Incentives - Publications - Faculty & Research

2009
Working Paper

Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting

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

Goal setting is one of the most replicated and influential paradigms in the management literature. Hundreds of studies conducted in numerous countries and contexts have consistently demonstrated that setting specific, challenging goals can powerfully drive behavior and... View Details

Keywords: Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives

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Article

Why Grit Requires Perseverance and Passion to Positively Predict Performance

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Andreas Wihler, Erica R. Bailey and Adam D. Galinsky

Prior studies linking grit—defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals—to performance are beset by contradictory evidence. As a result, commentators have increasingly declared that grit has limited effects. We propose that this inconsistent evidence has... View Details

Keywords: Grit; Perseverance; Passion; Motivation; Personal Characteristics; Emotions; Performance; Motivation and Incentives

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October 2001 (Revised June 2004)
Case

Harrah's Entertainment Inc.

By: Rajiv Lal and Patricia Carrolo

Describes a situation facing Philip Satre, chairman and CEO of Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. Satre was reading a May 2000 Wall Street Journal story that discussed the company's marketing success in targeting low rollers, the 100% growth in stock price and profits in the... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Marketing; Marketing Reference Programs; Performance Evaluation; Motivation and Incentives; Competitive Strategy

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2023
Working Paper

When Does Gamified Training Improve Performance? The Roles of Office and Leader Engagement

By: Ryan W. Buell, Wei Cai and Tatiana Sandino

Gamified training is a novel management control system in which companies use gamification techniques to engage and motivate employees to learn. This study empirically examines the performance consequences of gamified training using data from a natural field... View Details

Keywords: Gamified Training; Management Control Systems; Employee Engagement; Employees; Learning; Training; Motivation and Incentives; Performance

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31 Jan 2018
Research & Ideas

American Idle: Workers Spend Too Much Time Waiting for Something to Do

Paul Bradbury American workers are usually a pretty busy bunch, yet their time spent idle costs employers an estimated $100 billion per year, according to a new study from Harvard Business School. “We suspected idle time might be more prevalent than most people would... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

21 Dec 2011
Research & Ideas

The Most Common Strategy Mistakes

hidden biases embedded in internal systems, organizational structures, and decision-making processes. It's often hard, for example, to get the kind of cost information you need to think strategically. Or the company's incentive system... View Details

Keywords: by Joan Magretta

Web

Globalization - Faculty & Research

returns are negative. Accounting returns in countries with higher earnings management mean revert more slowly for profitable firms and more rapidly for loss firms. Thus, earnings management incentives to slow or speed up mean reversion in... View Details

1996
Book

Creativity in Context

By: T. M. Amabile

Keywords: Creativity; Theory; Research; Motivation and Incentives; Situation or Environment; Organizational Culture; Measurement and Metrics; Personal Characteristics; Cognition and Thinking; Performance; Performance Evaluation; Social Psychology

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15 Jun 2021
News

Keeping Hourly Workers Focused on the Stock, Not the Clock

constant tension between employees and management. “We lived through a lot of strikes,” Stavros says. One of the changes the union was advocating for was profit sharing with hourly employees. “Can you believe I have no incentive to care... View Details

Keywords: April White; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management

September 2015 (Revised September 2020)
Case

Gap Inc.: Refashioning Performance Management

By: Joshua Margolis, Paul McKinnon and Michael Norris

In 2014, clothing retailer Gap Inc. rolled out a new performance management process for headquarters staff that did away with a traditional rating and ranking system. The new process involved informal monthly meetings between managers and their reports, and it more... View Details

Keywords: Performance Management; Retail; HR; Motivation and Incentives; Performance; Management; Human Resources; Performance Evaluation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

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16 Dec 2022
Research & Ideas

Why Technology Alone Can't Solve AI's Bias Problem

high was never truly equitable. The actual percentage of female candidates on the site, about 42 percent, was never proportionately represented in the top rankings. Can incentives help? For that reason, the paper’s authors say,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology

July – August 2008
Article

Employee Motivation: A Powerful New Model

By: Nitin Nohria, Boris Groysberg and Linda-Eling Lee

Keywords: Employees; Motivation and Incentives

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11 May 2016
Research & Ideas

Fix This! Why is it so Painful to Buy a New Car?

put, says Avery, incentives are not in alignment. Manufacturers are focused on the long-term mission of building brands and customer loyalty, while dealers just want to sell cars today. To illustrate this clash of cultures, Schlesinger... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Auto

March 2020 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Culture at Google

By: Nien-hê Hsieh, Amy Klopfenstein and Sarah Mehta

Beginning in 2017, technology (tech) company Google faced a series of employee-relations issues that threatened its unique culture of innovation and open communication. Issues included protests surrounding Google’s contracts with the U.S. government, restrictions of... View Details

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31 Jan 2014
Working Paper Summaries

The Diseconomies of Queue Pooling: An Empirical Investigation of Emergency Department Length of Stay

Keywords: by Hummy Song, Anita L. Tucker & Karen L. Murrell; Health

14 Jun 2012
Working Paper Summaries

“Power from Sunshine”: A Business History of Solar Energy

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones & Loubna Bouamane; Energy; Utilities

15 Jun 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Reaching for Yield in the Bond Market

Keywords: by Bo Becker & Victoria Ivashina

Research Summary

Institutional influences on the firm: cross-country comparisons

A third stream of work examines the influence of country institutions on firms in a cross-country comparative context. In a paper co-authored with Jordan Siegel (published in Management Science in 2009), we employed a quasi-natural experiment: a... View Details

Research Summary

Creating Trust in International Joint Ventures in Asia: An Empirical Comparative Study

In the wake of the currently ongoing financial crisis in Asia, we anticipate a rapid increase of international joint ventures between Asian and Western firms. However, so far, the sources of success in international joint ventures have not been well understood. Why do... View Details

2024
Book

The Fading Light of Democratic Capitalism: How Pervasive Cronyism and Restricted Suffrage Are Destroying Democratic Capitalism as a National Ideal ... And What to Do About It

By: Malcolm S. Salter

What are we to do about declining public trust and confidence in democratic capitalism, which many citizens consider a cornerstone of our national ideology and identity? In this book, I address how we can rekindle the fading light of democratic capitalism as an... View Details

Keywords: Government and Politics; Power and Influence; Economic Systems; Culture

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