Publications

Article

Prosocial Bonuses Increase Employee Satisfaction and Team Performance

By: Lalin Anik, Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Michael I. Norton and Jordi Quoidbach

In three field studies, we explore the impact of providing employees and teammates with prosocial bonuses, a novel type of bonus spent on others rather than on oneself. In Experiment 1, we show that prosocial bonuses in the form of donations to charity lead to happier... View Details

Keywords: Satisfaction; Groups and Teams; Performance; Compensation and Benefits; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Banking Industry; Sports Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Canada; Belgium; Australia

2013
Working Paper

Prosocial Bonuses Increase Employee Satisfaction and Team Performance

By: Lalin Anik, Lara B. Aknin, Michael I. Norton, Elizabeth W. Dunn and Jordi Quoidbach

In two field studies, we explore the impact of providing employees and teammates with prosocial bonuses, a novel type of bonus spent on others rather than on oneself. In Experiment 1, we show that prosocial bonuses in the form of donations to charity lead to happier... View Details

Keywords: Satisfaction; Groups and Teams; Performance; Compensation and Benefits; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Banking Industry; Sports Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Canada; Belgium; Australia

04 Oct 2010
Research & Ideas

Introverts: The Best Leaders for Proactive Employees

hardly any talk. To that end, a team of passive followers benefits from an extraverted leader. "Often the leaders end up doing a lot of the talking, and not listening to any of the ideas that the followers are trying to... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

30 Aug 2010
Research & Ideas

Turning Employees Into Problem Solvers

research has focused on the underuse of incident-reporting systems. After all, the thinking went, a system used to collect and report incidents will only help an organization learn from its mistakes and lead to better safety results—to the extent that View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Health

March 1996
Case

FASB and Employee Stock Options, The

Summarizes the accounting principles governing employee stock options, including the recently issued accounting standard SFAS 123, Accounting for Stock-Based Compensation. Presents the theoretical issues involved with valuation and measurement of employee stock-based... View Details

Keywords: Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Accounting

Educators

08 Mar 2022
Cold Call Podcast

France Telecom: Corporate Restructuring and Employee Well-Being

Keywords: Re: Cynthia A. Montgomery & Ashley V. Whillans

09 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

The Benefits of “Not Invented Here”

of its operating income, while P&G has a policy of licensing any patented technology not in use in one of its own businesses within three years. Q: What are the benefits for a business actively following an open innovation paradigm?... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

12 Jan 2015
Research & Ideas

Regulators Ease Up on Companies Generating Political Benefits

employment rolls in the form of reduced enforcement? To test his theory, Heese gathered 30 years of data on publicly traded companies, classifying them by "employment intensity"—that is, the number of a firm's employees relative... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

July 2007 (Revised September 2007)
Background Note

Compensating Family Employees in a Family Business

By: John A. Davis

Explores the core issues involved in compensating family employees in a family business. Explains family interests and other factors that shape family employee compensation practices. Distinguishes between achieving effective compensation practices, which help to... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Employees; Compensation and Benefits

Educators

04 Jun 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Prosocial Bonuses Increase Employee Satisfaction and Team Performance

Keywords: by Lalin Anik, Lara B. Aknin, Michael I. Norton, Elizabeth W. Dunn & Jordi Quoidbach

05 Sep 2018
Research & Ideas

The Hidden Benefit of Giving Back to Open Source Software

that certain employees gain through contributing, says Nagle. His study suggests that contributing to crowdsourced digital or even physical “public goods” that benefit other firms or industries can enable... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Computer

June 10, 2022
Article

What Top Executives Can Learn from Junior Employees

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Having reached the pinnacle of their careers, many top executives think their learning days are over. Their role, as they see it, is to make pronouncements, define strategy and impart to others the benefits of their vast experience—that is, to tell the employees below... View Details

Keywords: Executives; Mentoring; Innovation; Leadership; Employees; Learning; Change

Register to Read

05 Feb 2018
What Do You Think?

Should Companies Disclose Employee Compensation?

iStock Summing Up How Should Organizations Draw the Line on Pay Transparency? There is general support for the widespread practice of disclosing pay data in "bands" associated with jobs. Fewer people would go beyond this to disclose what individual View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Financial Services

17 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Money Isn’t Everything: The Dos and Don’ts of Motivating Employees

your company. “You have to have some combination of non-monetary benefits and pay where it’s an attractive value proposition,” says Hall. “So your employees say, ‘I want to get good here.’ You have to share... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

2004
Case

Valuing Employee Stock Options

By: Timothy A. Luehrman

Keywords: Stock Options; Valuation; Compensation and Benefits

January 2023 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Veeva Systems and the Transformation to a Public Benefit Corporation

By: Ranjay Gulati and Allison M. Ciechanover

Peter Gassner, the co-founder and CEO of Veeva Systems, steered the company through rapid scaling from its launch in 2007 to 2022. Year after year, the company had exceeded expectations, with its market capitalization reaching $50 billion at its peak. By 2022, the... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Corporate Governance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry; United States; California

Educators

July – August 2008
Article

Help Employees Give Away Some of That Bonus

By: Michael I. Norton and Elizabeth W. Dunn

Employees who spend some or all of their bonuses on others-thereby creating what the authors call a "prosocial" workplace-are happier as a result. Managers can enhance that effect by providing opportunities to share the wealth. View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Compensation and Benefits; Employees; Behavior; Happiness

2020
Article

Immigrant Entrepreneurship in America: Evidence from the Survey of Business Owners 2007 & 2012

By: Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr

We study immigrant entrepreneurship in 2007 and 2012 using the Survey of Business Owners. First-generation immigrants create about 25% of new firms in America, but this share exceeds 40% in some states. Immigrant-owned firms tend to create fewer jobs than native-owned... View Details

Keywords: Job Creation; Employee Benefits; Owner Demographics; Exports; Outsourcing; Immigration; Entrepreneurship; Ownership; Demographics; Jobs and Positions; Compensation and Benefits; United States