Publications

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April 29, 2020
Article

How Should We Allocate Scarce Medical Resources?

By: Max Bazerman, Regan Bernhard, Joshua D. Greene, Karen Huang and Netta Barak-Corren

Who should get a ventilator if there aren’t enough to go around? Research on decision making leads to three concrete guidelines that policy-makers and physicians can use to make fair choices when allocating scarce, life-saving resources. The key to making fair and... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Health Pandemics; Resource Allocation; Decision Making; Policy; Fairness; Ethics

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04 Oct 2004
Research & Ideas

Start to Measure Your E-commerce Success

or just difficulty. It is the responsibility of senior managers to evaluate the e-commerce initiatives and decide on the right measures for their organization and ensure that the measures are captured and responded to properly. To obtain... View Details

Keywords: by Marc J. Epstein

September 2019 (Revised May 2021)
Case

pymetrics: International Expansion

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In August 2018, pymetrics, a solution offering neuroscience-based recruiting tests, closed a $40 million funding round that valued the business at $160 million. Over 60 companies around the globe were using pymetrics tests in their recruiting process, including... View Details

October 2004
Case

Sales Force Training at Arrow Electronics (A)

By: Jason R. Barro, Brian J. Hall and Aaron Zimmerman

In the mid-1980s, Arrow, the world's largest electronics distributor, implemented a college recruiting program to hire salespeople. The program was part of an effort to increase the professionalism and skill set of the sales force in an industry where few salespeople... View Details

Keywords: Human Resources; Compensation and Benefits; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Salesforce Management; Competition

November 2020 (Revised November 2020)
Case

Daily Table

By: José B. Alvarez, Zeynep Ton and Annelena Lobb

Daily Table is a case about a grocery chain with two outposts in Boston neighborhoods Dorchester and Roxbury. Its mission is to provide healthy food at lower prices to people in lower-income neighborhoods. The case explores Daily Table’s responsibility to its employees... View Details

Keywords: Grocery; COVID-19 Pandemic; Food; Nonprofit Organizations; Employees; Wages; Employee Relationship Management; Boston

Forthcoming
Article

Eliciting Advice Instead of Feedback Improves Developmental Input

By: Hayley Blunden, Ariella Kristal, Ashley Whillans, Jaewon Yoon, Hannah Burd, Georgina Bremner and Michael Yeomans

Most organizations encourage employees to provide feedback to one another to support learning, personal growth, and career advancement. However, employee feedback often fails to improve performance because it lacks concrete, specific guidance. We provide a temporal... View Details

Keywords: Feedback; Personal Development and Career; Employee Relationship Management; Performance Evaluation

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2015
Working Paper

Incentives versus Reciprocity: Insights from a Field Experiment

By: Doug J. Chung and Das Narayandas

We conduct a field experiment in which we vary the sales force compensation scheme at an Asian enterprise that sells consumer durable goods. With variation generated by the experimental treatments, we model sales force performance to identify the effectiveness of... View Details

Keywords: Sales Force Compensation; Field Experiment; Heterogeneity; Loss Aversion; Reciprocity; Motivation and Incentives; Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits

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February 2014
Background Note

Furloughs: An Alternative to Layoffs for Economic Downturns

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Susan J. Winterberg

This note describes the practice of employee furloughs (also known as work sharing or short-time work) including their regulatory frameworks in different countries and the business and ethical implications of their use. View Details

Keywords: Work Sharing; Furloughs; Temporary Layoff; Short Time Work; Employee Relationship Management; Job Cuts and Outsourcing

October 1976 (Revised February 1987)
Case

Cramer Electronics, Inc.

By: Michael E. Porter

Designed to be the second day of a two-day series on the electronic component distribution industry, following a day spent discussing Note on the Electronic Component Distribution Industry and Raytheon Co.: Diversification. The important teaching themes which this case... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Innovation Strategy; Management Style; Resource Allocation; Opportunities; Corporate Strategy; Diversification; Distribution Industry; Electronics Industry

29 May 2020
Op-Ed

How Leaders Are Fighting Food Insecurity on Three Continents

COVID-19 is creating unprecedented strains on food security worldwide. The United Nations' World Food Programme warns that the pandemic could almost double the number of people facing food crises in low- and middle-income populations to 265 million by the end of 2020.... View Details

Keywords: by Howard Stevenson and Shirley Spence; Agriculture & Agribusiness

2014
Working Paper

Cleaning House: The Impact of Information Technology on Employee Corruption and Performance

By: Lamar Pierce, Daniel Snow and Andrew McAfee

This paper examines how firm investments in technology-based employee monitoring impact both misconduct and productivity. We use unique and detailed theft and sales data from 392 restaurant locations from five firms that adopt a theft monitoring information technology... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Information Technology; Ethics; Performance Productivity; Employees

SSRN

August 1983 (Revised June 1985)
Supplement

Milford Industries (B)

By: Robert J. Dolan and Benson P. Shapiro

Supplements the (A) case. A rewritten version of part of an earlier series. View Details

Keywords: Managerial Roles; Salesforce Management; Resignation and Termination; Performance Evaluation

Career Coach

Courtney Fairbrother

Courtney (Washington and Lee ’11) is CPD’s industry lead for Energy, Cleantech, Sustainability, Manufacturing, and Transportation as well as Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. She was formerly the Associate Director for HBS’s Business and Environment... View Details

Keywords: Energy; Clean Technology; Energy; Entrepreneurship; Government

01 Dec 2002
News

Faculty Updates

Change (2000). He led the development of the School's first required course in human resource management in the 1980s and then cowrote Managing Human Assets (1984), the first... View Details

01 Aug 2001
News

Cleveland Global Alumni Conference a Sold-Out Success

Growth," followed four tracks of inquiry: managing innovation, information technology and competitive strategy, transforming the enterprise, and entrepreneurship. "Ours is an era of organizational experimentation," observed Professor Gary... View Details

Keywords: Hanna, Julia; Frank Batten (MBA '52); Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

09 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Around the World of Entrepreneurial Ventures

complexity that is astonishing, said Sahlman. The International Context According to Kuemmerle, there is one central question guiding his IEF research: how do entrepreneurial managers, and those who finance them, make sensible resource... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

November 2, 2015
Article

The Best Ways to Hire Salespeople

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Daniel Weinfurter

Companies typically spend more on hiring in sales than they do anywhere else in the firm. Average annual turnover in sales is 25% to 30%, while direct replacement costs for a telesales employee ranges from $75,000 to $90,000 and other sales positions cost as much as... View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Salesforce Management; Retention

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February 2003 (Revised September 2003)
Case

NanoGene Technologies, Inc.

Describes a company during the start-up phase and focuses on the founders' decisions regarding splitting the equity and compensation. Also considers establishing policies and practices that will set the tone for the company as it grows. Discusses a number of specific... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business or Company Management; Compensation and Benefits; Selection and Staffing; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Policy; Technology Industry