Productivity Incentives - Publications - Faculty & Research

William A. Sahlman

William Sahlman is a Baker Foundation Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Mr. Sahlman received an A.B. degree in Economics from Princeton University (1972), an M.B.A. from Harvard University (1975), and a Ph.D. in Business... View Details

18 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

Industrial Decarbonization: Confronting the Hard Challenges of Cement

Cities like Cairo; Chongqing, China; Delhi; and Kinshasa, Congo are experiencing population explosions accompanied by unprecedented demand for homes, offices, factories, and infrastructure. In the United States, the Biden Administration’s policy-driven infrastructure... View Details

Keywords: by by Janelle Conaway; Green Technology; Energy; Industrial Products; Manufacturing

26 Sep 2023
Book

Digital Strategy: A Handbook for Managing a Moving Target

to the new digital context. ” Enthusiasts and advocates of the digital revolution would submit that digital transformation changes everything, from product design to how value is built and captured in the market. In some cases,... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Information Technology; Technology

2011
Working Paper

Do U.S. Market Interactions Affect CEO Pay? Evidence from UK Companies

By: Joseph J. Gerakos, Joseph D. Piotroski and Suraj Srinivasan

This paper examines the extent that interactions with U.S. markets impact the compensation practices of non-U.S. firms. Using a sample of large U.K. companies, we find that the total compensation of U.K. CEOs is positively related to the extent of the firm's... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Markets and Industries; Corporate Governance; Executive Compensation; Management Practices and Processes; Motivation and Incentives; United Kingdom; United States

Citation

Read Now

19 Mar 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, March 19, 2019

forthcoming Academy of Management Discoveries Creativity, Artificial Intelligence, and a World of Surprises By: Amabile, Teresa M. Abstract—In recent years, progress has been made toward AI Creativity, which I define as the production of... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

21 Apr 2008
Research & Ideas

The New Math of Customer Relationships

banks. The ideas are reflected in remarks by managers, whether or not the actual terms are used. In many respects, they have become generic, which I suppose is the ultimate mark of usefulness. In all fairness, they are the product of the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

17 Apr 2007
First Look

First Look: April 17, 2007

investment incentives are important or when there is asymmetric information regarding seller product quality. We discuss these tradeoffs in the context of several prominent digital intermediaries. Changing... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

June 2012
Article

Consequence-Cause Matching: Looking to the Consequences of Events to Infer Their Causes

By: Robyn A. LeBoeuf and Michael I. Norton

We show that people non-normatively infer event causes from event consequences. For example, people inferred that a product failure (computer crash) had a large cause (widespread computer virus) if it had a large consequence (job loss), but that the identical failure... View Details

Keywords: Causal Inference; Product; Forecasting and Prediction; Motivation and Incentives; Failure

16 Feb 2010
Research & Ideas

The Outside-In Approach to Customer Service

rather than focus simply on products and sales. And Gulati's research, including interviews with 500 executives spanning industries and geographies, asserts that outside-in success is not confined to any one sector. "I see the move... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Consumer Products

12 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

COVID Tested Global Supply Chains. Here’s How They’ve Adapted

2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the paper notes. Government policy has played a leading role. The Biden Administration has continued former President Trump’s tariff policies aimed at Chinese goods, while also offering View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

19 Jul 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Government 'Nudges' Motivate Good Citizen Behavior

incentive or an educational campaign,” says Beshears. “But we were surprised to see the extent to which it is true.” According to behavioral scientists, nudges are dollar for dollar a hugely cost-effective way of causing people to change... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Web

Topics - HBS Working Knowledge

Education (1) Mining (1) Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising (1) Mission and Purpose (20) Mobile Technology (8) Money (4) Monopoly (6) Moral Sensibility (25) Motivation and Incentives (146) Multi-Sided Platforms (5) Multinational Firms... View Details

21 Aug 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, August 21, 2018

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=54887 forthcoming Production and Operations Management The Operational Value of Social Media Information By: Cui, Ruomeng, Santiago Gallino, Antonio Moreno, and Dennis J. Zhang... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

24 May 2021
Op-Ed

Can Fabric Waste Become Fashion’s Resource?

COVID-19 has broken fashion’s supply chain. As a result, an already wasteful industry has become more wasteful. Even before the pandemic, the global apparel industry was producing about 92 million tons of textile waste a year. That’s about one garbage truck’s worth of... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones and Shelly Xu; Fashion

Research Summary

The Evolution of Corporate Structure, Internal Governance, and Leadership

My research documents the evolution of the internal governance of senior management in large US firms over a 20-year period and explores, via multiple methods, the causes and consequences of these changes. My findings suggest that... View Details

01 Dec 2023
News

Thinking Ahead

that can make a doctor-backed product like Systole a reassuring option, says Lee: “The patients I see are worried that the commercial options are too intense to be safe, or that they’ll be out of place if they aren’t a 20-something... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Illustrations by Chris Gash; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information

Howard H. Stevenson

Howard H. Stevenson is Sarofim-Rock Baker Foundation Professor emeritus, former Senior Associate Dean, Director of Publishing, and Chair of the Harvard Business Publishing Company board. The Sarofim-Rock Chair was established in 1982 to provide a continuing base for... View Details

Keywords: forest products; forest products; forest products; forest products; forest products; forest products; forest products; forest products; forest products; forest products; forest products; forest products; forest products; forest products; forest products; forest products; forest products; forest products

01 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

How To Make Restructuring Work for Your Company

question the status quo and consider alternative ways of doing business. This sense of "organizational unease" was encouraged by Humana's CEO-founder, who twice before had shifted the company's course to a brand-new industry. As the company's integrated View Details

Keywords: by Stuart C. Gilson

17 Jan 2018
Research & Ideas

If the CEO’s High Salary Isn't Justified to Employees, Firm Performance May Suffer

kutaytanir It’s no surprise that business executives make more money than lower-level employees. But when that pay disparity between a CEO and the average worker is perceived as unfair, the result may be more than unhappy workers: A firm’s performance can deteriorate.... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

20 Nov 2012
First Look

First Look: November 20

model choices aimed at increasing volume such as building new stores, increasing product variety, everyday low prices (EDLP), and high-powered incentives for store managers. Input and output prices played a... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Publications