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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,055)
- People (1)
- News (224)
- Research (605)
- Events (10)
- Multimedia (6)
- Faculty Publications (155)
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- 2021
- Working Paper
Multi-location Workers in Multinational Firms? Tradeoffs in Contextual Specialization of Employees and Organizational Outcomes
We study how “contextual specialization,” the act of focusing workers’ organizational tasks within a particular locational context, and “contextual non-specialization,” the practice of diversifying workers’ organizational tasks among multiple locational contexts,... View Details
Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Performance; Experience and Expertise; Selection and Staffing; Strength and Weakness; Personal Development and Career
Gibson, Hise O., Ryan W. Buell, and Prithwiraj Choudhury. "Multi-location Workers in Multinational Firms? Tradeoffs in Contextual Specialization of Employees and Organizational Outcomes." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 22-007, August 2021.
- 2025
- Working Paper
Private Equity and Workers: Modeling and Measuring Monopsony, Implicit Contracts, and Efficient Reallocation
By: Kyle Herkenhoff, Josh Lerner, Gordon M. Phillips, Francisca Rebelo and Benjamin Sampson
We measure the real effects of private equity buyouts on worker outcomes by building a new
database that links transactions to matched employer-employee data in the United States. To
guide our empirical analysis, we derive testable implications from three theories in... View Details
Herkenhoff, Kyle, Josh Lerner, Gordon M. Phillips, Francisca Rebelo, and Benjamin Sampson. "Private Equity and Workers: Modeling and Measuring Monopsony, Implicit Contracts, and Efficient Reallocation." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 25-046, March 2025. (Revised June 2025.)
- 25 Nov 2013
- Research & Ideas
Hiding From Managers Can Increase Your Productivity
together to facilitate visibility. The idea was that watching the workers would help managers improve operations and replicate innovations on one line across others, thus increasing productivity and driving... View Details
- 30 Mar 2021
- Research & Ideas
Commuting Hurts Productivity and Your Best Talent Suffers Most
School Assistant Professor of Business Administration Andy Wu to conduct a study that asked: Does the daily commute affect innovation and productivity for tens of millions of workers? And if so, what are the implications for companies... View Details
Keywords: by Lane Lambert
- 2012
- Chapter
The Confederacy of Heterogeneous Software Organizations and Heterogeneous Developers: Field Experimental Evidence on Sorting and Worker Effort
By: Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani
Software development occurs in a patchwork or "confederacy" of different types of institutions (universities, small start-ups, multinational enterprises, government agencies, etc.) utilizing varied work approaches. Here we speculate on one possible explanation for this... View Details
Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Applications and Software; Product Development; Organizations; Employees; Behavior; Competition; Cooperation; Creativity; Information Technology Industry
Boudreau, Kevin J., and Karim R. Lakhani. "The Confederacy of Heterogeneous Software Organizations and Heterogeneous Developers: Field Experimental Evidence on Sorting and Worker Effort." In The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity Revisited, edited by Josh Lerner and Scott Stern, 483–502. University of Chicago Press, 2012.
- 2018
- Working Paper
Creativity Under Fire: The Effects of Competition on Creative Production
By: Daniel P. Gross
Though fundamental to innovation and essential to many industries and occupations, individual creativity has received limited attention as an economic behavior and has historically proven difficult to study. This paper studies the incentive effects of competition on... View Details
Keywords: Incentives; Tournaments; Radical Vs. Incremental Innovation; Motivation and Incentives; Competition; Creativity; Innovation and Invention
Gross, Daniel P. "Creativity Under Fire: The Effects of Competition on Creative Production." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-109, March 2016. (Accepted at The Review of Economics and Statistics. NBER Working Paper Series, No. 25057, September 2018)
- 21 Mar 2018
- Research & Ideas
Why Artificial Intelligence Isn't a Sure Thing to Increase Productivity
iStock Thinking about the fast-approaching era of artificial intelligence, employers rejoice in the increases to productivity such tools could bring, while workers are more likely to calculate the time left... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
No Line Left Behind: Assortative Matching Inside the Firm
By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Vittorio Bassi, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge Tamayo
How do firms pair workers with managers, and which constraints affect the allocation of labor within the firm? We characterize the sorting pattern of managers to workers in a large readymade garment manufacturer in India and then explore potential drivers of the... View Details
Keywords: Assortative Matching; Productivity; Global Buyers; Readymade Garments; Management; Employees; Performance Productivity
Adhvaryu, Achyuta, Vittorio Bassi, Anant Nyshadham, and Jorge Tamayo. "No Line Left Behind: Assortative Matching Inside the Firm." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-103, March 2020.
