Motivation - Publications - Faculty & Research

People routinely engage in dishonest acts without feeling guilty about their behavior. When and why does this occur? Across four studies, people justified their dishonest deeds through moral disengagement and exhibited motivated forgetting of information that might... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Behavior

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01 Apr 1976
Conference Presentation

Deadlines: Their Effect on Subsequent Intrinsic Motivation

By: W. DeJong, Teresa M. Amabile and M. R. Lepper

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives

Citation

28 Jan 2019
Research & Ideas

Forget Cash. Here Are Better Ways to Motivate Employees

motivators that will entice greater effort and loyalty out of workers. Turns out, using cash as a carrot isn’t always the best answer, according to new research by Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Ashley V. Whillans. More than... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

27 Apr 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Is Overconfidence a Motivated Bias? Experimental Evidence

Keywords: by Jennifer M. Logg, Uriel Haran, and Don A. Moore

1 Dec 2021
Interview

Hubert Joly on Humanizing the Profit Motive

By: Hubert Joly, William Kerr and Joseph Fuller

Can businesses afford to see employees in terms other than unit labor cost? How do you factor the Golden Rule into a profit and loss statement? Former Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly explains how unlearning business orthodoxies helped him prove that a human-centered approach... View Details

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2005
Chapter

Consumer Identity Motives in the Information Age

By: John Deighton

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Identity; Behavior

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Article

Motivated Inferences of Price and Quality in Healthcare Decisions

By: Emily Prinsloo, Kate Barasz and Peter A. Ubel

Policy makers have increasingly advocated for healthcare price transparency, whereby prices are made salient before services are rendered. While such policies may empower consumers, they also bring price to the forefront of healthcare choices as never before, with yet... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Price Transparency; Health Care and Treatment; Price; Quality; Perception; Consumer Behavior; Decisions; Insurance

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06 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Motivate Your High Performers to Share Their Knowledge

Many employees fall into a rut. They do their jobs and respond to challenges in a set way to deliver stable results. But consistency can give way to performance gaps between a company’s high achievers and its weakest links. Fortunately, seeking help and adopting the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

2003
Mimeo

The Economic Motivations for Using Project Finance

By: Benjamin C. Esty

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Motivation and Incentives

Citation

01 Nov 2007
Conference Presentation

Decision Amnesia: Motivated Forgetting of Difficult Choices

By: Zoe Chance and Michael I. Norton

Citation

24 Jul 2019
Lessons from the Classroom

Can These Business Students Motivate Londoners to Do the Right Thing?

Economics Why Government 'Nudges' Motivate Good Citizen Behavior Sharpening Your Skills: Motivation Do you use behavioral psychology in your business? Share your insights below View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

July 2006
Article

Dynamic Mixed Duopoly: A Model Motivated by Linux vs. Windows

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Pankaj Ghemawat

This paper analyzes a dynamic mixed duopoly in which a profit-maximizing competitor interacts with a competitor that prices at zero (or marginal cost), with the cumulation of output affecting their relative positions over time. The modeling effort is motivated by... View Details

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04 Sep 2019
Research & Ideas

'I Know Why You Voted for Trump' and Other Motivation Misperceptions

After Donald Trump won the US presidency in 2016, many Americans who hadn’t voted for him wondered: What exactly motivated so many other voters to choose him? It was a question right in the research wheelhouse of Harvard Business School... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

17 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Money Isn’t Everything: The Dos and Don’ts of Motivating Employees

In a post-pandemic business world of hybrid work and quiet quitting, companies must rethink how they motivate employees. Good incentive plans and reward structures require a careful analysis of a company’s objectives, culture, and... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman