Publications

November 2005
Background Note

Allemeier Commissioner

By: Henry B. Reiling and Kevin Wall

An employee who worked full time while pursuing an MBA wishes to deduct his tuition expenses in computing his federal income tax. The IRS denied the deduction as a violation of several of its policies interpreting the relevant statute. Are the expenses deductible? View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Policy; Taxation; Employees; Law

January 1992 (Revised April 1993)
Case

FBO, Inc.

By: Steven C. Wheelwright

FBO, Inc. is a fixed-base operator at a large metropolitan airport. The general manager must decide if the current pooling format is the appropriate way to staff the commercial refueling operations. If pooling is deemed inappropriate then the implementation of a... View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Labor Unions; Operations; Labor and Management Relations; Aerospace Industry

August 1983 (Revised June 1985)
Supplement

Milford Industries (B)

By: Robert J. Dolan and Benson P. Shapiro

Supplements the (A) case. A rewritten version of part of an earlier series. View Details

Keywords: Managerial Roles; Salesforce Management; Resignation and Termination; Performance Evaluation

17 Jan 2023
News

Money, Flexibility, Development? Figuring Out What Employees Really Value

14 Dec 2022
News

Abby Falik on Global Citizen Year and Finding Purpose

24 Mar 2022
News

To Better Support Working Parents, Talk to Them

16 Dec 2021
News

Avoid a One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Sales Coaching

13 Apr 2021
News

Managing a Top Performer Who Alienates Their Colleagues

01 Apr 2002
News

Underwater Options May Not Sink Incentives

During the bull market of the 1990s, stock grants and options formed increasingly large components of executive compensation. Now, however, with many options "underwater" as share values have declined well below the strike price, boards of directors are perplexed. Can... View Details

Keywords: Lisa Muelbroek; Li Jin; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

16 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Can Applied Economics Save Homeless Puppies?

finding homes for dogs and vice versa. The Wagaroo website describes the company as “a team of fun humans with years of dog experience and a desire to create a healthier, happier marketplace for matching dogs and people.” “We can help... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail

24 Sep 2014
Op-Ed

The ABCs of Addressing Climate Change (From a Business Perspective)

energy and water) are available and are less expensive and where people want to live (because there are jobs there and it's pleasant). Human development also depends on effective provision and use of resources, as well as the ability to... View Details

Keywords: by John Macomber; Energy; Utilities

01 Sep 2010
News

Letters to the Editor

Guthrie’sÂ “The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd”: Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered I’ve seen lots of funny men; Some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen. Â Sam Heffner (MBA ’70) Ponte Vedra Beach, FL Squeaky Clean vs. View Details

Keywords: Securities, Commodities, and Other Financial Investments; Finance

26 Jun 2009
Research Event

Business Summit: Business and the Environment

with a portfolio of environmentally focused businesses. An environmental crisis exists, almost certainly due to human action. Temperatures and sea levels are rising; ice is melting. If the causes for these problems are not addressed—and... View Details

Keywords: Re: Forest L. Reinhardt; Energy; Utilities

Web

Buy Now, Pay Later: Imagining Pre-Industrial Credit

mourning the "death of credit," depicted as a human corpse, scold the viewer for destroying the trust on which economic exchange is founded-and suggest that the blanket condemnation of credit was more complicated in practice than in... View Details

21 Nov 2008
News

No More Squawking about the Campus Turkey

Turk definitely staked a claim to the HBS campus. But a little aggression wasn’t enough to run afoul of state law that protects wild creatures from relocation just to soothe jangled human nerves. Alas, perhaps the celebrity status Turk... View Details

Keywords: Centennial; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

2023
Article

Conduit Incentives: Eliciting Cooperation from Workers Outside of Managers' Control

By: Susanna Gallani

Can managers use monetary incentives to elicit cooperation from workers they cannot reward for their efforts? I study “conduit incentives,” an innovative incentive design, whereby managers influence bonus-ineligible workers’ effort by offering bonus-eligible employees... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior Modification; Peer Monitoring; Persistence Of Performance Improvements; Crowding Out; Implicit Incentives; Compensation; Healthcare; Social Pressure; Image Motivation; Incentives; Motivation; Performance; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Compensation and Benefits; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Organizational Culture; Health Industry; California

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Article

Political Skill: Explaining the Effects of Nonnative Accent on Managerial Hiring and Entrepreneurial Investment Decisions

By: Laura Huang, Marcia Frideger and Jone L. Pearce

We propose and test a new theory explaining glass-ceiling bias against nonnative speakers as driven by perceptions that nonnative speakers have weak political skill. Although nonnative accent is a complex signal, its effects on assessments of the speakers' political... View Details

Keywords: Spoken Communication; Prejudice and Bias; Competency and Skills; Selection and Staffing; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Decisions

Find at Harvard

September 2016 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Collage.com: Scaling a Distributed Organization

By: Christopher Stanton and Shikhar Ghosh

Kevin Borders and Joe Golden, co-founders and co-CEOs of Collage.com, must decide how to grow their custom photo-products startup in the face of fierce competition. From 2011 through 2016, the business evolved from a hobby to a startup with $22 million in revenue and... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Internet and the Web; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Employees; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Service Industry

December 2013 (Revised July 2015)
Case

VP Group: Vegpro Grows Beyond Kenya

By: Jose Alvarez and Natalie Kindred

In 2013, Kenyan horticulture producer and exporter VP Group is weighing potential expansion opportunities against the growing risks in its production and export markets. With $121 million in 2012 revenues, VP Group has grown rapidly in recent years by expanding its... View Details