Publications

Educators

September 2023
Article

Corporate Purpose in Public and Private Firms

By: Claudine Gartenberg and George Serafeim

Analyzing data from approximately 1.5 million employees across 1,108 established public and private US companies, we find that the strength of employee beliefs related to purpose is weaker in public companies. Among public companies, those beliefs are stronger for... View Details

Keywords: Purpose; Corporate Purpose; Culture; Corporate Culture; Public And Private Organizations; Hedge Fund; Executive Pay; Corporate Governance; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Culture; Mission and Purpose; Employees; Attitudes; Executive Compensation; Ownership

April 2005 (Revised July 2005)
Case

Ilene Lang and the Catalyst Search (A)

By: Myra M. Hart and Laura L. Nash

Catalyst, the nonprofit organization dedicated to championing women in professional ranks, is searching for a new president--only the third in its 42-year history. Ilene Lang, a corporate executive and entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience in high-tech... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Nonprofit Organizations; Work-Life Balance; Job Search; Gender; Service Industry

March 2022 (Revised April 2022)
Case

In Search of Global Regulation

By: Geoffrey Jones and Mona Rahmani

The history of the international regulation of global capitalism is surveyed, addressing the challenges facing firms confronting international, national, and regional regulation. Follows the history of global regulation after 1914, from the League of Nations;... View Details

Keywords: History; Multinational Firms and Management; International Relations; Laws and Statutes; Corporate Governance; Business and Government Relations

Educators

02 May 2000
Research & Ideas

Leading Professional Service Firms

The HBS Executive Education course Leading Professional Service Firms (LPSF) is an intensive, one-week program that focuses on management issues unique to these firms. It provides a forum for participants... View Details

Keywords: Re: Jay W. Lorsch; Service; Consulting; Accounting

2013
Working Paper

Where do the Most Active Customers Originate and How Can Firms Keep Them Engaged?

By: Clarence Lee, E. Ofek and Thomas Steenburgh

In this paper, we study how firms offering Web services can acquire and develop an active customer base. We focus on two basic questions. First, how does the method of customer acquisition affect the way customers use the service to meet their own needs and to interact... View Details

Keywords: Customer Engagement; Adoption Routes; Hidden Markov Models; Search; Word-of-Mouth; Digital Media; Customer Relationship Management; Internet and the Web; Mathematical Methods; Consumer Behavior; Entrepreneurship; Marketing Reference Programs; Web Services Industry

2000
Other Unpublished Work

Do Executive Stock Options Encourage Risk-Taking?

By: Randolph B. Cohen, Brian J. Hall and Luis M. Viceira

Executive stock options create incentives for executives to manage firms in ways that maximize firm market value. Since options increase in value with the volatility of the underlying stock, executive stock options provide managers with incentives to take actions that... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Motivation and Incentives; Stock Options; Executive Compensation

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13 Feb 2017
Research & Ideas

Paid Search Ads Pay Off for Lesser-Known Restaurants

For business executives trying to decide where exactly in the digital realm to invest their advertising dollars, new research indicates that paid search ads on review sites such as Yelp can be a good way to... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Food & Beverage

Research Summary

Mastering Strategy Execution

By: Robert Simons

Professor Robert Simons’ research encompasses three areas of management accountability that are the foundation for successful strategy execution: organization design, performance measurement and control, and risk management. In addition, Simons is interested in the... View Details

December 2016 (Revised May 2018)
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 15: Using the Levers of Control to Implement Strategy

By: Robert Simons

This module reading pulls together key concepts and techniques from the Strategy Execution series into an integrated model—the levers of control. The four levers are: (1) belief systems, (2) boundary systems, (3) diagnostic control systems, and (4) interactive control... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Execution; Levers Of Control; Balancing Innovation And Control; Managing Growing Businesses; Turn Around Management; Human Behavior; Organizational Life Cycle; Strategy; Management Systems; Performance; Measurement and Metrics; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Behavior

Teaching Interest

Designing and Executing Corporate Revitalization

By: Ranjay Gulati

Given today's turbulent environment, business leaders are seeking a new path to success for their companies. But while many firms talk about transforming themselves around current trends such as digitization and remote work, most struggle when it comes to... View Details

2014
Article

Executive Compensation and Human Capital Investments Through Industry Selection

By: Boris Groysberg and Eric Lin

We use proprietary data capturing compensation levels of executives placed by a global search firm to investigate how executives evaluate rewards and risks of human capital investment choices. Our findings suggest that more isolated industries with lower opportunity to... View Details

Keywords: Executive Compensation; Human Capital; Personal Development and Career

Register to Read

1998
Working Paper

CEO Incentives and Firm Size

By: Brian Hall and George P. Baker

What determines CEO incentives? A confusion exists among both academics and practitioners about how to measure the strength of CEO incentives, and how to reconcile the enormous differences in pay sensitivities between executives in large and small firms. We show that... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Motivation and Incentives; Executive Compensation; Size; Management Systems

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09 Feb 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Executive Compensation and Misconduct: Environmental Harm

Keywords: by Dylan Minor

April 2010
Article

Executive Pay and 'Independent' Compensation Consultants

By: K. J. Murphy and Tatiana Sandino

Executive compensation consultants face potential conflicts of interest that can lead to higher recommended levels of CEO pay, including the desires to "cross-sell" services and to secure "repeat business." We find evidence in both the US and Canada that CEO pay is... View Details

Keywords: Compensation Consultants; Conflicts Of Interest; CEO Pay; Board Of Directors; Director Pay; Disclosure; Conflict of Interests; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Disclosure; Executive Compensation; Corporate Governance; Consulting Industry; Canada; United States

SSRN

2016
Working Paper

CEO Personality and Firm Policies

By: Ian D. Gow, Steven N. Kaplan, David F. Larcker and Anastasia A. Zakolyukina

Based on two samples of high quality personality data for chief executive officers (CEOs), we use linguistic features extracted from conferences calls and statistical learning techniques to develop a measure of CEO personality in terms of the Big Five traits:... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Personal Characteristics; Management Teams

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2009
Chapter

Organizational Design: Balancing Search and Stability in Strategic Decision Making

By: Jan Rivkin and Nicolaj Siggelkow

Managers often must make decisions that depend on decisions in other parts of the organization. These interactions create a network of interdependent choices and make strategizing difficult. In this chapter, the authors explore the intersection between organizing and... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Strategy; Balance and Stability

Article

Marginality and Problem-Solving Effectiveness in Broadcast Search

By: Lars Bo Jeppesen and Karim R. Lakhani

We examine who the winners are in science problem-solving contests characterized by open broadcast of problem information, self-selection of external solvers to discrete problems from the laboratories of large R&D intensive companies, and blind review of solution... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Open Source Distribution; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Markets; Independent Innovation and Invention; Problems and Challenges; Research and Development; Gender; Science