Publications