Publications

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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

Educators

October 2010
Article

The Emerging Capital Market for Nonprofits

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Allen S. Grossman

Many of our largest and most successful companies today did not exist 50 years ago. During this same time interval, companies that ranked among top in the 1960s have disappeared, been merged out of existence, or become much smaller presences in the U.S. industrial... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Investment Funds; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Corporate Accountability; Management Practices and Processes; Infrastructure; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Effectiveness; Nonprofit Organizations

Find at Harvard

26 Mar 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, March 26, 2019

challenging areas. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55885 Learning or Playing? The Effect of Gamified Training on Performance By: Buell, Ryan W., Wei Cai, and Tatiana... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

29 Jul 2019
Research & Ideas

How Companies Benefit When Employees Work Remotely

Github, among others, were 4.4 percent more productive than those following a more traditional “work-from-home” policy that gives schedule flexibility but requires workers to live near the office. “While prior academic research has studied productivity View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

November 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Supplement

GE's Talent Machine: The Making of a CEO

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

CEO Jeff Immelt, ex-CEO Jack Welch, and HR Chief Bill Conaty discuss how GE has made talent development a source of sustainable competitive advantage. Immelt describes GE's deeply embedded philosophy around its people and how it has allowed the company to add value... View Details

Keywords: Business Conglomerates; Talent and Talent Management; Human Resources; Business or Company Management; Performance Capacity; Performance Effectiveness; Competitive Advantage; System; Value

26 Sep 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, September 26, 2017

worked are positively correlated with firm performance, and differences between family and non-family CEOs account for approximately 18% of the performance gap between family and non-family firms. We investigate the sources of the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2019
Working Paper

Biometric Monitoring, Service Delivery and Misreporting: Evidence from Healthcare in India

By: Thomas Bossuroy, Clara Delavallade and Vincent Pons

Developing countries increasingly use biometric identification technology in hopes of improving the reliability of administrative information and delivering social services more efficiently. This paper exploits the random placement of biometric tracking devices in... View Details

Keywords: Biometric Technology; Health Care and Treatment; Technological Innovation; Analytics and Data Science; Quality; Performance Improvement; India

Program

Compensation Committees

risks of cookie-cutter executive compensation solutions and external ratings systems Gain investor buy-in on compensation plans Get the most value from compensation consultants Understand and effectively utilize subjective and objective... View Details

26 Jun 2012
First Look

First Look: June 26

Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera, and Kelsey Jack Abstract A substantial body of research investigates the design of incentives in firms, yet less is known about incentives in organizations that hire individuals to perform tasks with positive... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2010
Working Paper

Lawful but Corrupt: Gaming and the Problem of Institutional Corruption in the Private Sector

By: Malcolm S. Salter

This paper describes how the gaming of society's rules by corporations contributes to the problem of institutional corruption in the world of business. "Gaming" in its various forms involves the use of technically legal means to subvert the intent of society's rules in... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Civil Society or Community; Competitive Advantage; Earnings Management; Trust; Law; Performance; Investment Funds; Private Sector; Behavior; Relationships; Goals and Objectives

March 2022
Supplement

Winning Business at Russell Reynolds (B)

By: Ethan Bernstein and Cara Mazzucco

In an effort to make compensation drive collaboration, Russell Reynolds Associates’ (RRA) CEO Clarke Murphy sought to re-engineer the bonus system for his executive search consultants in 2016. As his HR analytics guru, Kelly Smith, points out, that risks upsetting–and... View Details

17 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

What the Stockdale Paradox Tells Us About Crisis Leadership

herd immunity. But to review the brutal facts, none of these developments are likely in the foreseeable short term. The possibility remains that there may never be a fully effective vaccine or cure; this virus may be something that we... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

November 2008 (Revised January 2009)
Case

The Restructuring of Daiei

By: Richard S. Ruback

In 2004, the Industrial Revitalization Corporation of Japan (IRCJ) was given the task of restructuring Daiei, one of the largest Japanese retailers and the country's most prominent zombie companies. The IRCJ was a government-sponsored organization that was funded with... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Capital Structure; Private Equity; Performance Effectiveness; Retail Industry; Japan

Find at Harvard

08 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

Keep Your Weary Workers Engaged and Motivated

by allocating rewards and resources for both traditional performance and for learning activities. What has changed and what hasn’t? The four drives themselves, fundamental to human psychology, have not changed. The COVID-19 pandemic has... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

27 Mar 2012
First Look

First Look: March 27

U.S., and an experimental exercise) that are consistent with the model. Working PapersWhen Performance Trumps Gender Bias: Joint versus Separate Evaluation Authors:Iris Bohnet, Alexandra van Geen, and Max H. Bazerman Abstract We examine... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

11 Oct 2016
First Look

October 11, 2016

lowest quality. Our results underscore the importance of considering dynamic effects in the economic analysis of tort laws. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50634 Corporate Purpose and Financial View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2014
Article

Unequality: Who Gets What and Why It Matters

By: Michael I. Norton

Who should get what, and what are the consequences? Economic inequality in the United States has been rising for decades, yet only recently have behavioral scientists explored two central questions surrounding the optimal level of inequality. First, what are the... View Details

Keywords: Inequality; Ethics; Productivity; Gambling; Equality and Inequality; Fairness; Income; Performance Productivity; United States

20 Jun 2005
Research & Ideas

Creating a Positive Professional Image

and credibility influence the positive outcomes of impression management attempts? A: In order to create a positive professional image, impression management must effectively accomplish two tasks: build credibility and maintain... View Details

Keywords: by Mallory Stark

2009
Working Paper

On Good Scholarship, Goal Setting, and Scholars Gone Wild

By: Lisa D. Ordonez, Maurice E. Schweitzer, Adam D. Galinsky and Max Bazerman

In this article, we define good scholarship, highlight our points of disagreement with Locke and Latham (2009), and call for further academic research to examine the full range of goal setting's effects. We reiterate our original claim that goal setting, like a potent... View Details

Keywords: Education; Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Improvement; Research; Motivation and Incentives