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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(955)
- News (50)
- Research (839)
- Events (1)
- Multimedia (1)
- Faculty Publications (387)
- July 2012
- Case
Performance Management at Vitality Health Enterprises, Inc.
By: John Bingham and Michael Beer
Vitality Health Enterprises, a medium-sized firm that manufactures health and personal care products, has experienced six straight quarters of strong revenue growth. James Hoffman, the new Senior Vice President of Human Resources, fears that the chain of success is... View Details
Keywords: Performance Evaluation; Motivation and Incentives; Compensation and Benefits; Talent and Talent Management; Health Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States
Bingham, John, and Michael Beer. "Performance Management at Vitality Health Enterprises, Inc." Harvard Business School Brief Case 913-501, July 2012.
- June 2000 (Revised December 2001)
- Case
Performance Pay at Safelite Auto Glass (A)
By: Brian J. Hall, Edward Lazear and Carleen Madigan
Describes a company's changing of its compensation and incentive plan. In particular, it shows how a change from hourly pay to piece rate pay (for windshield installers) affected productivity, pay, and turnover. View Details
Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Performance Productivity; Change; Compensation and Benefits; Service Industry; Auto Industry
Hall, Brian J., Edward Lazear, and Carleen Madigan. "Performance Pay at Safelite Auto Glass (A)." Harvard Business School Case 800-291, June 2000. (Revised December 2001.)
- July 2010
- Article
Is a Higher Calling Enough? Incentives Effects in the Church
By: Christopher Parsons, J. Hartzell and D. Yermack
We study the compensation and productivity of more than 2,000 Methodist ministers in a 43‐year panel data set. The church appears to use pay‐for‐performance incentives for its clergy, as their compensation follows a sharing rule by which pastors receive approximately... View Details
Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Organizations; Religion; Performance Evaluation; Compensation and Benefits
Parsons, Christopher, J. Hartzell, and D. Yermack. "Is a Higher Calling Enough? Incentives Effects in the Church." Journal of Labor Economics 28, no. 3 (July 2010): 509–538.
- May 2011
- Article
Incentives and Problem Uncertainty in Innovation Contests: An Empirical Analysis
By: Kevin J. Boudreau, Nicola Lacetera and Karim R. Lakhani
Contests are a historically important and increasingly popular mechanism for encouraging innovation. A central concern in designing innovation contests is how many competitors to admit. Using a unique data set of 9,661 software contests, we provide evidence of two... View Details
Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Innovation and Invention; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Value; Applications and Software; Competition; Performance; Theory; Practice
Boudreau, Kevin J., Nicola Lacetera, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Incentives and Problem Uncertainty in Innovation Contests: An Empirical Analysis." Management Science 57, no. 5 (May 2011): 843–863.
- 2014
- Teaching Note
Fine Harvest Restaurant Group
By: Clara X. Chen, Kenneth A. Merchant, Tatiana Sandino and Wim Van der Stede
The Fine Harvest Restaurant Group cases A and B examine a company's design of a new system to evaluate the performance (and determine the bonuses) for its restaurant managers. Fine Harvest had traditionally evaluated restaurant managers based on store margins and had... View Details
- April 2025
- Article
Gender and Preferences for Performance Feedback
By: Katherine Baldiga Coffman and David Klinowski
Across multiple studies, we investigate whether there are gender differences in preferences for receiving performance feedback. We vary many features of the feedback context: whether the performance task is a cognitive test or a mock interview, whether the feedback is... View Details
Coffman, Katherine Baldiga, and David Klinowski. "Gender and Preferences for Performance Feedback." Management Science 71, no. 4 (April 2025): 3497–3516.
- 2015
- Case
Fine Harvest Restaurant Group (cases A and B)
By: Clara (Xiaoling) Chen, Kenneth A. Merchant, Tatiana Sandino and Wim A. Van der Stede
The Fine Harvest Restaurant Group cases A and B examine a company's design of a new system to evaluate the performance (and determine the bonuses) for its restaurant managers. Fine Harvest had traditionally evaluated restaurant managers based on store margins and had... View Details
- 06 Feb 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Subjectivity in Tournaments: Implicit Rewards and Penalties and Subsequent Performance
- 23 Mar 2017
- News
Incentives Don’t Help People Change, but Peer Pressure Does
- 2015
- Working Paper
Do-gooders and Go-getters: Career Incentives, Selection, and Performance in Public Service Delivery
By: Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera and Scott S. Lee
We study how career incentives affect who selects into public health jobs and, through selection, their performance while in service. We collaborate with the Government of Zambia to experimentally vary the salience of career incentives in a newly created health worker... View Details
Ashraf, Nava, Oriana Bandiera, and Scott S. Lee. "Do-gooders and Go-getters: Career Incentives, Selection, and Performance in Public Service Delivery." Working Paper, March 2015.
