Incentive Pay - Publications - Faculty & Research

11 May 2016
Research & Ideas

Fix This! Why is it so Painful to Buy a New Car?

incentive to add more transparency on things like invoice markups and service costs? Myriad consumer websites help car buyers overcome that asymmetry with information on what dealers pay for cars, vehicle... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Auto

07 May 2014
What Do You Think?

How Should Wealth Be Redistributed?

diagnoses. Others advocated tax and non-tax solutions. The case against hasty change was made by Dave: "Market based capitalism is the greatest driving force of prosperity in the world today, but if we forget this and marginalize it through income redistribution,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

10 Oct 2023
Blog Post

Policy Drivers for Environmental Justice: What Businesses Need to Know

level-setting on terminology and definitions; major policy drivers and incentives in the US; and examples of EJ being applied by businesses, including areas where policy has resulted in action by businesses, and areas where action is... View Details

06 Jun 2007
Research & Ideas

Behavioral Finance—Benefiting from Irrational Investors

and the title of a second-year course he teaches at HBS. "At the foundation of finance is the idea that investors and managers act rationally, so that capital market prices reflect fundamentals and managers respond to incentives in... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

10 Apr 2014
Research & Ideas

John Kotter’s Plan to Accelerate Your Business

structure driven by the accelerators." Two Is Better A dual operating system is a nod to what Kotter believes is some of the most interesting management thinking of the past few decades, from Michael Porter's "wakeup call telling us that organizations need to View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

30 Jul 2018
Research & Ideas

Why Ethical People Become Unethical Negotiators

believe that surgery is the proper course of action, but her perception is biased: She has an incentive and makes money off the decision to operate. Another surgeon might just as easily come to the conclusion that if it’s not bothering... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

15 Jun 2021
News

Keeping Hourly Workers Focused on the Stock, Not the Clock

constant tension between employees and management. “We lived through a lot of strikes,” Stavros says. One of the changes the union was advocating for was profit sharing with hourly employees. “Can you believe I have no incentive to care... View Details

Keywords: April White; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management

16 Feb 2010
Research & Ideas

The Outside-In Approach to Customer Service

pay insufficient attention to encouraging employees to cooperate. And when they do consider cooperation, they rely too heavily on incentives alone as the panacea. Those who get it right recognize that... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Consumer Products

Web

Social Enterprise - Faculty & Research

financial performance of corporations, the design of incentive and control systems to guide strategy execution, corporate reporting, and the role of investors in this new paradigm. Initiatives & Projects The Social Enterprise Initiative ,... View Details

04 Jun 2012
Research & Ideas

The Business of Life

a successful family as it is in building a successful business. He disagrees strongly with the widely-cited concept known as agency theory, which essentially posits that people work in accordance to how you pay them, and that external... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

07 May 2020
Research & Ideas

The One Good Thing Caused by COVID-19: Innovation

pandemic. An increase in risk perception makes consumers more willing to pay for safety features, which, in turn, provides producers greater incentives to develop and commercialize technologies that address... View Details

Keywords: by Hong Luo and Alberto Galasso

08 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

How Centuries of Restrictions on Women Shed Light on Today's Abortion Debate

strong incentives to impose restrictions on women’s promiscuity. “The gender gaps in labor market participation, micro-entrepreneurship, or business ownership more generally seem to also partly reflect this social norm against women.”... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

31 Mar 2023
Research & Ideas

Can a ‘Basic Bundle’ of Health Insurance Cure Coverage Gaps and Spur Innovation?

more protection or benefits could purchase. For example, basic insurance pays for shared hospital rooms in Singapore, but only people who pay out of pocket or have private insurance can get private rooms. In... View Details

Keywords: by Kasandra Brabaw; Insurance; Health

28 May 2019
Research & Ideas

Investor Lawsuits Against Auditors Are Falling, and That's Bad News for Capital Markets

when big scandals happen, like Enron and WorldCom, the weak link often turns out to be auditors. Managers are mostly truth-tellers but have incentives to embellish and sometimes commit fraud. So we rely on auditors to mitigate that... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Financial Services; Accounting

22 Apr 2002
Research & Ideas

Does Spirituality Drive Success?

Slayton said. Honesty, for example, is important for any leader, although it can get you in trouble. "Sometimes you'll pay the price [because] some people don't want to hear it." On the other hand, Zia Chishti, chairman and CEO... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace, Sean Silverthorne & Wendy Guild

03 Jun 2022
Research & Ideas

In a Work-from-Anywhere World, How Remote Will Workers Go?

protect the rights and well-being of remote employees can further foster the work-from-anywhere movement.” 3. Incentivize people to move to lower-profile areas. Not everyone wants to take out a massive mortgage or pay exorbitant rent to... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

11 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

The High Risks of Short-Term Management

developed a long-term-oriented approach through formal (e.g., incentive systems) or informal institutions (e.g., building the corporate culture over time and employee selection). The finding that more long-term-oriented firms have lower... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services

08 Oct 2008
Research & Ideas

Book Excerpt: A Sense of Urgency

took away dozens of a firm's key customers. The crisis could have been anticipated. But because the management believed that only an unexpected burning platform could help push a complacent organization out of its comfort zone, it didn't View Details

Keywords: by John P. Kotter

02 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

Negotiating in Three Dimensions

set-up error (among many): It is easy to make one kind of mistake in your choice of negotiating agents. You know the importance of using a skilled and knowledgeable negotiating agent as well as crafting a contract that aligns your agent's View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

01 Jun 2015
Research & Ideas

The Surprising Benefits of Oversharing

very lowest grade would have the incentive to disclose," says Luca. Despite that theory of "information unraveling," however, in reality that is generally not what happens. In the case of restaurants, very few voluntarily... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Publications