Publications

February 2008
Case

EFI, Inc. (A)

By: David B. Godes and Lauren Barley

EFI has a unique sales compensation challenge. They cannot allocate sales credit for their core product to individual salespeople. So, they've historically paid the sales force as a team. This has worked out fine, since they've been a near-monopoly seller of a single... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Compensation and Benefits; Performance Evaluation; Groups and Teams; Salesforce Management; Motivation and Incentives

August 2021
Article

Anger Damns the Innocent

By: Katherine DeCelles, Gabrielle Adams, Holly S. Howe and Leslie K. John

False accusations of wrongdoing are common and can have grave consequences. In six studies, we document a worrisome paradox in perceivers’ subjective judgments of a suspect’s guilt. Specifically, we find that laypeople (online panelists; N = 4,983) use suspects’ angry... View Details

Keywords: Morality; Accusations; Deception; Guilt; Affect; Emotions; Behavior; Perception; Judgments; Decision Making

July 2010
Article

Workplace Peers and Entrepreneurship

By: Ramana Nanda and Jesper B. Sorensen

We examine whether the likelihood of entrepreneurial activity is related to the prior career experiences of an individual's co-workers, using a unique matched employer-employee panel dataset. We argue that coworkers can increase the likelihood that an individual will... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career; Perception; Opportunities; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence

January–February 2019
Article

The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures

By: Gary P. Pisano

Innovative cultures are generally depicted as pretty fun. They’re characterized by a tolerance for failure and a willingness to experiment. They’re seen as being psychologically safe, highly collaborative, and nonhierarchical. And research suggests that these behaviors... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Innovation and Invention; Performance Expectations; Leadership

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October 2018
Case

P-Will at DISCO

By: Ethan Bernstein, Naoko Jinjo and Yuna Sakuma

From the outside, DISCO—a Japan-based manufacturer of precision tools for semiconductor production devices—appeared to be a rather ordinary company that had achieved rather extraordinary success: it had simultaneously achieved 70% global market share, had lifted its... View Details

Keywords: Human Capital; P-Will; DISCO; Semiconductors; Self-Managed Organizations; Governance; Human Resources; Selection and Staffing; Management Practices and Processes; Management Systems; Organizational Structure; Organizational Design; Semiconductor Industry; Japan

28 May 2021
Video

Robert Livingston Presents at The 2021 HBS Gender and Work Symposium

Career Coach

Aspen Wang

Aspen wants to empower students to pursue a career that truly fits their needs. From exploring what matters to the individual for those who are undecided, to looking more tactically at what it means to conduct a structured or a networked... View Details

October 2022
Case

Star Magnolia Capital: Becoming Experts at Finding Experts

By: Lauren Cohen, Hao Gao, River Ewing and Grace Headinger

Shinya Deguchi, Founder and Managing Partner of Star Magnolia Capital, a Shanghai-based multi-family office (MFO), considered how to convince a new prospective family that the MFO’s endowment model approach would best suit their needs. In recent decades, there has been... View Details

Keywords: China; Asia; Family Office; Shanghai; Financial Industry; Asset Management; Financial Instruments; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Investment; Investment Return; Investment Portfolio; Human Capital; Family Business; Financial Services Industry; China; Shanghai

March 1992 (Revised December 1992)
Case

Salomon and the Treasury Securities Auction

By: Dwight B. Crane

Set in June 1991, two months prior to Salomon Brothers' announcement that the firm had violated the Treasury Department's rules governing the auctions of new Treasury securities. Salomon Vice Chairman John Meriwether must decide how to address problems that continue to... View Details

Keywords: Debt Securities; Managerial Roles; Ethics; Market Transactions; Bonds; Investment Banking; Crisis Management; Auctions; Legal Liability; Banking Industry

23 Oct 2024
HBS Seminar

Rosa Ferrer, University of Pompeu Fabra and BSE

John Beshears

John Beshears is the Albert J. Weatherhead Jr. Professor of Business Administration in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit, teaching the second-year MBA course "Negotiation." He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.... View Details

June 23, 2020
Article

Inequality in Socially Permissible Consumption

By: Serena Hagerty and Kate Barasz

Lower-income individuals are frequently criticized for their consumption decisions; this research examines why. Eleven preregistered studies document systematic differences in permissible consumption—interpersonal judgments about what is acceptable (or not) for others... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Judgments; Consumption; Economic Inequalty; Income; Equality and Inequality; Spending; Judgments

10 Jan 2005
What Do You Think?

Public Pension Reform: Does Mexico Have the Answer?

their twenties unfathomable." No one, however, supported individual decision making regarding investments. In Edward Hare's opinion, "The average Joe could get fleeced badly and find that he's still unprepared to finance his... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Financial Services

Article

Origins of the Belief in Good True Selves

By: Julian De Freitas, Mina Cikara, Igor Grossman and Rebecca Schlegel

Despite differences in beliefs about the self across cultures and relevant individual differences, recent evidence suggests that people universally believe in a ‘true self’ that is morally good. We propose that this belief arises from a general tendency: psychological... View Details

Keywords: Self; True Self; Psychological Essentialism; Values and Beliefs; Moral Sensibility

18 May 2023
Video

Loretta J. Ross presents "Calling In the Reproductive Justice Movement"

Research Summary

Overview

By: Ting Zhang

Professor Zhang examines how organizations can better develop individuals through advising and mentoring. In particular, she investigates how expanding individuals' direction of learning across social hierarchies and reversing traditional models of learning (e.g.,... View Details

Keywords: Advice; Mentoring; Expertise; Ethics; Interventions; Organizational Behavior; Decision Making; Power And Influence

Article

Third-Party Punishment as a Costly Signal of High Continuation Probabilities in Repeated Games

By: Jillian J. Jordan and David G. Rand

Why do individuals pay costs to punish selfish behavior, even as third-party observers? A large body of research suggests that reputation plays an important role in motivating such third-party punishment (TPP). Here we focus on a recently proposed reputation-based... View Details

Keywords: Direct Reciprocity; Evolution; Dispersal; Cooperation; Trust; Reputation; Game Theory

2016
Article

The Dynamic Componential Model of Creativity and Innovation in Organizations: Making Progress, Making Meaning

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Michael G. Pratt

Leveraging insights gained through a burgeoning research literature over the past 28 years, this paper presents a significant revision of the model of creativity and innovation in organizations published in Research in Organizational Behavior in 1988. This... View Details

Keywords: Progress; Meaningful Work; Affect; Creativity; Organizations; Innovation and Invention; Motivation and Incentives