Incentives - Publications - Faculty & Research

27 Jun 2011
Research & Ideas

Recovering from the Need to Achieve

We all know "Joe." He's the guy who leaves his coat on his chair so the boss thinks he worked all night. He boasts loudly in the break room about how much time he spends zigzagging the planet for work. He pretends to listen to you while he's jabbing away at... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

24 Jan 2011
HBS Case

Terror at the Taj

outstanding service are selected for inclusion in the Managing Directors Club and recognized across the organization. Such incentives aren't so unusual, of course. But interviews with senior management demonstrate how seriously the task... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Accommodations

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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31 May 2004
Research & Ideas

How Team Leaders Show Support–or Not

What do leaders do to make employees in creative functions feel supported or not? That was one of the research questions posed by Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile and colleagues in what has turned into a penetrating study of creativity in organizations.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

04 Jun 2012
Research & Ideas

The Business of Life

divorced, or to have children who are being raised by an ex-wife's new spouse on the opposite coast," he says. "But the strategy that they implemented took them in that direction." Incentives Are Not The Same As Motivators Christensen... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

16 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

Does Competition Make Us More Creative?

designs in response to feedback, Gross had a better understanding of the incentives driving their creative choices and what spurred them to try out new ideas. “Think of them as having a choice between three options,” says Gross. “They can... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising

11 Mar 2001
Research & Ideas

Merchants to Multinationals: British Trading Companies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

pioneered new industries, from jute manufacture in India and cotton textile manufacture in China, to the oil industry in California."The improvements in transport and communications from the 1870s resulted in opportunities and threats for merchants, both of which... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones

20 Oct 2008
Research & Ideas

The Seven Things That Surprise New CEOs

incentives are disproportionately tied to stock price. Surprise Seven: You Are Still Only Human Warning signs: You give interviews about you rather than about the company. Your lifestyle is more lavish or privileged than that of other top... View Details

Keywords: by Michael E. Porter, Jay W. Lorsch & Nitin Nohria

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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April 2019
Article

Shooting the Messenger

By: Leslie John, Hayley Blunden and Heidi Liu

Eleven experiments provide evidence that people have a tendency to “shoot the messenger,” deeming innocent bearers of bad news unlikeable. In a preregistered lab experiment, participants rated messengers who delivered bad news from a random drawing as relatively... View Details

Keywords: Judgment; Communication; Sense-making; Attribution; Disclosure; Interpersonal Communication; Perception; Judgments; Motivation and Incentives

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10 Apr 2014
Research & Ideas

John Kotter’s Plan to Accelerate Your Business

system would make it impossible for him to meet his aggressive revenue plan. He did nothing to help. But overall, people who found the new network "cool and exciting" figured out ways to get their normal jobs done in less time, Kotter says. "They are View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

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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02 Aug 2017
What Do You Think?

Summing Up: Why Can’t Organizations Engage Their Employees?

Engaged workers are more productive. (iStock) iStock SUMMING UP: How Can We Prepare Leaders to Engage Their Associates? This month’s column elicited a number of reasons on why organizations around the world do such a poor job of engaging their employees. The dominant... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Research Summary

Corporate Governance

By: Charles C.Y. Wang

The characteristics and structure of boards of directors have important implications for firm performance. Professor Wang has found that firms with well-connected boards whose members have strong network connections provide economic benefits that are not immediately... View Details

December 1997 (Revised October 1999)
Case

Citibank: Performance Evaluation

By: Robert L. Simons and Antonio Davila

Citibank has introduced a new, comprehensive performance-scorecard system. A regional president struggles with a tough decision: how to evaluate an outstanding branch manager who has scored poorly on an important customer satisfaction measure. This case provides a... View Details

Keywords: Performance Evaluation; Balanced Scorecard; Business Strategy; Customer Satisfaction; Performance Expectations; Decisions; Motivation and Incentives; Quality; Banking Industry

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17 Jan 2023
Book

Good Companies Commit Crimes, But Great Leaders Can Prevent Them

controls to not have it arise again.” Lambert: Is it helpful for such companies report violations? Or should they just go ahead and cooperate with investigators? Soltes: On the one hand, there are many incentives to self- report because... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

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

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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June 2024
Article

Enhancing Value and Well-Being: The Basket of Motivators Framework for Aligning Neurology Clinical Practices with Performance Outcomes

By: Peter N. Hadar, Susanna Gallani and Lidia Moura

Physician burnout, which is prevalent in neurology, has accelerated in recent years. While multifactorial, a major contributing factor to burnout is a payment model that rewards volume over quality, leaving physicians overburdened and unfulfilled. The aim of this... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Personal Development and Career; Well-being; Motivation and Incentives

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