Worker Performance - Publications - Faculty & Research

17 Jan 2023
In Practice

8 Trends to Watch in 2023

As 2023 begins, businesses and employees face an uncertain economy and labor market, as the twin dilemmas of inflation and interest rates weigh on forecasts. Harvard Business School faculty share the top trends that they believe will shape the workplace and markets... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

08 Mar 2021
In Practice

COVID Killed the Traditional Workplace. What Should Companies Do Now?

A year ago, COVID-19 forced many companies to send employees home—often with a laptop and a prayer. Now, with COVID cases subsiding and vaccinations rising, the prospect of returning to old office routines appears more possible. But will employees want to flock back to... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

12 Apr 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Productivity Suffers When Employees Are Allowed to Schedule Their Own Tasks

an associate professor at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. The study will appear in a forthcoming issue of Management Science. The researchers set out to answer two questions: One, what drives workers to deviate from an employer’s task... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

15 Feb 2022
Book

When Working Harder Doesn’t Work, Time to Reinvent Your Career

orchestra as a soloist just within reach. But suddenly, his performance started to worsen. No amount of practice or specialized training helped. In fact, the harder he raged against his decline, the faster it inevitably came. He took a... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

Web

Organize Care Around Medical Conditions - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

focuses on the care of all of these children with cardiac surgeons, cardiologists, anesthesiologists, intensivists all of whom are supported by specialized nurses, perfusionists, respiratory therapists, social workers and others who have... View Details

07 Jun 2023
Blog Post

My One Case: MBA Class of 2023 Looks Back

(approximately 50 percent worker owned). While long-term wealth creation for frontline workers is great, I don’t want it to distract from the more immediate challenges that these View Details

30 Mar 2021
Research & Ideas

Commuting Hurts Productivity and Your Best Talent Suffers Most

as the COVID-19 pandemic wanes and remote employees—perhaps grudgingly—contemplate returning to offices. Wu’s conclusions were clear: A long commute hurts workers and their employers by hindering creativity and productivity, which stifles... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

09 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 9, 2008

agencies. While negative ratings may "shame" firms that are performing poorly, the threat of regulatory action and the presence of "low hanging fruit" are important drivers of how firms respond to information-based... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Aug 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, August 21, 2018

little is known about how workers perform in assignments to locations far from their hometowns, which may subject them to increased cultural distance, information costs, and effects related to social... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

18 Apr 2016
Research & Ideas

The Cost of Leaning In

Stanford Economics Research Laboratory. In each experiment, students were divided into pairs, in which one participant played the role of a worker and the other played the role of a firm in charge of the worker’s wages. The pairs... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

24 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

Rethinking Activity-Based Costing

work and that each puts in eight hours per day. In theory, therefore, each worker supplies about 10,560 minutes per month or 31,680 minutes per quarter. The practical capacity at about 80 percent of theoretical is therefore about 25,000... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & Steven R. Anderson

Web

Building From the Bottom Up - Managing the Future of Work

and high churn for companies. As companies struggle to fill positions in the post-Covid recovery, they will need to invest in retaining and nurturing talent—especially for the lowest earners who perform the most critical tasks. Read the... View Details

29 Oct 2013
Research & Ideas

Do Employees Work Harder for Higher Pay?

obvious to them that we didn't have to give this additional compensation, but that we had chosen to." The gift "signaled that we had done something nice for them which they may want to reciprocate." And they did reciprocate, with higher productivity. Indeed, the "gift"... View Details

Keywords: by Chuck Leddy & Harvard Gazette

27 Jun 2005
Research & Ideas

Asian and American Leadership Styles: How Are They Unique?

Wall Street than is yet common in Asia. Wall Street has strong expectations about the behavior and performance of executives and about succession. There is less freedom of action for executives and boards in America than in Asia. In Asia,... View Details

Keywords: by D. Quinn Mills

05 Dec 2018
Research & Ideas

Why Managers Should Reveal Their Failures

person. As prior research has shown, this type of envy can be toxic in the workplace, stifling worker productivity, leading employees to behave less cooperatively, interfering with group cohesion, and making people feel more justified in... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

July 2024 (Revised October 2024)
Case

Knowledge Transfer: Toyota, NUMMI, and GM

By: Willy Shih

New United Motors Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI) was a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors. It was an opportunity for GM to learn about the Toyota Production System, which was quite different from the mass production processes American automakers used at the... View Details

Keywords: Culture Change; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Joint Ventures; Transformation; Selection and Staffing; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Sharing; Labor Unions; Management Systems; Performance Improvement; Production; Labor and Management Relations; Auto Industry; Japan; United States

Citation

Educators

Purchase

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Code of Change

gains-sharing plan was introduced to mold union workers and management into a common community of purpose. Throughout the decade of change, there were no layoffs, although many managers at the plant and corporate level were replaced if... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer & Nitin Nohria

Web

Technology & Innovation - Faculty & Research

dataset of firms from the U.S. and seven European countries we study the impact of ICT on worker autonomy, plant manager autonomy, and span of control. Consistent with the theory, we find that better information technologies (Enterprise... View Details

Web

Social Enterprise - Faculty & Research

Beiting Cheng, Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim In this paper, we investigate whether superior performance on corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies leads to better access to finance. We hypothesize that better access to... View Details

Web

The Caring Company

Address ‘Caregiving Crisis,’ Study Finds David Harrison 16 Jan 2019 | The Wall Street Journal A third of US workers have left a job due to caregiving responsibilities Corinne Purtill 18 Jan 2019 | Quartz at Work The Stealth Productivity... View Details

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