Publications

10 Mar 2021
Blog Post

COVID Killed the Traditional Workplace

coordinate and motivate people now that they cannot casually pop in at a desk. As a consequence, I expect that the desire to go back to “normal” will vary not just across companies, but also across employees... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

2016
Book

Win-Win Corporations: The Indian Way of Shaping Successful Strategies

By: Shashank Shah

Why did Ratan Tata decide to pay for all the victims of 26/11 whether injured in the Taj or anywhere else? Why did HDFC’s Aditya Puri insist that employees leave for home by 5:30 p.m.? How did HUL develop a cheaper, better product to beat its competitor, Nirma? What do... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Success

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

02 Dec 2022
Blog Post

Why Does Your Company Exist?

motivating a diverse array of stakeholders. Sparked by the pandemic, employees have begun to seek greater meaning in going to work every day. In the midst of the resulting Great Resignation, companies are... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

January 2021
Case

Value-Based Insurance Design at Onex

By: Joshua Schwartzstein, Amitabh Chandra and Amram Migdal

The operating executives of Health and Benefits for Onex Partners, Megan Jackson Frye and Sam Camens, faced a challenge: Healthcare costs for employees of Onex’s portfolio companies were continuing to rise above the consumer price index, reflecting broader trends... View Details

14 Dec 2010
First Look

First Look: Dec. 14

extent to which companies use performance-based pay. We argue that while agency theory provides a useful framework to analyze strategic compensation, it fails to consider a host of psychological factors that affect employee View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

06 Mar 2013
What Do You Think?

Who Should Manage Our Work Time?

time management is a shared responsibility." Frode Hvaring suggested that " in order to enable employees to mange their output in terms of priorities, quality, resources available and best work flows, the company needs to train... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Article

The Learning Effects of Monitoring

By: Dennis Campbell, Marc Epstein and F. Asis Martinez-Jerez

This paper investigates the relationship between monitoring, decision making, and learning among lower-level employees. We exploit a field-research setting in which business units vary in the "tightness" with which they monitor employee decisions. We find that tighter... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Business or Company Management; Decision Making; Employees; Research; Resignation and Termination; Rights; Business Units; Governance Controls; Performance; Motivation and Incentives

June 1991 (Revised April 1993)
Case

Acer, Inc.

By: Robert H. Hayes

Acer is undergoing two major transitions at the time of this case: from a small, entrepreneurially-run company to a large professionally-run one; and from a largely domestic company to a multinational one. After a decade of phenomenal growth, it is now facing a major... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Motivation and Incentives; Multinational Firms and Management; Business Growth and Maturation; Employees; Resignation and Termination; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Diversity; Computer Industry; Taiwan

11 Sep 2012
First Look

First Look: September 11

story-one located far from the factory floor. Can Wages Buy Honesty? The Relationship Between Relative Wages and Employee Theft Authors:Tatiana Sandino and C. X. Chen Publication:Journal of Accounting Research 50, no. 4 (2012) Abstract In... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

17 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

Who is Boss in the Sharing Economy?

all about incentives. Whichever party's nontransferable incentives are more important should be given control over transferable decisions. "If the way employees behave is super important to revenues, then you should move to a platform... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Service; Technology

31 Mar 2002
Research & Ideas

You’re Wasting Your Employees! What You Can Do About It

Most managers today understand the strategic implications of the information-based, knowledge-driven, service-intensive economy. They know what the new game requires: speed, flexibility and continuous self-renewal. They even are recognizing that skilled and View Details

Keywords: by Christopher A. Bartlett & Sumantra Ghoshal

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

August 2019
Case

Bark Gift Shop Ltd.

By: Susanna Gallani, Jan Bouwens and Peter Kroos

This case describes a setting in which the CFO of Bark Gift Shop Ltd., a gift items retailer, discovers an undesired pattern in the performance data suggesting that her shop managers that perform well during the first part of the year, purposely reduce their effort in... View Details

Keywords: Data Analytics; Employees; Behavior; Performance; Management; Goals and Objectives; Motivation and Incentives; Analysis

Article

What's Your Language Strategy?: It Should Bind Your Company's Global Talent Management and Vision

By: Tsedal Neeley and Robert Steven Kaplan

Language pervades every aspect of organizational life. Yet leaders of global organizations—where unrestricted multilingualism can create friction—often pay too little attention to it in their approach to talent management. By managing language carefully, firms can hire... View Details

Read Now

09 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 9, 2019

Abstract—Understanding why employees go the extra mile at work is a key problem for many organizations. We conduct a field experiment at a medical organization to study motivations for View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

15 Sep 2009
First Look

First Look: September 15

generation moving up the corporate ranks. Stimulate Creativity by Fueling Passion Authors:Teresa Amabile and Colin M. Fisher Publication:In The Blackwell Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behavior. 2nd ed. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 Abstract People will be... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

July – August 2010
Column

Powerlessness Corrupts

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

Powerlessness damages organizations--especially in the middle ranks, says HBR columnist Rosabeth Moss Kanter. Hemmed in by rules and treated as unimportant, people get even with management by overcontrolling their own turf. Kanter urges leaders to give employees... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Opportunities; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence

July 2012
Case

Performance Management at Vitality Health Enterprises, Inc.

By: John Bingham and Michael Beer

Vitality Health Enterprises, a medium-sized firm that manufactures health and personal care products, has experienced six straight quarters of strong revenue growth. James Hoffman, the new Senior Vice President of Human Resources, fears that the chain of success is... View Details

Keywords: Performance Evaluation; Motivation and Incentives; Compensation and Benefits; Talent and Talent Management; Health Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States