Publications

2015
Article

Approach, Ability, Aftermath: A Psychological Framework of Unethical Behavior at Work

By: C. Moore and F. Gino

Many of the scandalous organizational practices that have come to light in the last decade—rigging LIBOR, misselling payment protection insurance, rampant Wall Street insider trading, large-scale bribery of foreign officials, and the packaging and sale of toxic... View Details

Keywords: Working Conditions; Ethics; Decision Making

This book chronicles the remarkable metamorphosis of the American salesman from itinerant amateur to trained expert. From the mid-nineteenth century to the eve of World War II, the development of sales management transformed an economy populated by peddlers and... View Details

04 Jan 2010
Research & Ideas

Best of HBS Working Knowledge 2009

answered include: How do I get past a feeling of being stuck in life or work? Can I resist the temptations of success? Am I working too hard? Is there room for spirituality at the office? 10 Reasons to Design a Better Corporate Culture... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

30 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 30, 2019

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=56032 in press Cognition I Know Why You Voted for Trump: (Over)inferring Motives Based on Choice By: Barasz, Kate, Tami Kim, and Ioannis Evangelidis Abstract—People often speculate about why... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

Article

Effects of Description of Options on Parental Perinatal Decision-Making

By: Marlyse F. Haward, Leslie K. John, John M. Lorenz and Baruch Fischhoff

Objective: To examine whether parents' delivery room management decisions for extremely preterm infants are influenced by (a) the degree of detail with which options-comfort care (CC) or intensive care (IC)-are presented or (b) their order of presentation. Methods: 309... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Values and Beliefs; Personal Characteristics; Attitudes; Motivation and Incentives; Family and Family Relationships; Health Care and Treatment

February 2008 (Revised May 2011)
Case

The Travails of Rubber: Goodyear or Badyear?

By: Tom Nicholas and Andrew Ferguson

Explores the reason why Charles Goodyear, inventor of rubber vulcanization, was unable to profit from his discovery despite securing international property rights over his invention through a patent in 1844. Considers the utility of patents as an incentive for... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Entrepreneurship; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Motivation and Incentives; Commercialization

Educators

Purchase

07 Feb 2012
First Look

First Look: February 7

crises and of the response of western and central Europe to their gas dependence-I find that firms are driving these political outcomes; those firms are motivated by profits but employ sociological conventions along their ways; and firms... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

24 Apr 2019
Blog Post

Meet the Latino Student Organization

and alumni was really one of two key reasons why HBS quickly became my dream school. From the moment I was admitted, I knew that I wanted to be an active member in LASO. During my first year, I was LASO’s VP of Community Engagement and... View Details

09 Dec 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Does Management Matter in Schools?

Keywords: by Nicholas Bloom, Renata Lemos, Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen; Education

2014
Article

Delaware's Choice

By: Guhan Subramanian

This article first documents the shift to annual elections of all directors at most U.S. corporations and argues that the alternative of "ineffective" staggered boards would have been more desirable, as a policy matter, but is now a missed opportunity. Using this... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Laws and Statutes; Policy; Delaware

02 Nov 2010
First Look

First Look: November 2, 2010

Android OS and associated Android Market, the case considers potential benefits and pitfalls of each, as well as touching on the reasons that other longer standing platforms, such as RIM's BlackBerry platform, are less appealing to modern... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2006 (Revised November 2006)
Case

Cathy Benko: WINning at Deloitte (A)

By: Kathleen L. McGinn, Deborah M. Kolb and Cailin B. Hammer

Jim Quigley, CEO of Deloitte and Touche's consulting practice, asks senior partner Cathy Benko to lead Deloitte & Touche's much publicized Initiative for the Retention and Advancement of Women (WIN). Benko, already the Lead Client Service Partner on one of Deloitte's... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Leadership Development; Talent and Talent Management; Personal Development and Career; Gender; Consulting Industry; United States

Educators

Purchase

Article

Values, Purpose, Meaning, and Expectations: Why Culture and Context Matter

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

The "rational person" standard, based on assumptions of economic self-interest, has long prevailed in legal reasoning. But understanding of decision making, behavioral choices, and possibilities for action must be enlarged to include a variety of factors that give... View Details

Keywords: Standards; Interests; Decision Making; Behavior; Value; Groups and Teams; Performance Expectations; Organizational Culture; Leadership; Business Cycles; Forecasting and Prediction; Motivation and Incentives

2013
Article

Ethically Adrift: How Others Pull Our Moral Compass from True North, and How we Can Fix It

By: C. Moore and F. Gino

This chapter is about the social nature of morality. Using the metaphor of the moral compass to describe individuals' inner sense of right and wrong, we offer a framework to help us understand social reasons why our moral compass can come under others' control, leading... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Moral Sensibility; Behavior

07 Nov 2006
First Look

First Look: November 7, 2006

theory on this important workplace behavior. Findings also suggest a profoundly asymmetrical relation between the intrapersonal motivations for and against speaking up, leading to a novel theoretical explanation for the prevalence of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

13 Nov 2007
Research & Ideas

Six Steps for Reinvigorating America

Motivates values-based capitalism and drives companies to contribute to solving social and environmental problems while also providing employees stimulating and satisfying work. Restores trust by committing to government as an instrument... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

2012
Working Paper

Relational Contracts and Organizational Capabilities

By: R. Gibbons and R. Henderson

A large literature identifies unique organizational capabilities as a potent source of competitive advantage, yet our knowledge of why capabilities fail to diffuse more rapidly-particularly in situations in which competitors apparently have strong incentives to adopt... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Motivation and Incentives; Management Practices and Processes; Contracts; Competency and Skills; Relationships; Complexity

2021
Working Paper

Cognitive Biases: Mistakes or Missing Stakes?

By: Benjamin Enke, Uri Gneezy, Brian Hall, David Martin, Vadim Nelidov, Theo Offerman and Jeroen van de Ven

Despite decades of research on heuristics and biases, empirical evidence on the effect of large incentives—as present in relevant economic decisions—on cognitive biases is scant. This paper tests the effect of incentives on four widely documented biases: base rate... View Details

Keywords: Cognitive Biases; Incentives; Motivation and Incentives; Decision Making; Performance