Publications

Spring 2023
Article

Incentive Contract Design and Employee-Initiated Innovation: Evidence from the Field

By: Wei Cai, Susanna Gallani and Jee-Eun Shin

This study examines how the design of incentive contracts for tasks defined as workers’ official responsibilities (i.e., standard tasks) influences workers’ propensity to engage in employee-initiated innovation (EII). EII corresponds to innovation activities that are... View Details

Keywords: Employee-initiated Innovation; Contract Design; Rank-and-file; Extra-role Behaviors; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Innovation and Management

Purchase

2016
Chapter

Wrong Paths to Right: Defining Morality With or Without a Clear Red Line

By: Ryann Elizabeth Manning and Michel Anteby

The extensive literature on organizational wrongdoing tends to assume that a clear red line divides the moral terrain. However, many organizations function not as moral orders, but as moral pursuits in which there is intentionally no explicit definition of right and... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Organizational Theory; Sociology Of Ethics And Morality; Morality; Organizational Culture; Culture; Ethics; Africa; North and Central America

November 2015
Article

Why Organizations Don't Learn: Our Traditional Obsessions—Success, Taking Action, Fitting In, and Relying on Experts—Undermine Continuous Improvement

By: F. Gino and B. Staats

For any enterprise to be competitive, continuous learning and improvement are key—but not always easy to achieve. After a decade of research, the authors have concluded that four biases stand in the way: we focus too heavily on success, are too quick to act, try too... View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Learning

Register to Read

September–October 2015
Article

Facts and Figuring: An Experimental Investigation of Network Structure and Performance in Information and Solution Spaces

By: Jesse Shore, Ethan Bernstein and David Lazer

Using data from a novel laboratory experiment on complex problem solving in which we varied the structure of 16-person networks, we investigate how an organization's network structure shapes performance of problem-solving tasks. Problem solving, we argue, involves both... View Details

October 2009
Article

Making Time Off Predictable—and Required

By: Leslie Perlow and Jessica L. Porter

People in professional services believe a 24/7 work ethic is essential for getting ahead—and so they work 60-plus hours a week and stay tethered to their BlackBerrys. This perpetuates a vicious cycle: Responsiveness breeds the need for more responsiveness. When people... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Performance Expectations; Performance Productivity; Work-Life Balance; Service Industry

Purchase

2023
Working Paper

The Buy-In Effect: When Increasing Initial Effort Motivates Behavioral Follow-Through

By: Holly Dykstra, Shibeal O'Flaherty and A.V. Whillans

Behavioral interventions often focus on reducing friction to encourage behavior change. In contrast, we provide evidence that adding friction can promote long-term behavior change when behaviors involve repeated costly efforts over longer time horizons. In... View Details

Keywords: Friction; Behavior; Environmental Sustainability; Transportation; Outcome or Result

07 Dec 2010
First Look

First Look: Dec. 7

had been discovered that the common combination of Plavix and Prilosec, an over-the-counter drug, could adversely affect patients. Finally, Plavix faced new competition from two new drugs with different mechanisms of action. This case reviews the recent history of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

17 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

Are Companies Getting Away with 'Cheap Talk' on Climate Goals?

Companies regularly set ambitious climate goals, but these plans often end up like many people’s New Year’s resolutions: unmet aspirations that quietly fizzle out. While companies often gain positive media attention by trumpeting plans for reducing greenhouse gas... View Details

Keywords: by Tim Gray

Web

Business, Government & the International Economy - Faculty & Research

tradeoffs of sovereignty and currency internationalization, those ambitions have been moderated substantially over the last decade. We argue that the US ought to encourage renminbi internationalization as a costless means of assurance to... View Details

31 Jan 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Peer Effects and Entrepreneurship

Keywords: by Ramana Nanda & Jesper B. Sørensen

2024
Working Paper

Igniting Innovation: Evidence from PyTorch on Technology Control in Open Collaboration

By: Daniel Yue and Frank Nagle

Many companies offer free access to their technology to encourage outside addon innovation, hoping to later profit by raising prices or harnessing the power of the crowd while continuing to steer the direction of innovation. They can achieve this balance by opening... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Power and Influence; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Corporate Governance

2023
Working Paper

Effects of Structured Sharing of Best Practices in an Unstructured Information Sharing System

By: Shelley Xin Li and Tatiana Sandino

Unstructured information sharing systems, such as certain enterprise social networks (ESNs), can supplement top-down knowledge transfer with a wide array of ideas through peer-to-peer knowledge sharing. However, the unstructured nature of such systems can also lead... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Best Practices; Enterprise Social Media; Management Accounting And Control Systems; Knowledge Sharing; Networks; Management Systems; Management Practices and Processes; Social Media; Europe

August 2021
Article

Information Seeding and Knowledge Production in Online Communities: Evidence from OpenStreetMap

By: Abhishek Nagaraj

The wild success of a few online communities (like Wikipedia) has obscured the fact that most attempts at forming such communities fail. This study evaluates information seeding, an early-stage intervention to bootstrap online communities that enables contributors to... View Details

Keywords: Online Communities; Knowledge Production; Crowdsourcing; Innovation; Digitization; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Social and Collaborative Networks; Analytics and Data Science; Knowledge Dissemination