incentive - Publications - Faculty & Research

01 Mar 2008
News

Innovation, Inc.

Illustration by Jose Ortega Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.—Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Inauguration Day, 1933 Creativity, a quality more traditionally associated with artistic... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Mary Tripsas; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Management

27 Aug 2013
First Look

First Look: August 27

quality of the product, but also by the incentives of the media outlet providing the review. For example, a media outlet may have the incentive to provide favorable coverage to certain authors or to slant... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

27 Mar 2012
First Look

First Look: March 27

are determined not only by the quality of the product, but also by the incentives of the media outlet providing the review. For example, a media outlet may have the incentive to provide favorable coverage to... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

01 Mar 2016
News

Alumni and Faculty Books for March 2016

mutual antipathy. Solutions to heal the partisan divide haven’t worked because they have failed to address the root cause of the problem: A wedge has been driven into American politics by powerful political, social, and economic View Details

2023
Article

Green Bargains: Leveraging Public Investment to Advance Climate Regulation

By: Jonas Meckling and Jesse Strecker

Climate policy has entered a new era as public investment is increasingly moving to center stage, including recovery spending and long-term climate investment plans. While essential for decarbonization, public investment is not enough – the carrots of investment need... View Details

Keywords: Government and Politics; Environmental Regulation; Climate Change; Policy; Motivation and Incentives

Citation

Find at Harvard

Purchase

January 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Teaching Note

Maritz Automotive

By: Ashley V. Whillans and Lamar Pierce

This case focuses on Charlotte Blank, the Chief Behavioral Officer at Maritz, as she tries to assist a major automotive manufacturer (CarCo) with increasing their sales by prepaying monthly bonuses to independently franchised car dealers and clawing them back if the... View Details

Keywords: Loss-framing; Sales; Performance Improvement; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Theory; Auto Industry

Citation

Purchase

April 2014
Article

Awards Unbundled: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment

By: Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera and Scott S. Lee

Organizations often use non-monetary awards to incentivize performance. Awards may affect behavior through several mechanisms: by conferring employer recognition, by enhancing social visibility, and by facilitating social comparison. In a nationwide health worker... View Details

Keywords: Social Comparison; Awards; Optimal Expectactions; Zambia; Status and Position; Performance Expectations; Motivation and Incentives; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Zambia

Citation

Find at Harvard

Read Now

2004
Working Paper

Are Perks Purely Managerial Excess?

By: Raghuram G. Rajan and Julie Wulf

Why do some firms tend to offer executives a variety of perks while others offer none at all? A widespread view in the corporate finance literature is that executive perks are a form of agency or private benefit and a way for managers to misappropriate some of the... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Performance Productivity; Executive Compensation; Corporate Finance

Citation

Read Now

06 Mar 2020
News

The Key to Inclusive Leadership

01 Mar 2003
News

Trust Me

level of integrity. “You build trust when you are vulnerable. If the person you are dealing with has an incentive to harm you but comes through and does not, then you learn to trust him or her,” Malhotra explained in a recent interview.... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

09 Jan 2007
First Look

First Look: January 9, 2007

R&D organizations, a clear relationship emerges: more long-term incentives (e.g., stock options and restricted stock) are associated with more heavily cited patents. These incentives also appear to be... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

25 Jan 2011
First Look

First Look: Jan. 25

number of competitors increases. Greater rivalry reduces the incentives of all competitors in a contest to exert effort and make investments. At the same time, adding competitors increases the likelihood that at least one competitor will... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

03 Feb 2016
What Do You Think?

How Do You Hire an 'Impostor'?

however, succeeded in completing their MBAs with honors. They used the phenomenon as an incentive to succeed, setting high standards for performance and worrying about being under-prepared. They were (and are) achievers, the kind we could... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

09 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

These Employers Pay Higher Salaries than Necessary

workers aren’t likely to capture that future return,” says Stanton. Since workers are bidding out to jobs individually rather than developing a relationship with a particular employer over time, he adds, “they don’t have the incentive to... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Employment; Technology; Computer

07 Aug 2009
What Do You Think?

Why Can’t Americans Get Health Care Right?

achieved is in question. Where, for example, should fiat or regulation ("push"), incentives or subsidies ("pull"), or the provision of new information, education, or even competitive alternatives be employed? Given the... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Health

25 Apr 2018
Blog Post

Policy, Practice, Leadership & Impact: Making a Difference with the HBS/HKS Joint Degree

passionate about the work and strongly believed in its impact, I also began to observe the risks, limitations, and skewed incentives foreign aid creates within local governments. I began taking a longer-term view of the countries I was in... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit / Government

01 Sep 2015
First Look

First Look -- September 1, 2015

Debt Redemption and Reserve Accumulation By: Alfaro, Laura, and Fabio Kanczuk Abstract—Foreign participation in local-currency bond markets in emerging countries has increased dramatically over the past decade. In light of this trend, we revisit sovereign debt... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 Mar 2013
First Look

First Look: March 5

a common non-linear incentive scheme at a leading enterprise software vendor. The empirical results demonstrate that salespeople are adept at gaming the timing of deal closure to take advantage of the vendor's accelerating commission... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

24 Apr 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, April 24, 2018

and financial outcomes. The study complements financial education with (1) financial incentives on a financial literacy test to affect participant motivation, (2) financial goal setting to provide a psychological nudge, and (3)... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2002 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Tesco Plc.

By: David E. Bell

Tesco, a supermarket chain, has been transformed from a third-rate retailer to a global leader in the past ten years. This case describes how that was accomplished. Interviews with Tesco employees explain the company's approach to understanding customers, motivating... View Details