Publications

March 2011
Article

Do Sell-Side Stock Analysts Exhibit Escalation of Commitment?

By: John Beshears and Katherine L. Milkman

This paper presents evidence that when an analyst makes an out-of-consensus forecast of a company's quarterly earnings that turns out to be incorrect, she escalates her commitment to maintaining an out-of-consensus view on the company. Relative to an analyst who was... View Details

Keywords: Escalation Of Commitment; Stock Market; Updating; Behavioral Economics; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Consumer Behavior; Financial Markets; Forecasting and Prediction

March 2011 (Revised August 2012)
Case

Caesars Entertainment: CodeGreen

By: George Serafeim, Robert G. Eccles and Tiffany A. Clay

The case describes the development of Caesar's sustainability initiative program, the effect of the initiative on employee engagement and motivation, and on customer satisfaction. View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Employees; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Motivation and Incentives; Accommodations Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

March 2002
Case

Akamai's Underwater Options (B): The Decision

By: Brian J. Hall, Houston Lane and Jonathan Lim

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Motivation and Incentives; Stock Options; Attitudes; Compensation and Benefits

fall 2010
Article

Lawsuits and Empire: On the Enforcement of Sovereign Debt in Latin America

By: Faisal Z. Ahmed, Laura Alfaro and Noel Maurer

The re-occurring phenomenon of sovereign default has prompted an enormous theoretical and empirical literature. Most of this research has focused on why countries ever chose to pay their debts (or why private creditors ever expected repayment). The problem originates... View Details

Keywords: Lawsuits and Litigation; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Sovereign Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Debt Securities; Motivation and Incentives; Markets; Equity; Banking Industry; Latin America

May 2007 (Revised January 2011)
Case

Bankinter: Deploying the Mortgage Simulator to the Branches

Describes how Bankinter, a mid-sized Spanish bank, altered the information set available to its customer-facing employees. In the spring of 2003, Bankinter introduced an Excel-based program called the Mortgage Simulator that helped branch managers calculate the price... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Value and Value Chain; Banks and Banking; Mortgages; Employees; Motivation and Incentives; Spain

February 2006
Article

Wealth and Executive Compensation

Using new data on the wealth of Swedish CEOs, I show that higher wealth CEOs receive stronger incentives. Since high wealth (excluding own-firm holdings) implies low absolute risk aversion, this is consistent with a risk aversion explanation. To examine whether wealth... View Details

Keywords: Wealth; Executive Compensation; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence; Risk Management; Competency and Skills; Wages; Sweden

September 1998 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Sealed Air Taiwan (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Robert J. Crawford

The general manager for U.S.-based Sealed Air Corp.'s Taiwan subsidiary must decide whether he's hired the right person to bridge the gap between Sealed Air's corporate culture and Taiwan's business culture. This case details Bob Kayser's experiences in trying to... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Relationships; Service Operations; Motivation and Incentives; Management Skills; Compensation and Benefits; Taiwan; United States

2012
Working Paper

Relational Contracts and Organizational Capabilities

By: R. Gibbons and R. Henderson

A large literature identifies unique organizational capabilities as a potent source of competitive advantage, yet our knowledge of why capabilities fail to diffuse more rapidly-particularly in situations in which competitors apparently have strong incentives to adopt... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Motivation and Incentives; Management Practices and Processes; Contracts; Competency and Skills; Relationships; Complexity

October 2011
Supplement

Jack Hughes, Founder and Chairman of TopCoder, In-class comments 4/8/11

By: David A. Garvin

TopCoder's crowdsourcing-based business model, in which software is developed through online tournaments, is presented. The case highlights how TopCoder has created a unique two-sided innovation platform consisting of a global community of over 225,000 developers who... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Growth and Development; Technological Innovation; Problems and Challenges; Motivation and Incentives; Competition; Online Technology; Information Technology Industry

February 2010
Article

Managing Know-How

By: Deishin Lee and Eric J. Van den Steen

We study how firms can use a knowledge management system to optimally leverage employee-generated know-how. In particular, we consider the following practical strategic questions for the manager of a knowledge-intensive firm: should her firm develop a formal knowledge... View Details

Keywords: Change; Employees; Information; Knowledge Management; Outcome or Result; Practice; Problems and Challenges; Motivation and Incentives; System; Value

February 2008 (Revised May 2011)
Case

The Travails of Rubber: Goodyear or Badyear?

By: Tom Nicholas and Andrew Ferguson

Explores the reason why Charles Goodyear, inventor of rubber vulcanization, was unable to profit from his discovery despite securing international property rights over his invention through a patent in 1844. Considers the utility of patents as an incentive for... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Entrepreneurship; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Motivation and Incentives; Commercialization