Publications

12 Feb 2013
First Look

First Look: Feb. 12

Preannouncements under Market Uncertainty Authors:Ofek, Elie, and Ozge Turut Publication:Marketing Science Abstract A firm may want to preannounce its plans to develop a new product in order to stimulate future demand. But given that such... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2019 (Revised February 2020)
Teaching Note

Fishbowl: Scaling Up

By: Leslie K. John

Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.

Teaching Note for HBS No. 919-013. Fishbowl is a social media app that allows professionals to connect with other relevant professionals both within their company and... View Details

2011
Chapter

Honest Rationales for Dishonest Behavior

By: F. Gino and S., Ayal

Keywords: Ethics; Attitudes; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior

December 2003 (Revised May 2004)
Case

Sears Auto Centers (A) (Abridged)

By: Lynn S. Paine

In the early 1990s Sears faced and allegations by the California Department of Consumer Affairs that the company's auto repair centers had been overbilling customers and making unnecessary repairs. Top management must evaluate the problem and come up with a plan to... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Corporate Accountability; Ethics; Organizational Culture; Compensation and Benefits; Management Teams; Employees; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Performance Improvement; Auto Industry

23 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

Management’s Role in Reforming Health Care

implicit, sometimes explicit, belief that business and health care do not mix. I think what people mean when they express this belief is that the profit motive in health care bothers them. Yet business... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Health

November 2001 (Revised December 2002)
Case

Tracking Stocks at Genzyme (A)

By: Malcolm S. Salter

Genzyme, a tracking stock pioneer, has used its innovative capital structure as a way to frame and grow its R&D-intensive business. Facing the question of how best to integrate a new acquisition into its tracking stock structure, Genzyme's top management is forced to... View Details

Keywords: Integration; Value Creation; Motivation and Incentives; Conflict of Interests; Stocks; Capital Structure; Research and Development; Corporate Governance; Biotechnology Industry

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27 Jan 2014
Research & Ideas

Family CEOs Spend Less Time at Work

the Strategy unit at Harvard Business School who studies the curious relationship between managerial incentives and motivation. “Family CEOs are a very interesting group” "Family CEOs are a very interesting... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

1992
Chapter

Reward Systems in the Role of Compensation

By: M. Beer

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives

January 2015 (Revised July 2019)
Case

CVS Health: Promoting Drug Adherence

By: Leslie John, John Quelch and Robert Huckman

Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.

The case describes a program that CVS Health recently implemented to improve medication adherence, an important problem from a societal, public policy, and firm... View Details

20 Sep 2016
First Look

September 20, 2016

possibility of erasing some of these civil rights gains. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51647 Summer 2016 Journal of Economic Perspectives Motivated Bayesians: Feeling Moral While Acting Egoistically By:... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

11 Nov 2013
Research & Ideas

A Smarter Way to Reduce Customer Defections

Companies spend significant sums to acquire customers. Once hooked, marketers protect those investments by attempting to keep patrons happy, engaged, and most of all, loyal. Reducing customer attrition, or "churn" in marketing parlance,... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Retail; Service

09 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 9

of Central America does more than just advance our understanding of the national and global consequences of the Panama Canal and the imperialist motives View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

31 May 2016
First Look

May 31, 2016

effects on participation. Overall, these results are consistent with workers having multiple underlying motivations to contribute to public goods inside the organization consisting of a combination of pecuniary View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 1979
Article

Effects of External Evaluation on Artistic Creativity

By: T. M. Amabile

Examined the conditions under which the imposition of an extrinsic constraint upon performance of an activity can lead to decrements in creativity. 95 female undergraduates worked on an art activity either with or without the expectation of external evaluation. In... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Social Psychology; Performance Evaluation; Motivation and Incentives; Situation or Environment

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January 2017 (Revised April 2018)
Background Note

Introduction to Incentive-based Sales Compensation Systems

By: Willy Shih

This background note explains the structure of incentive-based sales compensation systems. View Details

Keywords: Sales Compensation; Sales Force Compensation; Sales Force Management; Sales; Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Industrial Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry; United States

29 Sep 2011
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Leveraging Intellectual Property

File-Sharing and Copyright Researchers Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf argue that file-sharing technology has not undermined the incentives of artists View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty

April 2025
Case

Giving Up on a Passion: Elizabeth Rowe at the Boston Symphony Orchestra

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Maisie Wiltshire-Gordon and Alexis Lefort

For 20 years, Elizabeth Rowe was a world-renowned principal flutist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. But in 2024, Rowe decided to leave her position to pursue a new full-time career as a leadership coach. At 50, Rowe was well under the typical retirement age, and,... View Details

July 2020
Teaching Plan

Girls Who Code

By: Brian Trelstad and Amy Klopfenstein

This teaching plan serves as a supplement to HBS Case No. 320-055, “Girls Who Code.” Founded 2012 by former lawyer Reshma Saujani, Girls Who Code (GWC) offered coding education programs to middle- and high school-aged girls. The organization also sought to alter... View Details