Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,863)
- Faculty Publications (76)
- October 2020
- Article
Overcoming Resource Scarcity: Consumers' Response to Gifts Intending to Save Time and Money
By: Alice Lee-Yoon, Grant Donnelly, A.V. Whillans and A.V. Whillans
Consumers feel increasingly pressed for time and money. Gifts have the potential to reduce scarcity in
recipients’ lives, yet little is known about how recipients perceive gifts given with the intention of saving them time or money. Across five studies (N =... View Details
- Article
Forgoing Earned Incentives to Signal Pure Motives
By: Erika L. Kirgios, Edward H. Chang, Emma E. Levine, Katherine L. Milkman and Judd B. Kessler
Policy makers, employers, and insurers often provide financial incentives to encourage citizens, employees, and customers to take actions that are good for them or for society (e.g., energy conservation, healthy living, safe driving). Although financial incentives are... View Details
- 2020
- Chapter
Immigrant Networking and Collaboration: Survey Evidence from CIC
By: Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr
Networking and the giving and receiving of advice outside of one's own firm are important features of entrepreneurship and innovation. We study how immigrants and natives utilize the potential networking opportunities provided by CIC, formerly known as the Cambridge... View Details
- October 14, 2019
- Article
Cracking the Code of Sustained Collaboration
By: Francesca Gino
When most organizations strive to increase collaboration, they approach it too narrowly: as a value to cultivate—not a skill to teach. So they create open offices, talk up collaboration as a corporate goal, and try to influence employees through other superficial means... View Details
- November 2019
- Article
Procedural Justice and the Risks of Consumer Voting
By: Tami Kim, Leslie John, Todd Rogers and Michael I. Norton
Firms are increasingly giving consumers the vote. Eight studies demonstrate that when firms empower consumers to vote, consumers infer a series of implicit promises—even in the absence of explicit promises. We identify three implicit promises to which consumers react... View Details
- September 20, 2019
- Editorial
Why Asking for Advice Is More Effective Than Asking for Feedback
By: Jaewon Yoon, Hayley Blunden, Ariella S. Kristal and A.V. Whillans
Conventional wisdom says you should ask your colleagues for feedback. However, research suggests that feedback often has no (or even a negative) impact on our performance. This is because the feedback we receive is often too vague—it fails to highlight what we can... View Details
- March 2019
- Article
When Does Advice Impact Startup Performance?
By: Aaron Chatterji, Solène Delecourt, Sharique Hasan and Rembrand Koning
Why do some entrepreneurs thrive while others fail? We explore whether the advice entrepreneurs receive about managing their employees influences their startup's performance. We conducted a randomized field experiment in India with 100 high-growth technology firms... View Details
- 2019
- Article
Fair Algorithms for Learning in Allocation Problems
By: Hadi Elzayn, Shahin Jabbari, Christopher Jung, Michael J Kearns, Seth Neel, Aaron Leon Roth and Zachary Schutzman
Settings such as lending and policing can be modeled by a centralized agent allocating a scarce resource (e.g. loans or police officers) amongst several groups, in order to maximize some objective (e.g. loans given that are repaid, or criminals that are apprehended).... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Immigrant Networking and Collaboration: Survey Evidence from CIC
By: Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr
Networking and the giving and receiving of advice outside of one’s own firm are important features of entrepreneurship and innovation. We study how immigrants and natives utilize the potential networking opportunities provided by CIC, formerly known as the Cambridge... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Corporate Sustainability: A Strategy?
