Publications

27 Jan 2017
Working Paper Summaries

The Microstructure of Work: How Unexpected Breaks Let You Rest, but Not Lose Focus

Keywords: by Pradeep Pendem, Paul Green, Bradley R. Staats, and Francesca Gino

October 1981
Background Note

Note on Rewards Systems

By: Michael Beer

Looks at rewards in general, and pay in particular, and studies the conditions that may enhance or detract from employee satisfaction and organizational effectiveness. View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Wages; Organizations; Performance Effectiveness; Motivation and Incentives; Satisfaction

2020
Article

Worry at Work: How Organizational Culture Promotes Anxiety

By: Jeremy A. Yip, Emma E. Levine, Alison Wood Brooks and Maurice E. Schweitzer

Organizational culture profoundly influences how employees think and behave. Established research suggests that the content, intensity, consensus, and fit of cultural norms act as a social control system for attitudes and behavior. We adopt the norms model of... View Details

Keywords: Anxiety; Norms; Stress; Culture; Tightness-looseness; Curvilinear; Organizational Culture; Emotions; Performance

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March 2018 (Revised June 2018)
Case

Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A)

By: Tatiana Sandino and Olivia Hull

A year after Norwegian grocery chain REMA 1000 adopted Workplace, Facebook’s enterprise social network, Chief Human Resource Officer Tore Høylie is asked to evaluate its impact on company culture and communication. Almost 90% of the workforce is engaged with the... View Details

Keywords: Social Network; Enterprise Social Media; Facebook; Workplace; Social and Collaborative Networks; Communication Technology; Performance Improvement; Organizational Culture; Knowledge Sharing; Social Media; Retail Industry; Norway

22 Oct 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

Motivate Me, Please

your manager's paycheck can motivate you to work harder. Research Papers Research Paper Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting For decades, goal setting has been promoted as a halcyon pill for improving View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

April 2019
Article

Incentives for Public Goods Inside Organizations: Field Experimental Evidence

By: Andrea Blasco, Olivia S. Jung, Karim R. Lakhani and Michael Menietti

Understanding why employees go the extra mile at work is a key problem for many organizations. We conduct a field experiment at a medical organization to study motivations for employees to submit project proposals for organizational improvement. In total, we analyze... View Details

Keywords: Field Experiment; Innovation; Contest; Incentives; Free-rider Problem; Healthcare Organizations; Employees; Motivation and Incentives; Innovation and Invention; Organizations; Performance Improvement; Perspective

August 2018 (Revised July 2020)
Case

Revenue Recognition at HBP

By: Paul Healy and Siko Sikochi

In early 2014, Paul Bills, CFO of Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), sat down with David Wan, the company’s CEO, to discuss budget preparations for the coming year. Bills noted that the performance of Corporate Learning, one of HBP’s three business units, would be... View Details

Keywords: Accrual Accounting; Budgets and Budgeting; Revenue Recognition; Financial Reporting; Publishing Industry; Education Industry; United States

April 2024 (Revised November 2024)
Case

Moderna: Pioneering a People Platform to Accelerate Science Innovation

By: Tatiana Sandino, Emil Dy and Samuel Grad

Moderna was founded in 2010 to explore how messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) could be used to create breakthrough medicines by encoding instructions for the body to create antibodies. When Stéphane Bancel (HBS 2000) took over in 2011, he bet on the potential of this... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Talent and Talent Management; Selection and Staffing; AI and Machine Learning; Digital Strategy; Innovation and Management; Leadership Development; Management Practices and Processes; Management Systems; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Alignment; Employee Relationship Management; Science-Based Business; Expansion; Pharmaceutical Industry; Biotechnology Industry; United States

November–December 2024
Article

Loss of Peers and Individual Worker Performance: Evidence From H-1B Visa Denials

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Kirk Doran, Astrid Marinoni and Chungeun Yoon

We study how restrictive immigration policies that result in the unexpected loss of co-workers affect the performance of skilled migrants employed in organizations. Specifically, we examine the impact of the loss of team members on their co-workers’ performance in... View Details

Keywords: Immigration; Performance Productivity; Employees; Human Capital; Ethnicity; Groups and Teams

11 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

Adding Time to Activity-Based Costing

employees to activities. We also wrote several cases where other companies, independently, relied on this interviewing approach. These time surveys turned out to be the Achilles heel of ABC. They were time-consuming and expensive to... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

26 Apr 2011
First Look

First Look: April 26

PapersThe Impact of Forward-Looking Metrics on Employee Decision Making Authors:Pablo, F. Casas-Arce, Asís Martínez-Jerez, and V.G. Narayanan Abstract This paper analyzes the effects of providing forward-looking metrics on View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Article

Why Compliance Programs Fail: And How to Fix Them

By: Hui Chen and Eugene Soltes

Firms spend millions of dollars annually on whistle-blower hotlines, training, and other efforts to ensure adherence to laws, regulations, and company policies. Yet malfeasance remains entrenched in the corporate world. Why? Too many firms treat compliance as a... View Details

Keywords: Governance Compliance; Programs; Employees; Training; Performance Effectiveness; Measurement and Metrics

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July 2020
Case

Kathy Fish at Procter & Gamble: Navigating Industry Disruption by Disrupting from Within

By: Emily Truelove, Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards

When Kathy Fish, Procter & Gamble’s Chief Research, Development & Innovation Officer, and a 40-year company veteran, stepped into her role in 2014, she was concerned that the world’s leading consumer packaged goods company had lost its capability to produce a steady... View Details

Keywords: Female Protagonist; Organizational Change; Organizational Behavior; Culture Change; Digital; Innovation; Lean Startup; Experimentation; Metrics; Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG); Leadership; Leading Change; Change Management; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Disruption; Innovation and Invention; Digital Transformation

18 Oct 2016
Op-Ed

Why Business Should Invest in Community Health

“where people live, learn, work, and play.” Many firms acknowledge the importance of employee health to their bottom lines, and have also started taking steps to improve their consumer health and environmental health footprints. Target,... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch, Howard Koh, and Pamela Yatsko; Health

May 1994 (Revised January 1995)
Case

Warner Cable (A) and (B) (Condensed)

The new general manager of Warner Cable's Medford, Massachusetts complex faces a number of turnaround challenges in 1985, including service deficiencies, customer complaints, high turnover, and low employee morale. By 1988 he has turned the situation around, but some... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management Style; Change Management; Performance Improvement; Telecommunications Industry; Massachusetts

2008
Report

Survey Questionnaire on Environmental Management Practices: Summary of Results by Industry and Practices

By: Magali Delmas and Michael W. Toffel

This document provides a summary of the results of a survey on Environmental Management Practices (EMP) conducted by the University of California at Santa Barbara during October and November 2003. The survey was sent to 3255 facilities in 8 industrial sectors: pulp,... View Details

Keywords: Economic Sectors; Surveys; Management Practices and Processes; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Non-Governmental Organizations