Publications

27 Feb 2006
Research & Ideas

Corporate Values and Employee Cynicism

At Maverick, employees' morale had gone down, but no one had quit. In my conversations with the CEO, he was eager to learn how employees were feeling about the company, but did not express awareness of this... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

23 Jun 2023
HBS Case

This Company Lets Employees Take Charge—Even with Life and Death Decisions

Is it possible to truly empower employees to make their own decisions—even when those decisions could mean life or death? That is the question posed by Dutch home healthcare organization Buurtzorg, which has radically avoided almost all... View Details

Keywords: by Annelena Lobb; Health

08 Dec 2022
HBS Case

The War in Ukraine and Nestlé’s Moral Dilemma: Stay or Leave Russia?

to its Russian employees and civilian customers of baby food and nutritional formula if it withdrew. "You don’t want to support war, but at the same time you don’t know if you will be making things worse or not." “It really gets at the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Consumer Products

18 Aug 2017
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: Courageous Leader Triggers a Moral Revolt of CEOs Against Trump

business community. It all came down to moral leadership. When the president refused to take the lead in speaking out against the demonstration in Charlottesville by neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan, and white supremacist groups, America’s CEOs... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

September 2024
Case

Leadership for Stretch Goals: Inspiring Employees to Achieve the Impossible at Charter Next Generation

By: Ethan Rouen and Elisabeth Powell

In 2023, Kathy Bolhous, CEO of Charter Next Generation (CNG), set out to achieve an ambitious "Moonshot"—increasing profits by $100 million within three years, purely through internal innovations and efficiency gains, without layoffs or new revenue streams. After years... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Growth Management; Mission and Purpose; Employee Ownership; Motivation and Incentives

30 Apr 2024
Book

When Managers Set Unrealistic Expectations, Employees Cut Ethical Corners

failed to meet the quotas could be transferred or have their work hours reduced. The unsurprising result is that when employees found themselves unable to meet the quotas, a significant number of them resorted to exaggeration and... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

28 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

The Importance of ‘Don’t’ in Inducing Ethical Employee Behavior

In trying to encourage good moral conduct, it's common for a company to come up with a list of don'ts—wording policies such that they focus on unethical behavior employees should avoid rather than on ethical... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

April 14, 2017
Article

Companies Like United Need to Cultivate Good Judgment, and Free Their Employees to Use It

By: John A. Deighton

United Airlines has pledged to improve its training programs and empower its employees to put customers first in the wake of a video showing a passenger being dragged from a plane. Of all the U.S. air carriers, United should have known the power of social media and... View Details

Keywords: Crisis Management; Customer Focus and Relationships; Employees; Training; Air Transportation Industry

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24 Oct 2013
Working Paper Summaries

When $3+$1 > $4: The Effect of Gift Salience on Employee Effort in an Online Labor Market

Keywords: by Duncan Gilchrist, Michael Luca & Deepak Malhotra

2014
Working Paper

Firm Competitiveness and Detection of Bribery

By: George Serafeim

Using survey data from firms around the world I analyze how detection of bribery has impacted a firm's competitiveness over the past year. Managers report that the most significant impact was on employee morale, followed by business relations, and then reputation and... View Details

Keywords: Competitiveness; Corruption; Bribery; Employee Engagement; Reputation; Regulation; Competition; Crime and Corruption; Ethics; Performance

SSRN

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March 2013
Case

Robin Ash and Printzhof Press

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Lynda St. Clair

Robin Ash has just been promoted to Chief Operating Officer of Printzhof Press and Vice President of its parent company, Education and Entertainment Holdings, Inc. Her first objective is to create an action plan that will achieve two seemingly contradictory corporate... View Details

Keywords: United States; Organizational Change; Management Styles; General Management; Change Management; Morale; Communication; Human Resource Management; Book Publishing; Information Technology; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Conflict Management; Leading Change; Competitive Strategy; Organizational Culture; Planning; Education Industry; Publishing Industry

August 2021
Case

Zoom Video Communications: Building a Culture of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion During COVID-19

By: Karen G. Mills, Scott Duke Kominers, Christopher Stanton, Andy Wu, George Gonzalez and Gabriella Elanbeck

Keywords: Diversity Management; Diversity Training; Cultural Change; Cultural Diversity; Inclusion; Inclusive Growth; Inclusive Hiring; Hiring; Hiring Of Employees; Recruiting; Performance Management; Change Leadership; Race And Ethnicity; Racial Bias; Racial Disparity; Racial Injustice; Racial Tensions; Racism; Organization; Organization Process; Organization Structure; Structural/institutional Racism; Leadership And Change Management; Leadership And Managing People; Leading; Gender Bias; Discrimination; Inequalities; Inequality; Social Change; Employee Attitude Development And Empowerment; Employee Bonding; Employee Empowerment; Employee Engagement; Employee Fairness; Employee Morale; Employee Performance Management; Employee Relations; Company Culture; Company Values; Values; COVID-19 Pandemic; Demographics; Diversity; Age; Ethnicity; Gender; Business Processes; Change Management; Change; Race; Human Capital; Human Resources; Compensation and Benefits; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Jobs and Positions; Job Interviews; Leadership; Leading Change; Management; Management Teams; Business or Company Management; Crisis Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Style; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Culture; Happiness; Prejudice and Bias; Satisfaction; Equity; Identity; Leadership Style; Values and Beliefs; Technology Industry; United States

2022
White Paper

Building from the Bottom Up: What Business Can Do to Strengthen the Bottom Line by Investing in Front-line Workers

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Manjari Raman

A significant number of American workers—44%—are employed in low wage jobs at the front line of industries. Despite undertaking some of the most tedious, dirtiest, and most dangerous jobs, low-wage workers are—and have long been—the most likely to be overlooked by... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Labor Market; Low-wage Workers; Worker Welfare; Churn/retention; Morale; Jobs and Positions; Employees; Wages; Retention; Well-being; Human Resources

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Article

Automatic Ethics: Implicit Assumptions and Ethical Managerial Conduct

By: Scott J. Reynolds, Keith Leavitt and K. A. DeCelles

We empirically examine the reflexive or automatic aspects of moral decision making. To begin, we develop and validate a measure of an individual’s implicit assumption regarding the inherent morality of business. Then, using an in-basket exercise, we demonstrate that an... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Decision Choices and Conditions

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17 Feb 2009
Research & Ideas

What’s Good about Quiet Rule-Breaking

defined as those deemed acceptable by a given society or group. The moral labeling is therefore a collective process. A worker and a supervisor cannot together deem a practice moral; instead a larger collective needs to agree to the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

23 Aug 2011
News

Book Review: The Progress Principle

March 2020 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Culture at Google

By: Nien-hê Hsieh, Amy Klopfenstein and Sarah Mehta

Beginning in 2017, technology (tech) company Google faced a series of employee-relations issues that threatened its unique culture of innovation and open communication. Issues included protests surrounding Google’s contracts with the U.S. government, restrictions of... View Details