By: George Serafeim
We explore the conditions under which firms maintain their competitive advantage through sustainability-based differentiation when faced with imitation pressures by industry peers. We document growing intraindustry convergence on sustainability actions over time for... View Details
Keywords: Sustainability; Corporate Performance; Industry Analysis; CSR; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Environment; Social Responsibility; Strategy And Execution; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Strategy; Performance; Corporate Strategy
- July–August 2018
- Article
Learning by Contributing: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Contribution to Crowdsourced Public Goods
By: Frank Nagle
As the economy becomes more information based, firms are increasingly using crowdsourced public goods as inputs for innovation and production. Counterintuitively, some firms pay their employees to contribute to the creation of these goods, which can be used freely by... View Details
- June 2018
- Case
Verona Group
By: Robert L. Simons and Sarah Abbott
Are a salesperson's struggles her own fault or the result of a problematic job design? Anna George works as a salesperson at Verona Group, a company that designs and wholesales high-end women's apparel. She had spent nearly 20 years in sales with another fashion label... View Details
- October 2017 (Revised October 2020)
- Case
Coaching Makena Lane
By: Ethan Bernstein and Om Lala
Makena Lane has a gift for producing results, even in the challenging retail context of the 2010s, but she also has a knack for “ruffling some feathers” in the process. Recruited to a Fortune 500 grocery and pharmacy retailer after climbing to Associate Principal in... View Details
Keywords: Executive Coaching; Employee Promotions; Career Transition From Consulting To Operating Role; 360-degree Feedback; Retail; Organizational Behavior; Personal Strategy ＆ Style; Mentoring; Coaching; Talent and Talent Management; Growth and Development; Employees; Leadership Style; Leadership Development; Management Style; Performance Evaluation; Personal Development and Career; Retail Industry; Australia; Europe; Canada; South Africa; United States; Asia
- December 2016
- Case
Public Mission, Private Funding: The University of California, Berkeley
By: William C. Kirby and Joycelyn W. Eby
UC Berkley, long known as one of the leading public universities in both the U.S. and the world, has seen turbulent times recently. While student enrollment and costs have increased steadily in recent years, the school, which has been fiercely proud of its public... View Details
Keywords: Public University; University Administration; Conflict Management; State Funding; Competition; Faculty Governance; University Of California Berkeley; Change Management; Volatility; Diversity; Residency; Higher Education; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Globalization; Policy; Leading Change; Crisis Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Design; Privatization; Problems and Challenges; Education Industry; United States
- Article
Selfishly Benevolent or Benevolently Selfish? When Self-interest Undermines versus Promotes Prosocial Behavior
By: Julian Zlatev and Dale T. Miller
Existing research shows that appeals to self-interest sometimes increase and sometimes decrease prosocial behavior. We propose that this inconsistency is in part due to the framings of these appeals. Different framings generate different salient reference points,... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised April 2022)
- Case
Zhang Xin and the Emergence of Chinese Philanthropy
By: Geoffrey Jones and Amanda Yang
This case examines the recent emergence of Chinese business philanthropy through the case of the SOHO China Foundation established by the wife and husband real estate moguls Zhang Xin and Pan Shiyi. It begins by describing the early careers of Zhang and Pan, and how... View Details
- June 2016
- Case
Controversy over Executive Remuneration at BP
By: V.G. Narayanan and Ashley Hartman
In March 2016, BP disclosed that its chief executive officer, Bob Dudley, would receive a $19.6 million compensation package, a 20% increase in total compensation over the previous year. BP justified the amount, emphasizing that the company delivered strong results... View Details
Keywords: Executive Compensation
- June 2016
- Supplement
Supply Chain Finance at Procter & Gamble Spreadsheet Supplement
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Scott Mayfield and David Lane
In April 2013, Procter & Gamble (P&G), the world’s largest consumer packaged goods (CPG) company, announced that it would extend its payment terms to suppliers by 30 days. At the same time, P&G announced a new supply chain financing (SCF) program giving suppliers the... View Details
Keywords: Working Capital; Supply Chain Finance; Corporate Treasury; Consumer Packaged Goods; Value Creation; Supply Chain; Supplier Relationships; Banking; Liquidity; Accounts Payable; Accrual Accounting; Financial Reporting; Cash Flow; Cost Management; Banks and Banking; Financial Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Supply Chain Management; United States; Brazil
- May 2016 (Revised May 2017)
- Case
Supply Chain Finance at Procter & Gamble
By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and David Lane
In April 2013, Procter & Gamble (P&G), the world’s largest consumer packaged goods (CPG) company, announced that it would extend its payment terms to suppliers by 30 days. At the same time, P&G announced a new supply chain financing (SCF) program giving suppliers the... View Details
Keywords: Working Capital; Supply Chain Finance; Corporate Treasury; Consumer Packaged Goods; Supply Chain; Supplier Relationships; Banking; Liquidity; Accounts Payable; Financial Reporting; Cash Flow; Cost Management; Banks and Banking; Financial Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Supply Chain Management; Accrual Accounting; Value Creation; Consumer Products Industry; Forest Products Industry; United States; Brazil
- Article
Landing the First Job: The Value of Intermediaries in Online Hiring
By: Christopher Stanton and Catherine Thomas
Online markets for remote labor services allow workers and firms to contract with each other directly. Despite this, intermediaries—called outsourcing agencies—have emerged in these markets. This paper shows that agencies signal to employers that inexperienced workers... View Details