Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,571)
- Faculty Publications (304)
- Article
Four Things No One Will Tell You About ESG Data
By: Sakis Kotsantonis and George Serafeim
As the ESG finance field and the use of ESG data in investment decision-making continue to grow, the authors seek to shed light on several important aspects of ESG measurement and data. This article is intended to provide a useful guide for the rapidly rising number of... View Details
Keywords: ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; ESG Reporting; Data Analytics; Sustainability; Sustainability Reporting; CSR; Transparency; Investment Management; Socially Responsible Investing; Sustainable Finance; Sustainable Development; Inclusion; Inclusive Growth; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Accountability; Investment; Management; Climate Change; Corporate Governance; Diversity; Integrated Corporate Reporting
- April 2019
- Article
Incentives for Public Goods Inside Organizations: Field Experimental Evidence
By: Andrea Blasco, Olivia S. Jung, Karim R. Lakhani and Michael Menietti
Understanding why employees go the extra mile at work is a key problem for many organizations. We conduct a field experiment at a medical organization to study motivations for employees to submit project proposals for organizational improvement. In total, we analyze... View Details
- 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
- March–April 2019
- Article
Operational Transparency: Make Your Processes Visible to Customers and Your Customers Visible to Employees
By: Ryan W. Buell
Conventional wisdom holds that the more contact an operation has with its customers, the less efficiently it will run. But when customers are partitioned away from the operation, they are less likely to fully understand and appreciate the work going on behind the... View Details
- March 2019
- Article
When Does Advice Impact Startup Performance?
By: Aaron Chatterji, Solène Delecourt, Sharique Hasan and Rembrand Koning
Why do some entrepreneurs thrive while others fail? We explore whether the advice entrepreneurs receive about managing their employees influences their startup's performance. We conducted a randomized field experiment in India with 100 high-growth technology firms... View Details
- January–February 2019
- Article
Corporate Purpose and Financial Performance
By: Claudine Gartenberg, Andrea Prat and George Serafeim
We construct a measure of corporate purpose within a sample of U.S. companies based on approximately 500,000 survey responses of worker perceptions about their employers. We find that this measure of purpose is not related to financial performance. However, high... View Details
- December 2018 (Revised August 2022)
- Teaching Note
Revenue Recognition at HBP
By: Siko Sikochi and Paul Healy
In early 2014, Corporate Learning, one of three business units at Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), was in the process of revamping its flagship product, Harvard Manage-Mentor (HMM) from version 11.0 (HMM11) to version 12.0 (HMM12). The revamped software would be... View Details
- December 2018
- Case
Corporate Transformation at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany
By: Joseph B. Fuller, Amy C. Edmondson, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Tonia Labruyere
When Stefan Oschmann became CEO and chairman of the executive board of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, in 2016, the company had started its transformation from a mid-tier traditional German industry player to a global modern science and technology player. The... View Details
- December 2018
- Article
Improving Resilience Among Employees High in Depression, Anxiety, and Workplace Distress
By: Allison L. Williams, Acacia C. Parks, Grace Cormier, Julia Stafford and A.V. Whillans
Depression and anxiety are costly for both employees and employers, in terms of direct medical costs as well as costs stemming from lost productive time and missed days at work. Resilience training has been shown to improve workplace functioning for employees, which... View Details
- November 2018 (Revised July 2023)
- Case
The Weir Group: Reforming Executive Pay (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Federica Gabrieli
In February 2018, the Remuneration Committee together with the full Board of Directors of the Scotland-based engineering company The Weir Group had to decide whether to seek a shareholder vote at the upcoming Annual General Meeting in April on a proposal to reform the... View Details
Keywords: General Management; Board Of Directors; Executive Committees; Human Resource Management; Compensation; Pay For Performance; Incentives; Bonuses; Incentive Programs; Employee Stock Ownership Plans; Performance Measurement; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Human Resources; Management; Executive Compensation; Change; Performance Evaluation; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Europe; United Kingdom; Scotland
- 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
- September 2018
- Article
Discretionary Task Ordering: Queue Management in Radiological Services
By: Maria Ibanez, Jonathan R. Clark, Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats
Work-scheduling research typically prescribes task sequences implemented by managers. Yet employees often have discretion to deviate from their prescribed sequence. Using data from 2.4 million radiological diagnoses, we find that doctors prioritize similar tasks... View Details