- 02 Apr 2024
- Research & Ideas
Employees Out Sick? Inside One Company's Creative Approach to Staying Productive
workers each, running on tight schedules with little room for error. Yet the average daily worker absenteeism rate was 11 percent, and for any particular production line, the... View Details
- 18 Mar 2019
- Research & Ideas
Stuck in Commuter Hell? You Can Still Be Productive
Workers commute an average 38 minutes each way between home and work—a trip that can feel like a dreadful chore before the workday even begins. In fact, long commutes lower job satisfaction and increase employee turnover. Now, recent... View Details
Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman
- 29 Jun 2016
- Research & Ideas
The $1 Trillion Link Between Mental Health and Economic Productivity
understanding the link between mental health and economics as we could be,” says Ashraf, an associate professor in the Negotiations, Organizations, and Markets unit at Harvard Business School. “And that’s on both sides—both in the way mental health can affect economic... View Details
Keywords: by Carmen Nobel
- Forthcoming
- Article
No Line Left Behind: Assortative Matching Inside the Firm
By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Vittorio Bassi, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge Tamayo
How do firms pair workers with managers, and which constraints affect the allocation of labor within the firm? We characterize the sorting pattern of managers to workers in a large readymade garment manufacturer in India and then explore potential drivers of the... View Details
Keywords: Assortative Matching; Productivity; Global Buyers; Readymade Garments; Labor; Organizational Design; Performance Productivity; Fashion Industry
Adhvaryu, Achyuta, Vittorio Bassi, Anant Nyshadham, and Jorge Tamayo. "No Line Left Behind: Assortative Matching Inside the Firm." Review of Economics and Statistics (forthcoming). (Pre-published online October 29, 2024.)
- 12 Apr 2017
- Research & Ideas
Why Productivity Suffers When Employees Are Allowed to Schedule Their Own Tasks
effects of deviations on productivity in their settings,” the researchers write. “Although an initial task sequence assignment might not be optimal, allowing front-line workers to take an active role in... View Details
- November 2019
- Case
Chile: Unrest in the Copper Nation
By: Laura Alfaro and Sarah Jeong
For decades, Chile was heralded as South America’s pillar of stable economic growth. Chile was the world’s largest producer of copper and enjoyed a long period of over 30 years of world demand for its resources. In 2013, the commodity boom ended and was replaced by a... View Details
Keywords: Copper Production; Protests; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Metals and Minerals; Production; Price; Mining Industry; Chile
Alfaro, Laura, and Sarah Jeong. "Chile: Unrest in the Copper Nation." Harvard Business School Case 320-051, November 2019.
- 2024
- Working Paper
The Impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act on the Economic Development of the Western U.S.
By: Joe Long, Carlo Medici, Nancy Qian and Marco Tabellini
This paper investigates the economic consequences of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned immigration from China. The Act reduced the number of Chinese workers of all skill levels living in the United States. It also reduced the labor supply and the quality of... View Details
Keywords: Growth; Productivity; Economic Development; Business History; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Business and Government Relations; Prejudice and Bias; Government Legislation; Immigration; United States
Long, Joe, Carlo Medici, Nancy Qian, and Marco Tabellini. "The Impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act on the Economic Development of the Western U.S." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 23-008, August 2022. (Revised September 2024. Featured in Bloomberg, at Hoover Institute, VoxEU, NBER Digest, NPR, Forbes, The New Yorker, HBS Working Knowledge, and Cato Institute, quoted here.)
