Publications

Article

Why Compliance Programs Fail: And How to Fix Them

By: Hui Chen and Eugene Soltes

Firms spend millions of dollars annually on whistle-blower hotlines, training, and other efforts to ensure adherence to laws, regulations, and company policies. Yet malfeasance remains entrenched in the corporate world. Why? Too many firms treat compliance as a... View Details

Keywords: Governance Compliance; Programs; Employees; Training; Performance Effectiveness; Measurement and Metrics

Register to Read

December 1997 (Revised October 2008)
Case

Wolfgang Keller at Konigsbrau-TAK (A)

By: John J. Gabarro

Wolfgang Keller, manager of the Ukrainian subsidiary of a German beer company, faces a managerial dilemma. His subordinate, Dmitri Brodsky, is a talented and experienced commercial director who is not meeting his goals expediently and often requires considerable... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Performance Evaluation; Management Style; Managerial Roles; Behavior; Conflict Management; Situation or Environment; Failure; Employee Relationship Management; Food and Beverage Industry; Ukraine; Germany

Educators

19 Jun 2015
Blog Post

What is the HBS Show?

The HBS Show began in 1974 with a handful of students, a few comedy sketches, song parodies, and one spotlight and now has transformed into a full-length Broadway style musical that is entirely written, directed, produced, and performed... View Details

2025
Working Paper

Rethinking Volume

By: Philippe van der Beck, Lorenzo Bretscher and Zhiyu Julie Fu

Gross trading volumes in financial markets are large and far exceed return volatility. In contrast, “net volume”—trading from persistent portfolio reallocations—is substantially lower, as it excludes transitory round-trip trades. This observation reveals a fundamental... View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; Investment Return; Asset Pricing; Volatility

21 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

The Geography of Corporate Giving

profitability. But in a review of all of the studies that have been published on the topic over the past thirty years, HBS professor Joshua Margolis and Jim Walsh concluded that the connection between social and financial View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

13 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 13

energy and potential of their people to deliver superior economic and social value. Book: http://hbr.org/product/higher-ambition-how-great-leaders-create-economic-/an/12957-HBK-ENG The Culture Cycle: How to Shape the Unseen Force That... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2014
Other Unpublished Work

No Margin, No Mission? A Field Experiment on Incentives for Public Services Delivery

By: Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera and Kelsey Jack

A substantial body of research investigates the effect of pay for performance in firms, yet less is known about the effect of non-financial rewards, especially in organizations that hire individuals to perform tasks with positive social spillovers. We conduct a field... View Details

Keywords: Incentives; Non-monetary Rewards; Intrinsic Motivation; Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; Motivation and Incentives

June 2001 (Revised June 2001)
Case

Student Who Was Missing-in-Action, The

Assistant Professor Sam Benson was about to end the class session portion of his course with only student projects remaining. Then, he received a phone call from a student, George McHenry, who had missed 11 of 20 sessions. McHenry wanted to know what he needed to do to... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Higher Education; Decision Choices and Conditions; Learning; Education Industry

Educators

September – October 2011
Article

Manage the Culture Cycle

By: James L. Heskett

Organizational culture—the shared assumptions, values, and behaviors that determine "how we do things around here"—can be measured and shaped. In organizations with large numbers of customer-facing employees, it can account for up to half of the difference in operating... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Value; Behavior; Retention; Customer Focus and Relationships; Change Management; Learning; Innovation and Invention; Labor

2024
Working Paper

The Seeds of Ideology: Historical Immigration and Political Preferences in the United States

By: Paola Giuliano and Marco Tabellini

We study the long run effects of immigration on American political ideology. Exploiting cross-county variation in the presence of European immigrants between 1900 and 1930, we establish a novel result: historical European immigration is associated with stronger... View Details

Keywords: Political Ideology; Preferences For Redistribution; Cultural Transmission; Immigration; History; Values and Beliefs; Welfare; United States

SSRN

Monique Burns Thompson is an accomplished social entrepreneur who returns to HBS (class of 1993) and brings her twenty years of successful start-up and organizational leadership experience to her research and teaching at HBS. She has led as a co-founder, President,... View Details

27 Nov 2006
Research & Ideas

Manly Men, Oil Platforms, and Breaking Stereotypes

masculinity is also pursued in other work settings. Research has documented how mainstream organizations conflate stereotypical masculine traits with effective performance in white-collar jobs, such as manager, scientist, and lawyer:... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Energy; Utilities

May 2023
Article

Incentive Effects of Subjective Allocations of Rewards and Penalties

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

We examine the incentive effects of subjectivity in allocating tournament-based rewards and punishments. We use data from a company where reward and punishment decisions are based on a combination of objective metrics and subjective performance assessments. Rankings... View Details

Keywords: Subjectivity; Tournament-based Incentives; Rewards; Penalties; Expectancy Theory; Employees; Compensation and Benefits; Management; Decisions; Performance; Measurement and Metrics

2024
Working Paper

Principles and Content for Downstream Emissions Disclosures

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna

In a previous paper, we proposed the E-liability carbon accounting algorithm for companies to measure and subsequently reduce their own and their suppliers’ emissions. Some investors and stakeholders, however, want companies to also be accountable for downstream... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Emissions; Disclosure; Carbon Footprint; Climate Change; Measurement and Metrics; Corporate Disclosure; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

2014
Book

Aligning Strategy and Sales: The Choices, Systems, and Behaviors That Drive Effective Selling

By: Frank V. Cespedes

There are many books that provide strategy advice and selling methodologies. But there is a gap in the management literature when it comes to linking sales efforts with strategy. Part 1 of this book provides data indicating how and why sales remain (by far) the biggest... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Sales

30 Nov 2019
News

CIOs concerned IT not providing enough of a competitive edge

2023
Working Paper

Mapping Organizational-Level Networks Using Individual-Level Connections: Evidence from Online Professional Networks

By: Shelley Xin Li, Frank Nagle and Aner Zhou

Organization-level networks facilitate the flow of information and business activities in the economy. Prior research relies solely on high-level connections to measure these networks. Therefore, to understand the role of employee connections at all job levels in... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Value; Social and Collaborative Networks; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge Sharing; Employees; Social Media

SSRN

March 2009
Case

Barbara Norris: Leading Change in the General Surgery Unit

By: Boris Groysberg, Nitin Nohria and Deborah Bell

Barbara Norris struggles to address the many problems facing her as a recently promoted nurse manager in the General Surgery Unit (GSU) at Eastern Massachusetts University Hospital (EMU). She has inherited a unit with the lowest employee satisfaction scores and highest... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Leading Change; Service Delivery; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Groups and Teams; Motivation and Incentives; Satisfaction; Health Industry

Educators