- September 2003 (Revised October 2005)
- Case
Performance Pay for MGOA Physicians (A)
Examines the transition of an orthopedic surgical group at a premier teaching and research hospital from a system in which the surgeons are compensated with flat salaries to a system where they are compensated based on profitability. Allows for an examination of... View Details
Keywords: Value Creation; Motivation and Incentives; Nonprofit Organizations; Health Care and Treatment; Compensation and Benefits; Health Industry
Barro, Jason R., Kevin J. Bozic, and Aaron Zimmerman. "Performance Pay for MGOA Physicians (A)." Harvard Business School Case 904-028, September 2003. (Revised October 2005.)
- 2025
- Working Paper
Performance Capital Flows in DC Pensions
By: Bryan Gutierrez Cortez, Victoria Ivashina and Juliana Salomao
Are defined contribution (DC) pension funds' capital flows sensitive to performance? We examine pressures from individual account holders who can switch their pension managers. Using novel data on retirement accounts for nearly 10 million individuals, we analyze... View Details
Keywords: Investment Funds; Retirement; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Management; Investment Portfolio; Financial Services Industry
Gutierrez Cortez, Bryan, Victoria Ivashina, and Juliana Salomao. "Performance Capital Flows in DC Pensions." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 33693, April 2025.
- January 2017 (Revised May 2019)
- Case
Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (A)
By: Doug J. Chung
Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain. The company’s products consisted of home electronics and accessories. The company was noted for its excellent customer service and a fair “one-for-all” HR policy. Historically, the salespeople had been compensated... View Details
Keywords: Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Change; Decision Making; Electronics Industry; Sweden
Chung, Doug J. "Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (A)." Harvard Business School Case 517-090, January 2017. (Revised May 2019.)
- February 2020
- Article
Effects of a Tournament Incentive Plan Incorporating Managerial Discretion in a Geographically Dispersed Organization
By: Carolyn Deller and Tatiana Sandino
Using retail chain data, we study the effects of a tournament incentive plan based primarily on objective performance, but incorporating managerial discretion in the selection of winners. In principle, such plans could motivate employees to perform both at a high... View Details
Keywords: Tournaments; Subjectivity; Motivation and Incentives; Fairness; Performance Improvement; Geographic Location
Deller, Carolyn, and Tatiana Sandino. "Effects of a Tournament Incentive Plan Incorporating Managerial Discretion in a Geographically Dispersed Organization." Management Science 66, no. 2 (February 2020): 911–931.
- 2012
- Working Paper
Earnings Management from the Bottom Up: An Analysis of Managerial Incentives Below the CEO
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Julie Wulf
Performance-based pay is an important instrument to align the interests of managers with the interests of shareholders. However, recent evidence suggests that high-powered incentives also provide managers with incentives to manipulate the firm's reported earnings. The... View Details
Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Interests; Business and Shareholder Relations; Motivation and Incentives; Earnings Management; Performance Evaluation; Stock Options
Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, and Julie Wulf. "Earnings Management from the Bottom Up: An Analysis of Managerial Incentives Below the CEO ." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12-056, January 2012. (Revised August 2012.)
- 27 Nov 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
No Margin, No Mission? A Field Experiment on Incentives for Pro-Social Tasks
- 21 Apr 2010
- Working Paper Summaries
Why Do Firms Use Non-Linear Incentive Schemes? Experimental Evidence on Sorting and Overconfidence
Keywords: by Ian Larkin & Stephen Leider
- 2011
- Article
Incentive Compensation and the Likelihood of Termination: Theory and Evidence from Real Estate Organizations
By: Christopher Parsons, G. Hallman and J. Hartzell
We analyze two managerial compensation incentive devices: the threat of termination and pay for performance. We first develop a simple model predicting that these devices are substitutes: when termination incentives are low, optimal contracts provide stronger... View Details
Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Resignation and Termination; Compensation and Benefits; Real Estate Industry
Parsons, Christopher, G. Hallman, and J. Hartzell. "Incentive Compensation and the Likelihood of Termination: Theory and Evidence from Real Estate Organizations." Real Estate Economics 39, no. 3 (Fall 2011): 507–546.
- March 2007
- Article
Authority, Risk, and Performance Incentives: Evidence from Division Manager Positions inside Firms
By: Julie Wulf
I show that performance incentives vary by decision-making authority of division managers. For division managers with broader authority, i.e., those designated as corporate officers, both the sensitivity of pay to global performance measures and the relative importance... View Details
Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Performance; Risk and Uncertainty; Business Model; Globalization; Measurement and Metrics; Status and Position; Forecasting and Prediction; Business Divisions
Wulf, Julie. "Authority, Risk, and Performance Incentives: Evidence from Division Manager Positions inside Firms." Journal of Industrial Economics 55, no. 1 (March 2007): 169–196.
- May 2019
- Supplement
Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (D)
By: Doug J. Chung
Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain. The company’s products consisted of home electronics and accessories. The company was noted for its excellent customer service and a fair “one-for-all” HR policy. Historically, the salespeople had been compensated... View Details
Keywords: Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Change Management; Behavior; Electronics Industry; Sweden
Chung, Doug J. "Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (D)." Harvard Business School Supplement 519-096, May 2019.