Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,475)
- Faculty Publications (123)
- 2008
- Working Paper
Dirty Work, Clean Hands: The Moral Psychology of Indirect Agency
By: Neeru Paharia, Karim S. Kassam, Joshua D. Greene and Max H. Bazerman
When powerful people cause harm, they often do so indirectly through other people. Are harmful actions carried out through others evaluated less negatively than harmful actions carried out directly? Four experiments examine the moral psychology of indirect agency.... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Using Financial Innovation to Support Savers: From Coercion to Excitement
By: Peter Tufano
We review a wide variety of programs that support savings by families, in particular by low- and moderate-income families. These programs range from ones that literally compel families to save, to those that make it hard not to save, make it easier to save, provide... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
See No Evil: When We Overlook Other People's Unethical Behavior
By: Francesca Gino, Don A. Moore and Max H. Bazerman
It is common for people to be more critical of others' ethical choices than of their own. This chapter explores those remarkable circumstances in which people see no evil in others' unethical behavior. Specifically, we explore 1) the motivated tendency to overlook the... View Details
- May 2007
- Article
Inner Work Life: Understanding the Subtext of Business Performance
By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer
Anyone in management knows that employees have their good days and their bad days and that, for the most part, the reasons for their ups and downs are unknown. Most managers simply shrug their shoulders at this fact of work life. But does it matter, in terms of... View Details
- 2006
- Working Paper
Too Motivated?
I show that an agent's motivation to do well (objectively) may be unambiguously bad in a world with differing priors, i.e., when people openly disagree on the optimal course of action. The reason is that an agent who is strongly motivated is more likely to follow... View Details
- 2006
- Working Paper
The Limits of Authority: Motivation versus Coordination
This paper studies the effects of open disagreement on motivation and coordination. It shows how, in the presence of differing priors, motivation and coordination impose conflicting demands on the allocation of authority, leading to a trade-off between the... View Details
- December 2005 (Revised October 2006)
- Case
Nest Fresh Eggs (A)
By: Teresa M. Amabile and Victoria Winston
Cyd Szymanski's cage-free egg business was threatened by large caged-hen companies that saw new profit potential in the industry she had helped build. Szymanski had based her company, Nest Fresh Eggs, on a strong personal belief that people deserved healthier... View Details
Keywords: Motivation and Incentives
- 2004
- Book
Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America
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
- March 2004 (Revised June 2004)
- Case
Business of Life, The
By: Debora L. Spar
Every day, around the world, babies and children are being sold. Frequently, these transactions appear to be above or beyond the market. Orphaned children are never "sold"--they are only "matched" with their "forever families." Eggs are "donated," and surrogate mothers... View Details
- July 2002 (Revised January 2003)
- Case
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc: Rewarding Our People
By: Thomas J. DeLong and Vineeta Vijayaraghavan
Marilyn Winn, head of human resources at Harrah's Entertainment, must make a recommendation to the company's president and CEO about whether the existing bonus payout program is effective at motivating employees or whether it should be revised and/or replaced. A recent... View Details
- January 2002 (Revised August 2004)
- Case
Massachusetts Financial Services
By: Brian J. Hall and Jonathan Lim
This case describes the compensation and performance evaluations at an investment management company. The senior management team of Massachusetts Financial Services (MFS) Investment Management was contemplating an introduction of hedge funds at the firm, but many... View Details
- March 2000 (Revised January 2001)
- Case
Microsoft's Vega Project: Developing People and Products
By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Meg Wozny
With a focus on Matt MacLellan and his careful development as a project manager under his boss and mentor, Jim Kaplan, the case describes the evolution of Microsoft's human-resource philosophies and policies and illustrates how they work in practice to provide the... View Details
- May 1996
- Background Note
The GM's Operational Challenge: Managing Through People
By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Ashish Nanda
Highlights and explores how a general manager adds value to the firm at the operational level by managing through people. Discusses how assumptions about human motivation influence the employment contract that the general manager implicitly enters into with the workers... View Details
- January 1996
- Background Note
The Motivation for Creativity in Organizations
People will be most creative when they feel motivated primarily by the interest, enjoyment, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself--when they are driven by a deep involvement in their work and a passion for it. This note describes the ways in which creativity... View Details
- Research Summary
Designing Productive Zones of Privacy
A common theme that integrates my research and course development is how increasingly transparent workplaces can improve productivity and performance by putting up certain boundaries to observation. While the research above empirically and theoretically explores the... View Details
- Research Summary
Distributed Innovation in Open Systems—The Role of Modularity
Distributed innovation in open systems is an important trend in the modern global economy. As education levels rise and communication costs fall, more people have the means and motivation to innovate. Supply chains now stretch around the world as firms outsource... View Details
- Teaching Interest
Leadership and Organizational Behavior (LEAD)
Professor Bernstein taught Leadership and Organizational Behavior (LEAD) from 2013-2016 (7 sections). This course focuses on how managers become effective leaders by addressing the human side of enterprise.
The course is divided into five modules:
- Teaching Interest
MBA Required Curriculum Leadership and Organizational Behavior (LEAD)
By: Rakesh Khurana
This course focuses on how managers become effective leaders by addressing the human side of enterprise.
The first modules examine teams, individuals, and networks in the context of:
- The determinants of group... View Details
- Teaching Interest
Overview
I am currently teaching Social Entrepreneurship and Systems Change (SESC) as a 2nd year Elective Course. The premise of the course is that social entrepreneurs don’t just build organizations, they change systems. The course explores the frameworks, tools, mindsets,... View Details
- Research Summary
Overview
By: Julian J. Zlatev
First, Professor Zlatev studies how people make decisions that reinforce a sense that they are good or moral. He studies the psychology behind dual motive behaviors—actions that incorporate self-interested and prosocial motives—and the structure of moral identity. For... View Details