Keywords: Discretion; Scheduling; Queue; Healthcare; Learning; Experience; Decentralization; Operations; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Performance; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Efficiency; Performance Improvement; Performance Productivity; Decisions; Time Management; Cost vs Benefits; Health Industry
- 2020
- Working Paper
Incentive Power and Knowledge Sharing Among Employees: Evidence from the Field
By: Wei Cai, Susanna Gallani and Jee-Eun Shin
There is consensus, both in the literature and in practice, about knowledge sharing within organizations being a key determinant of success. However, organizations struggle to sustain employees’ engagement in knowledge sharing. One challenge lies in the fact that,... View Details
Keywords: Organizational Knowledge Sharing; Employee Driven Innovation; Innovation Appropriability; Contract Design; High-powered Incentives; Low-powered Incentives; Incentives; Pay-for-Performance; Rank-and-file; Employees; Knowledge Sharing; Innovation and Invention; Motivation and Incentives; Creativity; Performance
- August 2018 (Revised July 2020)
- Case
Revenue Recognition at HBP
By: Paul Healy and Siko Sikochi
In early 2014, Paul Bills, CFO of Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), sat down with David Wan, the company’s CEO, to discuss budget preparations for the coming year. Bills noted that the performance of Corporate Learning, one of HBP’s three business units, would be... View Details
- August 2018 (Revised October 2019)
- Case
C3.ai—Driven to Succeed
By: Robert Simons and George Gonzalez
CEO Tom Siebel navigates his artificial intelligence (ai) startup through a series of pivots, market expansions, and even an elephant attack to become a leading platform ad service provider. The case describes his unusual management approach emphasizing employee... View Details
Keywords: Strategy Execution; Performance Measurement; Critical Performance Variables; Strategic Boundaries; Internet Of Things; Artificial Intelligence; Software Development; Big Data; Machine Learning; Business Startups; Management Style; Business Strategy; Performance; Measurement and Metrics; Organizational Culture; AI and Machine Learning; Digital Transformation; Applications and Software; Digital Marketing; Analytics and Data Science; Technology Industry; United States; California
- 2018
- Chapter
Work and Workplace
By: Kai Ruggeri, Jana Berkessel, Jascha Achterberg, Gerhard M. Prinz, Alessandra Luna-Navarro, Jon M. Jachimowicz and A. V. Whillans
Work is a major part of many lives. While individual experiences with work will differ—from how long we work to what jobs we have and to what extent we enjoy them—almost everyone is affected by employment, whether they have a job or not. Decades of research in the... View Details
- June 2018
- Case
Candor at Clever
By: Ethan Bernstein and Om Lala
Clever, a high-growth EdTech company based in San Francisco, had grown quickly in market share and headcount. As with many high-growth companies, however, early employees (many of whom had never managed people before) had been given the opportunity to manage teams, and... View Details
Keywords: Performance Feedback; Talent Development And Retention; Talent Management; Feedback; Difficult Conversations; Radical Candor; Scaling Start-ups; Scaling And Growth; Developing Effective Managers; Effective Managers; First-time Managers; Kim Scott; Clever; Bay Area; Silicon Valley; Interpersonal Communication; Talent and Talent Management; Human Resources; Leadership Development; Management Practices and Processes; Management Skills; Management Style; Organizations; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Conflict and Resolution; Technology Industry; Education Industry; San Francisco; United States
- June 2018
- Teaching Note
Difficult Conversations and Dealing with Challenging Situations at Work
By: Boris Groysberg and Amram Migdal
Teaching Note for HBS Nos. 416-031, 416-032, 416-033, 416-034, 416-035, and 416-036. View Details
Keywords: Communication; Communication Intention and Meaning; Human Resources; Employee Relationship Management; Management Skills; Performance; Performance Evaluation; Personal Development and Career; Relationships; Groups and Teams; Social Psychology; Attitudes; Behavior; Conflict and Resolution; Conflict Management; Emotions; Perception; Personal Characteristics; Perspective; Power and Influence; Prejudice and Bias; Reputation; Satisfaction; Trust
- May 2018
- Article
Effects of an Information Sharing System on Employee Creativity, Engagement, and Performance
By: Shelley Xin Li and Tatiana Sandino
Many service organizations rely on information sharing systems to boost employee creativity to meet customer needs. We conducted a field experiment in a retail chain, based on a registered report accepted by Journal of Accounting Research, to test whether an... View Details
- May–June 2018
- Article
Structure That's Not Stifling: How to Give Your People Essential Direction—Without Shutting Them Down
By: Ranjay Gulati
Most leaders view employee freedoms and operational controls as antagonists in a tug-of-war. They tend to focus on regulating workers’ behavior, often putting a damper on commitment, innovation, and performance without realizing it. But freedom and control aren’t zero... View Details