- 2012
- Article
Specialization and Variety in Repetitive Tasks: Evidence from a Japanese Bank
By: B. Staats and F. Gino
Sustaining operational productivity in the completion of repetitive tasks is critical to many organizations' success. Yet research points to two different work-design-related strategies for accomplishing this goal: specialization to capture the benefits of repetition... View Details
Keywords: Motivation; Productivity; Specialization; Variety; Work Fragmentation; Boundaries; Performance Productivity; Organizations; Research; Strategy; Motivation and Incentives; Opportunities; Market Transactions; Resource Allocation; Performance; Goals and Objectives; Learning
Staats, B., and F. Gino. "Specialization and Variety in Repetitive Tasks: Evidence from a Japanese Bank." Management Science 58, no. 6 (June 2012): 1141–1159.
- 2022
- Working Paper
Training, Communications Patterns, and Spillovers Inside Organizations
By: Miguel Espinosa and Christopher T. Stanton
We study direct productivity changes and spillovers after a randomized training program for the frontline workers in a Colombian government agency. While trained workers improved their individual production, we also find substantial spillovers that affected managers'... View Details
Keywords: Spillovers; Labor Productivity; Firm Objectives, Organization, And Behavior; Training; Performance Productivity
Espinosa, Miguel, and Christopher T. Stanton. "Training, Communications Patterns, and Spillovers Inside Organizations." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 30224, July 2022. (Revise and Resubmit at Journal of Political Economy .)
- 2012
- Discussion Paper
Labor Productivity and Quality Change in Singapore: Achievements in 1974-2011 and Prospects for the Next Two Decades
By: Koji Nomura and Tomomichi Amano
Labor productivity growth in Singapore that has grown at a rate of over 3.0 percent per year since 1970s considerably slowed down to 0.5 percent on average per annum in the latter half of the 2000s. The purpose of this paper is to ask, first, to what extent Singapore’s... View Details
Nomura, Koji, and Tomomichi Amano. "Labor Productivity and Quality Change in Singapore: Achievements in 1974-2011 and Prospects for the Next Two Decades." Discussion Paper, Keio Economic Observatory, 2012.
- 2025
- Working Paper
Training Within Firms
By: Brayan Diaz, Andrea Neyra-Nazarrett, Julian Ramirez, Raffaella Sadun and Jorge Tamayo
Training investments are essential for improving worker and firm productivity, yet their
implementation is often hindered by low participation rates and insufficient worker engagement.
This study uses data from three firms–a car manufacturer, a quick-service... View Details
Keywords: Productivity; Absenteeism; Middle Managers; Training; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Productivity; Employees
Diaz, Brayan, Andrea Neyra-Nazarrett, Julian Ramirez, Raffaella Sadun, and Jorge Tamayo. "Training Within Firms." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 25-045, April 2025.
- August, 2024
- Article
Absenteeism, Productivity, and Relational Contracts Inside the Firm
By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Jean-François Gauthier, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge Tamayo
We study relational contracts among managers using a unique dataset that tracks transfers of workers across teams in Indian ready-made garment factories. We focus on how relational contracts help managers cope with worker absenteeism shocks, which are frequent, often... View Details
Keywords: Implicit Contracts; Productivity; Misallocation; Absenteeism; Supervisors; Readymade Garments; Performance Productivity; Employees; Relationships; Fashion Industry; India
Adhvaryu, Achyuta, Jean-François Gauthier, Anant Nyshadham, and Jorge Tamayo. "Absenteeism, Productivity, and Relational Contracts Inside the Firm." Journal of the European Economic Association 22, no. 4 (August, 2024): 1628–1677.