Publications

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October 2012
Article

Securitization without Adverse Selection: The Case of CLOs

By: Effi Benmelech, Jennifer Dlugosz and Victoria Ivashina

In this paper, we investigate whether securitization was associated with risky lending in the corporate loan market by examining the performance of individual loans held by CLOs. We employ two different datasets that identify loan holdings for a large set of CLOs and... View Details

Keywords: Personal Finance; Performance; Markets; Banks and Banking; Debt Securities; Investment Portfolio; Financing and Loans

24 Jul 2012
First Look

First Look: July 24

an Experiment with Commercial Bank Loan Officers Authors:Shawn Cole, Martin Kanz, and Leora Klapper Abstract This paper uses a series of experiments with commercial bank loan officers to test the effect of performance View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

31 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

The Most Powerful Workplace Motivator

workplace motivator is our natural tendency to measure our own performance against the performance of others. "Traditionally, [the field of] economics has held a very rational view of people, and there's a... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

July 1990 (Revised October 1999)
Case

Nordstrom: Dissension in the Ranks? (A)

By: Robert L. Simons and Hilary Weston

In 1989, the performance measurement systems and compensation policies of Nordstrom Department Stores unexpectedly came under attack by employees, unions, and government regulators. The case describes the "sales-per-hour" monitoring and compensation system that many... View Details

Keywords: Performance Consistency; Performance Evaluation; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Labor Unions; Salesforce Management; Retention; Growth and Development; Industrial Products Industry; Utilities Industry

Educators

07 Oct 2015
HBS Seminar

Florian Ederer, Assistant Professor of Economics, Yale School of Management

11 Oct 2007
Working Paper Summaries

How Firms Respond to Being Rated

Keywords: by Aaron K. Chatterji & Michael W. Toffel

Research Summary

By: Srikant M. Datar

Datar's research interests are in the cost management and management control areas. He has published his research on activity-based management, quality, productivity, time-based competition, new product development, bottleneck management, incentives and ... View Details

Research Summary

Overview

I am currently a Principal or Co-Principal Investigator of five field-based randomized controlled trials, each of which examines the management of lay health workers in developing countries, with an eye toward generating theoretical insights and policy guidance on how... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Policy; Health; Human Resources; Africa; India; United States

Research Summary

Overview

I am currently a Principal or Co-Principal Investigator of five field-based randomized controlled trials, each of which examines the management of lay health workers in developing countries, with an eye toward generating theoretical insights and policy guidance on how... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Policy; Health; Human Resources; Africa; India; United States

Research Summary

Overview

I am currently a Principal or Co-Principal Investigator of five field-based randomized controlled trials, each of which examines the management of lay health workers in developing countries, with an eye toward generating theoretical insights and policy guidance on how... View Details

October 1993 (Revised July 1994)
Case

A Brush with AIDS (A)

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and Jerry Useem

A product manager at a health products company is responsible for marketing sharps containers, which hospitals use to store used needles in order to protect medical workers from being pricked with AIDS-contaminated needles. After hospitals report repeated instances of... View Details

Keywords: Health; Cost vs Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Safety; Values and Beliefs; Profit; Goals and Objectives; Compensation and Benefits; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

Educators

March 1999
Case

MotivAction plc (A)

By: William J. Bruns Jr.

The owner/manager of MotivAction is developing a package of incentives and bonuses that he hopes will stimulate sales growth, encourage development of new autonomous teams, and increase profitability. If they are adopted, these new incentives will replace others... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Performance Improvement; Growth and Development Strategy; Decisions; Profit; Organizational Culture

March 2018
Article

Hospital Budget Systems are Holding Back Innovation

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Michael S. Jellinek and Derek A. Haas

Nearly 800 digital health startups were funded in 2017, an all-time high. Each of the new companies offers the hope of transforming the performance of the U.S. health care system. The audience for such innovation wants to be receptive: A recent American Hospital... View Details

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April 2005
Case

FBI: Mission Extended

Following the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, there was consensus that the FBI needed to make organizational changes. The FBI had long distinguished itself as the world's pre-eminent organization for conducting after-the-fact investigations that laid the... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Law Enforcement; United States

Educators

2017
Working Paper

Economic Uncertainty and Earnings Management

By: Luke C.D. Stein and Charles C.Y. Wang

In the presence of managerial short-termism and asymmetric information about skill and effort provision, firms may opportunistically shift earnings from uncertain to more certain times. We document empirically that when financial markets are less certain about a firm's... View Details

Keywords: Discretionary Accruals; Uncertainty; Implied Volatility; Earnings Response Coefficient; Risk and Uncertainty; Earnings Management; Financial Markets

SSRN

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March 2011 (Revised June 2011)
Supplement

Arck Systems (C)

By: Ian Larkin

The Arck Systems series of cases describes the dilemmas faced by a senior sales manager in determining a sales compensation plan at an enterprise software company. The existing compensation plan is aggressive and highly rewards "star" performers. The cases track a... View Details

Keywords: Change; Framework; Compensation and Benefits; Employees; Management; Organizational Design; Outcome or Result; Performance Evaluation; Sales; Motivation and Incentives; System; Applications and Software

Article

CDS Trading and Nonrelationship Lending Dynamics

By: Jung Koo Kang, Christopher Williams and Regina Wittenberg-Moerman

We investigate how credit default swaps (CDSs) affect lenders’ incentives to initiate new lending relationships. We predict that CDSs reduce adverse selection that nonrelationship lead arrangers face when competing for loans. Consistently, we find that a loan is... View Details

Keywords: Credit Default Swaps; CDS Market; Non-relationship Lending; Debt Contracts; Adverse Selection; Lending Monitoring; Cross-selling

March 2011 (Revised June 2011)
Supplement

Arck Systems (E)

By: Ian Larkin

The Arck Systems series of cases describes the dilemmas faced by a senior sales manager in determining a sales compensation plan at an enterprise software company. The existing compensation plan is aggressive and highly rewards "star" performers. The cases track a... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Framework; Compensation and Benefits; Organizational Design; Performance Evaluation; Salesforce Management; Motivation and Incentives; Software

October 2008
Article

Evaluating the CEO

By: Stephen P. Kaufman

This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. After Kaufman became a CEO, he was struck by how perfunctory the board was in its... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leadership; Managerial Roles; Performance Evaluation; Motivation and Incentives