Publications

06 Aug 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Buy Local? The Geography of Successful and Unsuccessful Venture Capital Expansion

Keywords: by Henry Chen, Paul A. Gompers, Anna Kovner & Josh Lerner

January 2008
Article

Mastering the Management System

By: Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton

Companies have always found it hard to balance pressing operational concerns with long-term strategic priorities. The tension is critical: World-class processes won't lead to success without the right strategic direction, and the best strategy in the world will get... View Details

Keywords: Framework; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Management Systems; Operations; Performance Improvement; Strategy

04 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Is Web Surfing Distracting Your Workers?

the promise of eventual reward of candy and soda: They not only completed fewer tasks, but also made more mistakes, which downgraded their performance. “We'd expect to find that being more flexible in monitoring Internet use could... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

28 Apr 2022
Research & Ideas

Can You Buy Creativity in the Gig Economy?

through a flat fee also propel them to produce more interesting content. The findings may prompt publishers to consider changing their pay structure in ways that reward writers for originality. Beyond publishing, the research sheds light on effective ways of tying pay... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

14 Aug 2007
First Look

First Look: August 14, 2007

clients and employees who felt betrayed by the firm's apparent misconduct. He must confront some tough decisions about recently uncovered questions concerning the handling of certain accounting transactions three years earlier and about the continued lagging View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Teaching Interest

Executive Education: Finance for Senior Executives

By: Malcolm P. Baker

Finance for Senior Executives provides the frameworks to strategically use financial resources and position your company for future success. By examining corporate finance from both internal and external perspectives, this HBS Executive Education View Details

March 2012
Article

The Incentive Bubble

By: Mihir Desai

The past three decades have seen American capitalism quietly transformed by a single, powerful idea—that financial markets are a suitable tool for measuring performance and structuring compensation. Stock instruments for managers, high-powered incentive contracts for... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Financial Markets; Executive Compensation; Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Governance; Equality and Inequality; Human Capital; United States

2024
Working Paper

Anytime-Valid Inference in Linear Models and Regression-Adjusted Causal Inference

By: Michael Lindon, Dae Woong Ham, Martin Tingley and Iavor I. Bojinov

Linear regression adjustment is commonly used to analyze randomized controlled experiments due to its efficiency and robustness against model misspecification. Current testing and interval estimation procedures leverage the asymptotic distribution of such estimators to... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Analytics and Data Science

2024
Working Paper

Corporate Culture Homogeneity and Top Executive Incentive Design: Evidence from CEO Compensation Contracts

By: Dennis Campbell, Ruidi Shang and Zhifang Zhang

We examine how corporate cultures characterized by high degrees of homogeneity in the underlying values and beliefs of organizational members are related to the design of CEO incentive compensation contracts. We argue that culture homogeneity within firms lowers... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Culture; Compensation Design; Accounting; Management Control; Incentive Systems; Organizational Culture; Job Design and Levels; Governance; Executive Compensation; Motivation and Incentives

2019
White Paper

Impact-Weighted Financial Accounts: The Missing Piece for an Impact Economy

By: George Serafeim, T. Robert Zochowski and Jennifer Downing

Reimagining capitalism is an imperative. We need to create a more inclusive and sustainable form of capitalism that works for every person and the planet. Massive environmental damage, growing income and wealth disparity, stress, and depression within developed... View Details

Keywords: Impact-Weighted Accounts; IWAI; Background; Economic Systems; Economy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Measurement and Metrics; Financial Statements

2009
Chapter

Evaluating the Impact of SA8000 Certification

By: Michael J. Hiscox, Claire Schwartz and Michael W. Toffel

SA 8000, along with other types of certification standards and corporate codes of conduct, represents a new form of private governance of working conditions, initiated and implemented by companies, labor unions, and non-governmental activist groups. Whether these codes... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Working Conditions; Standards; Performance Evaluation

May 2011
Article

The Power of Small Wins

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer

What is the best way to motivate employees to do creative work? Help them take a step forward every day. In an analysis of knowledge workers' diaries, the authors found that nothing contributed more to a positive inner work life (the mix of emotions, motivations, and... View Details

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In this book we study the evolution of corporate governance arrangements that governments have adopted for their state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the last 20 years. We show that the process of privatization and liberalization of the 1990s and early 2000s created... View Details

06 Nov 2012
First Look

First Look: November 6

with firm value and operating performance persisted. Read the paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1589731 Does Management Really Work? Authors: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun, and John Van Reenen Publication:... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2006
Case

Nutricia Middle East: Measuring Sales Force Effectiveness

Nutricia's Middle East and African region is transitioning from a trading to a customer focus. CEO Ernest Vandenbussche must decide how to market infant milk formula most effectively in a region where the information environment is much less rich than in other... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Salesforce Management; Customer Relationship Management; Emerging Markets; Nutrition; Performance Effectiveness; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Health Industry; Middle East; Africa

Educators

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August 2013
Teaching Note

Nutricia Middle East: Measuring Sales Force Effectiveness

By: F. Asis Martinez-Jerez

Nutricia's Middle East and African region is transitioning from a trading to a customer focus. CEO Ernest Vandenbussche must decide how to market infant milk formula most effectively in a region where the information environment is much less rich than in other... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Customer Relationship Management; Commercialization; Management Practices and Processes; Salesforce Management; Nutrition; Performance Evaluation; Information Management; Health Industry; Africa; Middle East

Purchase

17 Feb 2009
Research & Ideas

What’s Good about Quiet Rule-Breaking

place them in a readily available collective. Paramedics are a telling example given the costly implications of malpractice in the United States. Paramedics are supposed to bring patients to attending physicians (most often in emergency rooms) and are not supposed to... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

January 2006
Article

Are Perks Purely Managerial Excess?

By: Raghuram G. Rajan and Julie Wulf

A widespread view is that executive perks exemplify agency problems--they are a route through which managers misappropriate a firm's surplus. Accordingly, firms with high free cash flow, operating in industries with limited investment prospects, should offer more... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Cash Flow; Business or Company Management; Situation or Environment; Performance Productivity; Investment; Executive Compensation