Publications

09 Oct 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, October 9, 2018

press Compensation & Benefits Review Winning the War for Talent: Modern Motivational Methods for Attracting and Retaining Employees By: Thibault-Landry, Anais, Allan Schweyer, and Ashley V. Whillans... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

March 2009
Case

Barbara Norris: Leading Change in the General Surgery Unit

By: Boris Groysberg, Nitin Nohria and Deborah Bell

Barbara Norris struggles to address the many problems facing her as a recently promoted nurse manager in the General Surgery Unit (GSU) at Eastern Massachusetts University Hospital (EMU). She has inherited a unit with the lowest employee satisfaction scores and highest... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Leading Change; Service Delivery; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Groups and Teams; Motivation and Incentives; Satisfaction; Health Industry

Teaching Interest

Compensation Committees

By: Suraj Srinivasan

Executive compensation has become a flashpoint issue for board members, institutional investors, regulators, and the media. Compensation committees are challenged to design compensation programs that not only tie business or corporate strategies to company performance,... View Details

24 Jan 2011
HBS Case

Terror at the Taj

with Ruth Page and David Habeeb of the HBS Educational Technology Group, Terror at the Taj Bombay: Customer-Centric Leadership documents the bravery and resourcefulness shown by rank-and-file employees during the siege. Video interviews... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Accommodations

January 1998 (Revised April 1998)
Case

Lincoln Electric: Venturing Abroad

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Jamie O'Connell

Lincoln Electric, a 100-year-old manufacturer of welding equipment and consumables based in Cleveland, Ohio, motivates its U.S. employees through a culture of cooperation between management and labor and an unusual compensation system based on piecework and a large... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Restructuring; Transformation; Construction; Compensation and Benefits; Management; Market Entry and Exit; Labor and Management Relations; Competitive Advantage; Expansion; Manufacturing Industry; Ohio

February 2020
Article

Effects of a Tournament Incentive Plan Incorporating Managerial Discretion in a Geographically Dispersed Organization

By: Carolyn Deller and Tatiana Sandino

Using retail chain data, we study the effects of a tournament incentive plan based primarily on objective performance, but incorporating managerial discretion in the selection of winners. In principle, such plans could motivate employees to perform both at a high... View Details

Keywords: Tournaments; Subjectivity; Motivation and Incentives; Fairness; Performance Improvement; Geographic Location

16 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

Does Competition Make Us More Creative?

Competition can bring out the best in salespeople, athletes, and participants in hot dog eating contests—but can it make employees more creative? A recent working paper by Daniel P. Gross finds that competition can View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising

13 Dec 2010
Research & Ideas

Managing the Support Staff Identity Crisis

behavior. It becomes a vicious, self-fulfilling prophecy.” Perplexed, he posed the same question to employees from the human resources department of another corporation, and then again to the corporate finance department of yet another... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

01 Sep 2006
What Do You Think?

Are We Ready for Self-Management?

as many cited obstacles to its implementation, chief among them management itself. Many respondents were enthusiastic. For example, Leeor Geva characterized self-management as a "win-win strategy." In Jonathan Narducci's words, "Any method that gets all... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Research Summary

Current Research

Ian studies extrinsic rewards -- monetary incentives from formal compensation systems, as well as other formal and informal external rewards-- in order to help businesses understand the tensions and tradeoffs inherent in motivating employees. His research takes a... View Details

March 2020 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Culture at Google

By: Nien-hê Hsieh, Amy Klopfenstein and Sarah Mehta

Beginning in 2017, technology (tech) company Google faced a series of employee-relations issues that threatened its unique culture of innovation and open communication. Issues included protests surrounding Google’s contracts with the U.S. government, restrictions of... View Details