Publications

23 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 23

problems (and the ways they reinforce each other), this paper offers a new approach to community transformation which calls for leaders to use technology to inform and connect people. We need to convert the social safety net into a View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

October 2021 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Hospital 57357: Aligning Performance Towards a Vision of a Cancer-Free Childhood

By: Susanna Gallani and Youssef Abdel Aal

The case follows the Children Cancer Hospital in Egypt, also known as Hospital 57357, as it goes through the roll-out of a new performance management system, which Dr. Sherif Abouel Naga, founder and CEO of the hospital, had championed. This was a critical juncture as... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Performance Management; Performance Incentives; Strategic Alignment; Health Care and Treatment; Nonprofit Organizations; Strategy; Alignment; Performance Evaluation; Mission and Purpose; Change Management; Health Industry; Egypt; Middle East

November 2001 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Incentive Pay for Portfolio Managers at Harvard Management Company

By: Brian J. Hall and Jonathan Lim

This case describes the compensation system for portfolio managers at Harvard's portfolio management company, including its formulaic and bonus bank features. Harvard Management Co. President Jack Meyer explains the philosophy behind the incentive pay at his company. View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Investment Portfolio; Compensation and Benefits; Financial Services Industry

25 Feb 2019
Research & Ideas

How Gender Stereotypes Kill a Woman’s Self-Confidence

Women make up more than half of the labor force in the United States and earn almost 60 percent of advanced degrees, yet they bring home less pay and fill fewer seats in the C-suite than men, particularly in male-dominated professions like finance and technology. This... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

April 1997
Case

Peoria Engine Plant (A): (Abridged)

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Amy P. Hutton

Describes the cost control system used at an automobile engine plant for labor and overhead costs. The finance staff prepares daily, weekly, and monthly variance reports against budgets. Department supervisors, finance staff, and the plant manager discuss the use and... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Cost Management; Financial Reporting; Performance Improvement; Budgets and Budgeting; Auto Industry

November 2012
Article

Empirical Observations on Longer-term Use of Incentives for Weight Loss

By: Leslie K. John, George Loewenstein and Kevin Volpp

Behavioral economic-based interventions are emerging as powerful tools to help individuals accomplish their own goals, including weight loss. Deposit contract incentive systems give participants the opportunity to put their money down toward losing weight, which they... View Details

Keywords: Weight Loss; Obesity; Behavioral Economics; Intervention; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives

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02 Aug 2012
Working Paper Summaries

The Rich Get Richer: Enabling Conditions for Knowledge Use in Organizational Work Teams

Keywords: by Melissa A. Valentine, Bradley R. Staats & Amy C. Edmondson

2012
Dictionary Entry

Learning from Failure

By: Mark D. Cannon and Amy C. Edmondson

Failure is defined as an outcome that deviates from expected and desired results. Learning from failure describes processes and behaviors through which individuals, groups and organizations gain accurate and useful insights from failures and modify future behaviors,... View Details

Keywords: Learning From Failure; Failure; Learning; Behavior; Organizational Change and Adaptation

January 2022 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Steem Versus Hive: Testing Blockchain Governance

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

This case examines a pivotal governance conflict that occurred in 2020 when Justin Sun, founder of the TRON blockchain, acquired Steemit Inc., the company behind a popular social media platform operating on the Steem blockchain. Steem, launched in 2016 by Daniel... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; Mergers and Acquisitions; Values and Beliefs; Corporate Governance; Organizational Culture; Social and Collaborative Networks; Technology Industry

January 2024
Supplement

Winning Business at Russell Reynolds

By: Ethan Bernstein and Cara Mazzucco

In an effort to make compensation drive collaboration, Russell Reynolds Associates’ (RRA) CEO Clarke Murphy sought to re-engineer the bonus system for his executive search consultants in 2016. As his HR analytics guru, Kelly Smith, points out, that risks upsetting—and... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Talent and Talent Management; Compensation and Benefits; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Motivation and Incentives; Consulting Industry

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

Keywords: Employees; Interpersonal Communication; Motivation and Incentives; Relationships; Conflict and Resolution

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March 1981 (Revised February 1993)
Case

Hank Kolb, Director, Quality Assurance

By: Frank S. Leonard and W. Earl Sasser

Designed to introduce the systemic nature of product quality and the complexity of quality problems. Uses a new director, quality assurance, and the discovery of a quality problem. The new director has to decide if it is a real problem, what to do about it, and how to... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Product; Organizational Culture; Problems and Challenges; Quality; Attitudes; Complexity

30 Nov 2011
Research & Ideas

Only Capitalists Can Save Capitalism

that can turn these problems into opportunities. The book provides examples of business efforts that promote social good without sacrificing profit: a mobile communications rollout in rural China that "extended the benefits of... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish

March 16, 2021
Article

From Driverless Dilemmas to More Practical Commonsense Tests for Automated Vehicles

By: Julian De Freitas, Andrea Censi, Bryant Walker Smith, Luigi Di Lillo, Sam E. Anthony and Emilio Frazzoli

For the first time in history, automated vehicles (AVs) are being deployed in populated environments. This unprecedented transformation of our everyday lives demands a significant undertaking: endowing complex autonomous systems with ethically acceptable behavior. We... View Details

Keywords: Automated Driving; Public Health; Artificial Intelligence; Transportation; Health; Ethics; Policy; AI and Machine Learning

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01 Apr 2015
News

Sustainability Reporting: The Lawyer’s Response

02 Sep 2013
Research & Ideas

The Curse of Double-Digit Growth

advisor to Liberian president and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a 1971 graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, wrote the policy memorandum at the request of the Liberian government, which seeks fast growth of its own. To cement political and View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

01 Nov 2019
Video

Devi Shetty

Devi Shetty, who founded Narayana hospitals in India, shares one of the most difficult challenges of working as a surgeon in a developing country such as India --having to “put a pricetag on human life” He... View Details

fall 2008
Article

Toward a Theory of Behavioral Operations

By: Francesca Gino and Gary P. Pisano

Human beings are critical to the functioning of the vast majority of operating systems, influencing both the way these systems work and how they perform. Yet most formal analytical models of operations assume that the people who participate in operating systems are... View Details

Keywords: Management Systems; Operations; Mathematical Methods; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking; Perspective; Theory