Publications

Educators

Research Summary

Organizational Change: The Market for Corporate Control and the Third Industrial Revolution

Michael C. Jensen is conducting research on organizational change and the corporate control market. Specifically, he is investigating the changing role of the corporation and competing organizational forms, such as leveraged buyout organizations, that are replacing... View Details

Article

The Art of Balancing Autonomy and Control: What Managers Can Learn from Hackathon Organizers about Spurring Innovation.

By: Hila Lifshitz - Assaf, Sarah Lebovitz and Lior Zalmanson

Today, managers recognize that innovation requires a high level of work autonomy for their employees. This encourages curiosity, enables independent thinking, and provides an environment in which employees can experiment and test new problem-solving approaches with... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Hackathon; Autonomy; Control; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management

March 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Technical Note

Control or Flexibility? Structured Empowerment Offers Both — Lessons from Retail & Service Chains

By: Tatiana Sandino

This note explains how several retail and service organizations use a practice described here as “structured empowerment” to balance control and flexibility as they grow. I define structured empowerment as a practice that grants employees both (a) the power to make... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Standards; Employees; Service Delivery; Decision Making; Power and Influence; Retail Industry; Service Industry

Educators

September 2017
Article

The Real Effects of Capital Controls: Firm-Level Evidence from a Policy Experiment

By: Laura Alfaro, Anusha Chari and Fabio Kanczuk

Emerging-market governments adopted capital control taxes to manage the massive surge in foreign capital inflows in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Theory suggests that the imposition of capital controls can drive up the cost of capital and curb... View Details

Keywords: Capital Controls; Discriminatory Taxation; International Investment Barriers; Exports; Debt; Cost of Capital; Taxation; Investment; Borrowing and Debt; Equity; Brazil

2020
Working Paper

(When) Does Appearance Matter? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Christos A. Makridis and Subhradip Sarker

While there is evidence about labor market discrimination based on race, religion, and gender, we know little about whether physical appearance leads to discrimination in labor market outcomes. We deploy a randomized experiment on 1,000 respondents in India between... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Economics; Coronavirus; Discrimination; Homophily; Labor Market Mobility; Limited Attention; Resumes; Personal Characteristics; Prejudice and Bias

July 1977
Article

Social Roles, Social Control and Biases in Social Perception Processes

By: L. D. Ross, T. M. Amabile and J. Steinmetz

To make accurate social judgments, an individual must both recognize and adequately correct for the self-presentation advantages or disadvantages conferred upon actors by their social roles. Two experiments using 120 undergraduates examined social perceptions formed... View Details

Keywords: Perception; Prejudice and Bias; Social Psychology; Judgments; Power and Influence; Status and Position; Situation or Environment

25 Jun 2019
Research & Ideas

The Powerful Strategic Tool Companies Should Not Try to Control

mind that communities are governed very differently than companies. User communities operate outside the boundaries of the firm even in cases where the community organizes around a firm’s core products––and firms can therefore not View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

September 1991 (Revised January 2017)
Teaching Note

Nordstrom: Dissension in the Ranks? (A) and (B)

By: Robert Simons

Teaching Note for Nordstrom: Dissension in the Ranks, Case A (191-002) and Case B (192-027) View Details

Keywords: Strategy And Execution; Control Systems; Performance Goals; Incentives; Span Of Control; Span Of Accountability; Problems and Challenges; Retail Industry

June 2017
Teaching Note

Organizing for Performance: Four Vignettes

By: Robert Simons and Jennifer Packard

Teaching Note for HBS No. 117-062. View Details

Keywords: Strategy And Execution; Management Control Systems; Organization; Span Of Control; Resource Allocation

November 2022
Article

The Sharp Spikes of Poverty: Financial Scarcity Is Related to Higher Levels of Distress Intensity in Daily Life

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Erin L. Frey, Sandra C. Matz, Bertus F. Jeronimus and Adam D. Galinsky

Although income is an important predictor of life satisfaction, the precise forces that drive this relationship remain unclear. We propose that financial resources afford individuals a path to reducing the distressing impact of everyday hassles, in turn increasing... View Details

Keywords: Distress; Affect; Control; Financial Scarcity; Life Satisfaction; Income; Poverty; Well-being

04 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

From Social Control to Financial Economics: The Linked Ecologies of Economics and Business in Twentieth Century America

Keywords: by Marion Fourcade & Rakesh Khurana; Education

March 2013
Article

From Social Control to Financial Economics: The Linked Ecologies of Economics and Business in Twentieth Century America

By: Marion Fourcade and Rakesh Khurana

This article draws on historical material to examine the co-evolution of economic science and business education over the course of the twentieth century, showing that fields evolve not only through internal struggles but also through struggles taking place in adjacent... View Details

Keywords: Professions; Disciplines; Neo-Liberalism; Education; Economics; Finance; Society; United States

03 Feb 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Accountability and Control as Catalysts for Strategic Exploration and Exploitation: Field Study Results

Keywords: by Robert L. Simons

2016
Working Paper

What Factors Drive Director Perceptions of Their Board's Effectiveness?

By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Richard Ellis Crum

We use a survey of directors to collect data on their ratings of board effectiveness as well as board internal dynamics and key processes. Controlling for many of the governance metrics examined by prior research, we find that directors’ ratings of their boards’... View Details

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Corporate Governance; Performance Effectiveness; Perception; Risk Management

SSRN

2023
Working Paper

When Does Gamified Training Improve Performance? The Roles of Office and Leader Engagement

By: Ryan W. Buell, Wei Cai and Tatiana Sandino

Gamified training is a novel management control system in which companies use gamification techniques to engage and motivate employees to learn. This study empirically examines the performance consequences of gamified training using data from a natural field... View Details

Keywords: Gamified Training; Management Control Systems; Employee Engagement; Employees; Learning; Training; Motivation and Incentives; Performance

SSRN

29 Jan 2019
Research & Ideas

'Green Bonds' May Be Our Best Bet for Environmental Damage Control

Municipalities have been selling bonds to pay for public works projects—fire stations, parking garages,sewage treatment systems—for 200 years. It’s only in the past decade or so, however, that they’ve been selling them with an extra perk: helping the environment. In... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Energy; Utilities; Construction; Green Technology; Public Administration

17 Apr 2019
Cold Call Podcast

Would You Live in a Smart City Where Government Controls Privacy?

December 2016
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 10: Using the Job Design Optimization Tool to Build Effective Organizations

By: Robert Simons

This module reading provides directions for using the online Job Design Optimization Tool (JDOT) which is available free of charge from Harvard Business School Publishing at https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/resources/marketing/multimedia/JDOT/index.html. This tool can... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Execution; Span Of Control; Span Of Accountability; Performance Measurement; Job Design; Organization Design; Strategy; Entrepreneurship