Publications

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08 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

How to Demotivate Your Best Employees

It would seem to make sense that when companies recognize their workers with awards, they are likely to see a boost in morale and perhaps even inspire them to work harder. It turns out that sometimes rewarding employees for good behavior... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Service

17 Jul 2014
News

Motivating Corporations to Do Good

November–December 2024
Article

Why Employees Quit

By: Ethan Bernstein, Michael B. Horn and Bob Moesta

The so-called war for talent is still raging. But in that fight, employers continue to rely on the same hiring and retention strategies they’ve been using for decades. Why? Because they’ve been so focused on challenges such as poaching by industry rivals, competing in... View Details

Keywords: Retention; Recruitment; Talent and Talent Management; Employee Relationship Management; Motivation and Incentives

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December 2023
Article

Discerning Saints: Moralization of Intrinsic Motivation and Selective Prosociality at Work

By: Mijeong Kwon, Julia Lee Cunningham and Jon M. Jachimowicz

Intrinsic motivation has received widespread attention as a predictor of positive work outcomes, including employees’ prosocial behavior. In the current research, we offer a more nuanced view by proposing that intrinsic motivation does not uniformly increase prosocial... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Moral Sensibility; Employees

05 Jan 2020
News

Motivate Your High Performers to Share Their Knowledge

06 Jul 2015
Research & Ideas

Money and Quotas Motivate the Sales Force Best

It's well understood that cash bonuses often motivate a sales force to step up its game, but they don't work in every scenario and in some cases can backfire, a new study from Harvard Business School has found. The key variable? Whether... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Retail

1 Dec 2021
Interview

Hubert Joly on Humanizing the Profit Motive

By: Hubert Joly, William Kerr and Joseph Fuller

Can businesses afford to see employees in terms other than unit labor cost? How do you factor the Golden Rule into a profit and loss statement? Former Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly explains how unlearning business orthodoxies helped him prove that a human-centered approach... View Details

April 2014
Article

The Cost of High-Powered Incentives: Employee Gaming in Enterprise Software Sales

By: Ian Larkin

This paper investigates the pricing distortions that arise from the use of a common non-linear incentive scheme at a leading enterprise software vendor. The empirical results demonstrate that salespeople are adept at gaming the timing of deal closure to take advantage... View Details

Keywords: Incentives; Motivation; Compensation; Gaming; Sales Force Management; Motivation and Incentives; Salesforce Management; Software; Compensation and Benefits; Information Technology Industry

May 1994
Article

The Work Preference Inventory: Assessing Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivational Orientations

By: T. M. Amabile, K. G. Hill, B. A. Hennessey and E. M. Tighe

The Work Preference Inventory (WPI) is designed to assess individual differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations. Both the college student and the working adult versions aim to capture the major elements of intrinsic motivation (self-determination,... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Motivation and Incentives; Measurement and Metrics; Higher Education; Employees; Personal Characteristics

November 2009 (Revised December 2009)
Case

RL Wolfe: Implementing Self-Directed Teams

By: David A. Garvin and Elizabeth Collins

Key topics include team design, team management, job design, employee empowerment, implementing change, and high performance workforces. In 2004, John Amasi, the director of production for a manufacturer of plastic pipe, introduced the concept of self-directed teams... View Details

Keywords: Work Force Management; Employee Empowerment; Motivation; Motivation and Incentives; Leading Change; Employee Relationship Management; Performance Productivity; Groups and Teams; Labor Unions; Labor and Management Relations; Manufacturing Industry; Texas

Educators

November 2020 (Revised March 2022)
Teaching Note

Social Salary Setting at Spiber

By: Ashley Whillans and John Beshears

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 920-050. The case tells the story of Spiber, a Japanese technology start-up company. To reflect the company’s values, the leadership team implemented a new and unique salary-setting process: each employee had the authority to choose their... View Details

Keywords: Compensation; General Management; Employee Benefits; Incentives; Motivation; Compensation and Benefits; Fairness; Motivation and Incentives; Management; Happiness; Negotiation; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Japan

01 Jun 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Motivating Effort in Contributing to Public Goods Inside Organizations: Field Experimental Evidence

Keywords: by Andrea Blasco, Olivia S. Jung, Karim R. Lakhani, and Michael E. Menietti

August 8, 2003
Comment

A Better Way to Motivate Staff

By: Roberto G. Mendoza, Peter Hancock and Robert C. Merton

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Employees

07 May 2012
News

Checking In with Employees (Versus Checking Up)

19 Jul 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Government 'Nudges' Motivate Good Citizen Behavior

A tiny nudge can motivate big change. (Source: dziewul) Most governments aren’t subtle when they want citizens to do something. The United States spends close to $1 billion annually on advertising--trying to convince citizens to do... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

29 Oct 2013
Research & Ideas

Do Employees Work Harder for Higher Pay?

Harvard Business School Professor Deepak Malhotra set out to answer a basic question: "Do employees work harder when they are paid more?" As Malhotra, the Eli Goldston Professor of Business Administration, said in an interview, "Previous... View Details

Keywords: by Chuck Leddy & Harvard Gazette

July 24, 2019
Editorial

How to Make Even the Most Mundane Tasks More Motivating

By: Jaewon Yoon, A.V. Whillans and Ed O'Brien

People want purposeful work, and managers know it. That’s why companies try to inspire employees with mission statements about the impact their work can have. Ikea tells employees they’re “creating a better everyday life”; Microsoft says they’re “empowering every... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Motivation and Incentives; Goals and Objectives; Perspective

Article

Employee Selection as a Control System

By: Dennis Campbell

Theories from the economics, management control, and organizational behavior literatures predict that when it is difficult to align incentives by contracting on output, aligning preferences via employee selection may provide a useful alternative. This study... View Details

Keywords: Management Systems; Governance Controls; Employees; Selection and Staffing; Motivation and Incentives; Decision Making; Business Model