Publications

Educators

Purchase

August 1994
Case

Higashimaru Shoyu Company, Ltd. (B): Revitalizing the Organization

Documents how Higashimaru's plant manager converted a reluctant workforce into one that was open to change. Illustrates "human reengineering" and shows how the plant manager prepared workers for a factory modernization program. View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Employees

Educators

Purchase

21 Jan 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Learning from Customers in Outsourcing: Individual and Organizational Effects

Keywords: by Jonathan R. Clark, Robert S. Huckman & Bradley R. Staats

29 Jul 2020
Working Paper Summaries

What Jobs Are Being Done at Home During the COVID-19 Crisis? Evidence from Firm-Level Surveys

Keywords: by Alexander Bartik, Zoë Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca, and Christopher Stanton

October 7, 2021
Article

How to Resolve America's Hidden-Worker Problem

By: Joseph B. Fuller

Most companies rely on recruiting systems that are superficially efficient but consistently ineffective at closing their chronic skills gaps. Is there a dearth of workers or are employers looking for talent in a self-limiting way? View Details

Keywords: Talent Acquisition; HR; Talent and Talent Management; Recruitment; Leadership; Human Resources

January–February 2022
Article

Algorithm-Augmented Work and Domain Experience: The Countervailing Forces of Ability and Aversion

By: Ryan Allen and Prithwiraj Choudhury

How does a knowledge worker’s level of domain experience affect their algorithm-augmented work performance? We propose and test theoretical predictions that domain experience has countervailing effects on algorithm-augmented performance: on one hand, domain experience... View Details

Keywords: Automation; Domain Experience; Algorithmic Aversion; Experts; Algorithms; Machine Learning; Future Of Work; Employees; Experience and Expertise; Decision Making; Performance

January 20, 2022
Article

3 Steps to Help Companies Rebuild Trust During the Pandemic

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta

Many workers feel battered and distrustful after almost two years of COVID-19 instability. But it's not too late for managers—even those who made damaging missteps—to repair these relationships, say Sandra Sucher and Shalene Gupta. View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Trust; Employee Relationship Management

Article

Preference Signaling in Matching Markets

Many labor markets share three stylized facts: employers cannot give full attention to all candidates, candidates are ready to provide information about their preferences for particular employers, and employers value and are prepared to act on this information. In this... View Details

Keywords: Signaling; Matching; Cheap Talk; Congestion; Market Design; Marketplace Matching; Communication; Job Search

September 2011
Article

The Empire Struck Back: Sanctions and Compensation in the Mexican Oil Expropriation of 1938

By: Noel Maurer

The Mexican expropriation of 1938 was the first large-scale non-Communist expropriation of foreign-owned natural resource assets. The literature makes three assertions: the U.S. did not fully back the companies, Mexico did not fully compensate them for the value of... View Details

Keywords: Natural Environment; Assets; Value; Motivation and Incentives; Government and Politics; Strategy; Interests; Revenue; Non-Renewable Energy; Energy Industry; Mexico; United States

09 Feb 2016
First Look

February 9, 2016

During Recessions By: Lazear, Edward P., Kathryn L. Shaw, and Christopher Stanton Abstract—Why did productivity rise during recent recessions? One possibility is that average worker quality increased. A second is that each incumbent View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

23 Aug 2006
Op-Ed

The Real Wal-Mart Effect

This opinion piece, first published in the New York Times in August 2005, has been updated by Pankaj Ghemawat for HBS Working Knowledge.Mighty Wal-Mart's headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, must feel less like a hotbed of retailing and more like a war room. There is... View Details

Keywords: by Pankaj Ghemawat & Ken A. Mark; Retail

2013
Working Paper

Skilled Immigration and the Employment Structures of U.S. Firms

By: Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr and William F. Lincoln

We study the impact of skilled immigrants on the employment structures of U.S. firms using matched employer-employee data. Unlike most previous work, we use the firm as the lens of analysis to account for a greater level of heterogeneity and the fact that many skilled... View Details

Keywords: H-1B; Firms; Scientists; Engineers; Inventors; Age; Employment; Competency and Skills; Immigration; United States

November 2000 (Revised November 2002)
Case

Activity-Based Management at W.S. Industries (A)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Sanjay Pothen

W.S. Industries undertakes the design and implementation of an activity based costing (ABC) system, and the ABC information empowers workers to make process improvement decisions. Workers' incentive pay is tied to cost savings from process improvements. View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Motivation and Incentives; Performance Evaluation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Knowledge Management; Energy Industry; India

Educators

Purchase

October 2011
Article

The Surprising Power of Age-Dependent Taxes

By: Matthew C. Weinzierl

This article provides a new, empirically driven application of the dynamic Mirrleesian framework by studying a feasible and potentially powerful tax reform: age-dependent labor income taxation. I show analytically how age dependence improves policy on both the... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Policy; Age; Income; Mathematical Methods; Welfare; United States

01 Jun 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Motivating Effort in Contributing to Public Goods Inside Organizations: Field Experimental Evidence

Keywords: by Andrea Blasco, Olivia S. Jung, Karim R. Lakhani, and Michael E. Menietti

22 Jun 2011
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Motivation

Questions To Be Answered What's the best bonus program to boost sales productivity? Can companies inspire heroism in employees? Can employers promote moral behavior? Does money lead to creativity? What's The Best Bonus Program To Boost Sales Productivity? Do Bonuses... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty

July 2015
Article

Skilled Immigration and the Employment Structures of U.S. Firms

By: Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr and William F. Lincoln

We study the impact of skilled immigrants on the employment structures of U.S. firms using matched employer-employee data. Unlike most previous work, we use the firm as the lens of analysis to account for a greater level of heterogeneity and the fact that many skilled... View Details

Keywords: Firms; Scientists; Engineers; Inventors; H-1B; Age; Employment; Immigration; United States

May 2012
Article

Incentive Schemes, Sorting and Behavioral Biases of Employees: Experimental Evidence

By: Ian Larkin and Stephen Leider

We investigate how the convexity of a firm's incentives interacts with worker overconfidence to affect sorting decisions and performance. We demonstrate experimentally that overconfident employees are more likely to sort into a non-linear incentive scheme over a linear... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Performance; Behavior; Prejudice and Bias; Decisions; Employees; Wages

May 2023
Article

Equilibrium Effects of Pay Transparency

By: Zoë B. Cullen and Bobak Pakzad-Hurson

The public discourse around pay transparency has focused on the direct effect: how workers seek to rectify newly-disclosed pay inequities through renegotiations. The question of how wage-setting and hiring practices of the firm respond in equilibrium has received... View Details

Keywords: Pay Transparency; Online Labor Market; Privacy; Wage Gap; Corporate Disclosure; Wages; Negotiation