Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,106)
- Faculty Publications (485)
- January 1991 (Revised March 2010)
- Case
Westchester Distributing, Inc. (A)
By: Robert L. Simons and Robert Boxwell
Focuses on the three-way interaction among internal controls, employee behavior, and incentives. Salesmen are illegally providing kickbacks to customers of this beer-distribution firm. In turn, salesmen are reimbursing themselves by filing fraudulent expense reports.... View Details
- Article
Enfranchisement of Service Workers
By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and James Heskett
Enfranchisement is achieved through an integration of empowerment with methods of pay for performance. Evidence from Ito Yokado Group in Japan and Nordstrom in the US demonstrates the positive effects of enfranchisement. Successful efforts to enfranchise employees: 1.... View Details
- May 1990 (Revised December 1998)
- Case
Technology Transfer at a Defense Contractor (Abridged)
By: Linda A. Hill
Covers the same material concerning the specific transfer of technology as described in the longer version but summarizes the environmental and organizational context of the transfer. Most appropriate when the instructor wishes to focus on the action questions. View Details
- March 1990 (Revised October 1999)
- Case
Mary Kay Cosmetics: Sales Force Incentives (A)
By: Robert L. Simons and Hilary Weston
Describes the incentive system by which Mary Kay Cosmetics motivates the sales force of 200,000 independent agents who comprise the firm's only distribution channel. Illustrates the powerful effect on sales-force behavior that results when creative types of employee... View Details
- January 1989 (Revised June 1993)
- Case
General Electric: Compliance Systems
By: Robert L. Simons
After General Electric (GE) is indicted in 1985 for defrauding the Department of Defense, Chairman John F. Welch takes dramatic steps to prevent a recurrence. This case documents the new systems and procedures that are put in place to ensure that all GE employees are... View Details
- November 1988 (Revised July 1997)
- Case
Technology Transfer at a Defense Contractor
By: Linda A. Hill
At a time of great changes in the corporate environment, Larry Yoshino, a design lab manager at Parsons Controls Corp., faces a delay in a costly defense project due to the inability of one of his subordinates to gain the cooperation of engineers at Parsons'... View Details
- March 1987 (Revised October 1993)
- Case
Au Bon Pain: The French Bakery Cafe, The Partner/Manager Program
By: W. Earl Sasser
In recent years, Au Bon Pain (ABP), a chain of upscale French bakeries/sandwich cafes based in Boston, confronted a set of human resource problems endemic to the fast food industry (i.e., a labor shortage which made it difficult to attract and maintain quality crew... View Details
- 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
- January 1981 (Revised June 1993)
- Background Note
Note on Why Employees Join Unions
By: Michael Beer
Provides some answers to the question of why employees join unions. Summarizes recent data on workers' perceptions of unions: their power and instrumentality. Also explores the special situation of white collar workers. View Details
- Forthcoming
- Article
Differentiating on Diversity: How Disclosing Workforce Diversity Influences Consumer Choice
By: Maya Balakrishnan, Jimin Nam and Ryan W. Buell
Companies are facing increased pressure to “walk the talk” on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in their operations. One specific call-to-action from stakeholders is the public disclosure of EEO-1s. Companies with 100+ employees are federally mandated to annually... View Details
- 2025
- Chapter
Employer-Based Short-Term Savings Accounts
By: Sarah Holmes Berk, John Beshears, Jay Garg, James J. Choi and David Laibson
We study the introduction of a choice architecture design intended to increase short-term savings among employees at five U.K. firms. Employees were offered the opportunity to opt into a payroll deduction program that auto-deposits funds from each paycheck into a... View Details
- Forthcoming
- Article
Is Hybrid Work the Best of Both Worlds? Evidence from a Field Experiment
This paper reports causal evidence on how the extent of hybrid work—the number of days worked from home relative to days worked from office—affects employee attitudes and performance. Workers who spent around two days in the office each week on average self-reported... View Details
- Forthcoming
- Article
It Takes Two to Untangle: Illuminating How and Why Some Workplace Relationships Adapt While Others Deteriorate After a Workplace Microaggression
By: Summer R. Jackson and Basima A. Tewfik
Although scholars largely assume that workplace microaggressions negatively impact the work relationship between the target and the perpetrator, relational deterioration is not the only observable relational outcome. Indeed, there are instances of relational... View Details
- Research Summary
Managing the Advantages and Tradeoffs of Collaborative Structures
To solve complex problems, organizations must both collect facts and use them to solve problems. In one study, my coauthors and I show that increased connectivity—measured as network... View Details
- Research Summary
Overview
I have spent my career studying novel talent management practices and their effect on collaboration and performance. My core research focuses on two interrelated organizational trends that have become salient in the 21st century: workplace transparency (who gets to... View Details
Keywords: Privacy; Transparency; Productivity; Field Experiments; Communication; Design; Human Resources; Leadership; Management; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Performance; Groups and Teams; Networks; Behavior; Social and Collaborative Networks; Satisfaction; North America; Europe; Asia; China; Japan; Latin America
- Research Summary
Overview
By: Rohit Deshpande
Customer Centricity
Rohit Deshpandé's research program focuses on Customer-Centricity. A stream of projects examines the interaction between corporate and national culture as they influence the development and implementation of global marketing strategies in high... View Details
- Research Summary
Overview
Engaged with field work in East Africa, South Asia, and in several large hybrid organizations in the United States, Professor Whillans places a focus on exploring questions with strong theoretical motivation in the social psychological literature and relevant... View Details
- Research Summary
Renovating Democratic Capitalism
This in-process work focuses on how best to address the declining public trust and confidence in democratic capitalism, which many citizens consider to be a cornerstone of our national ideology and identity? While the answer to this question is not entirely clear, I... View Details