Employee Motivation - Publications - Faculty & Research

29 Jun 2009
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Leading Change

current crisis, says Professor Michael Beer. Key concepts include: The CEOs in high commitment, high performance (HCHP) organizations are quite different in personality, background, and leadership style. But they are similar in what they see as the purpose of the firm.... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

Winter 2024
Article

Is Pay Transparency Good?

By: Zoë B. Cullen

Countries around the world are enacting pay transparency policies to combat pay discrimination. Since 2000, 71 percent of OECD countries have done so. Most are enacting transparency horizontally, revealing pay between coworkers doing similar work within a firm. While... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Wages; Knowledge Sharing; Job Design and Levels; Negotiation; Performance Productivity; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives

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22 Apr 2021
Blog Post

Launching the Women in Tech Initiative at HBS

This past year the HBS Tech Club launched a new group called the HBS Women in Tech Initiative. The mission of this group is to connect women who are interested in the tech industry and to empower women with the skills, confidence, and network to pursue a meaningful... View Details

17 Sep 2019
Cold Call Podcast

How a New Leader Broke Through a Culture of Accuse, Blame, and Criticize

Keywords: Re: Amy C. Edmondson; Health

04 Sep 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Wellsprings of Creation: Perturbation and the Paradox of the Highly Disciplined Organization

Keywords: by David James Brunner, Bradley R. Staats, Michael L. Tushman & David M. Upton

02 Feb 2007
What Do You Think?

Is There Too Little “Know Why” In Business?

personal, employee-centric terms . There are no purposeful organizations—only purposeful people." Bern Lefson commented, "The 'why' is important but how that is defined varies by employee ." As usual, many more questions... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

16 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Driven by Social Comparisons: How Feedback about Coworkers’ Effort Influences Individual Productivity

Keywords: by Francesca Gino & Bradley R. Staats; Banking

20 Mar 2013
Research & Ideas

How CEOs Sustain Higher-Ambition Goals

demonstrating how the company can actually benefit from achieving higher-ambition goals. One payoff might come in the form of greater motivation and commitment on the part of employees galvanized by a common... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

14 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

Pay-for-Performance Doesn’t Always Pay Off

have argued that the real problem is that incentives work too well. Specifically, they motivate employees to focus excessively on doing what they need to do to gain rewards, sometimes at the expense of doing... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

March 2018
Case

GiveDirectly

By: John Beshears, Joshua Schwartzstein, Tiffany Y. Chang and Brian J. Hall

How should nonprofits design compensation systems to attract and retain talent? GiveDirectly is a respected charitable organization with an unconventional approach. Instead of spending on traditional aid programs in areas such as health care and food access in... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofits; Charity; Effective Altruism; International Aid; Compensation; Goals; Bonuses; Incentives; GiveDirectly; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Goals and Objectives; Recruitment; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

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03 Feb 2009
First Look

First Look: February 3, 2009

course of action). It shows that persuasion and authority are complements at low levels of effectiveness but substitutes at high levels. Furthermore, the principal will rely more on persuasion when agent motivation is more important for... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

October 1995
Article

Start-ups, Spin-offs, and Internal Projects

By: James J. Anton and Dennis Yao

We examine the incentive problem confronting a firm and employee when the employee privately discovers a significant invention and faces a choice between keeping the invention private and leaving the firm to form a new company (start-up), or transferring knowledge and... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Projects; Motivation and Incentives; Rights; Employees; Innovation and Invention; Compensation and Benefits; Knowledge Sharing; Capital; Profit

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05 Jun 2014
Research & Ideas

Fixing the ‘I Hate Work’ Blues

with first-line employees every day will have a much better sense of how their businesses are running, and their presence will be highly motivating and even inspiring. As a result of these changes, the View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

21 Apr 2008
Research & Ideas

The New Math of Customer Relationships

It's the E=MC2 of customer loyalty. Deeply satisfied employee = deeply satisfied customer = lifelong profit. Harvard Business School professor emeritus Jim Heskett and professor Earl Sasser have pursued this seemingly simple equation in... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

14 Dec 2010
Op-Ed

Tax US Companies to Spur Spending

productively in the United States. A previous repatriation tax holiday in 2004 induced the return of more than $300 billion to this country, and commentators across the political spectrum, including Andy Stern, formerly of the Service View Details

Keywords: by Mihir A. Desai

April 2011
Article

The Emotional Impact and Behavioral Consequences of Post-M&A Integration: An Ethnographic Case Study in the Software Industry

By: David Ager

This ethnographic case study has focused in depth on one type of acquisition, that of two small, young firms (each with less than 2,000 employees and less than ten years in operation) acquired by one company in the software development industry based in the United... View Details

Keywords: Integration; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Behavior; Groups and Teams; Mergers and Acquisitions; Emotions

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Overview

Erin's research focuses on how organizations can and should respond to employee failures. She is interested in understanding the effects that organizational responses have on subsequent employee behavior, and how organizational policies can be designed to more... View Details

Keywords: Repair; Recovery; Reintegration; Prosocial Behavior; Field Experiment; Psychology; Networks; Punishment; Giving and Philanthropy; Social Psychology; Motivation and Incentives; Social and Collaborative Networks; Ethics

November 2011 (Revised June 2013)
Case

Natura Cosméticos, S.A.

Rodolfo Guttilla, Director of Corporate Affairs for Natura Cosméticos S.A. (Natura), prepared for a meeting with key stakeholders to discuss the future of integrated reporting at Natura. A cosmetics company with a strong brand, robust growth in international and... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Decision Making; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Brazil

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Tatiana Sandino is the Arthur Lowes Dickinson Professor of Business Administration in the Accounting and Management Unit, most recently teaching and undertaking the role of course head for the required first-year MBA course Financial Reporting and Control. She has... View Details

Keywords: retailing; service industry

September 2013
Article

Great Leaders Who Make the Mix Work

By: Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly

Business leaders send a powerful message when they make a commitment to diversity that goes beyond rhetoric. But what motivates them to do so, and how do they actually create inclusive cultures? To find out, the authors interviewed 24 CEOs whose firms were known for... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Development; Working Conditions; Leading Change; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Diversity; Gender

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