Publications

Find at Harvard

2009
Working Paper

Authority versus Persuasion

By: Eric J. Van den Steen

This paper studies a principal's trade-off between using persuasion versus using interpersonal authority to get the agent to "do the right thing"; from the principal's perspective (when the principal and agent openly disagree on the right course of action). It shows... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Managerial Roles; Projects; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence

05 Jun 2007
First Look

First Look: June 5, 2007

change in the information set for employees when the incentives and decision rights remain unchanged. Also examines the tradeoffs front-line employees face as they divide their efforts between reaching new... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

04 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

Attention Medical Shoppers: What Health Care Can Learn from Walmart and Amazon

average wait for a primary care visit in Massachusetts, world renowned for its medical facilities, is a whopping 50 days. Only 3 percent of American physicians regularly e-mail their patients, less, he said,... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

22 Jul 2014
First Look

First Look: July 22

Publications August 2013 hfm (Healthcare Financial Management) Improving Value with TDABC By: Kaplan, Robert S. Abstract—The article discusses the benefits of time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) combined with outcomes measurement View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 1991 (Revised February 1992)
Case

Gain Sharing at Star Cablevision Group

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and Sarah Ann Greene

Describes Star's experiment with gain sharing over a three-year period. Background on the industry and company's history are provided to establish the context for the shift to pay-for-performance. Describes the three different gain sharing programs, the resulting... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Service Delivery; Performance Productivity; Television Entertainment; Compensation and Benefits; Media and Broadcasting Industry

Educators

22 Mar 2011
First Look

First Look: March 22

the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/11-028.pdf Do Not Trash the Incentive! Monetary Incentives and Waste Sorting Authors:Alessandro Bucciol, Natalia Montinari, and Marco Piovesan Abstract This paper examines whether monetary View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2009
Working Paper

On Good Scholarship, Goal Setting, and Scholars Gone Wild

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

In this article, we define good scholarship, highlight our points of disagreement with Locke and Latham (2009), and call for further academic research to examine the full range of goal setting's effects. We reiterate our original claim that goal setting, like a potent... View Details

Keywords: Education; Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Improvement; Research; Motivation and Incentives

March 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

The CHIPS Program Office

By: Mitchell B. Weiss and Sebastian Negron-Reichard

In February 2023, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo weighed signing off on a Notice of Funding Opportunity (“NOFO”) with at least one unconventional provision: a pre-application (“pre-app”) to the actual application for parts of $39 billion in direct semiconductor... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Public Sector; Government Administration; Government Legislation; Motivation and Incentives; Semiconductor Industry; Public Administration Industry; United States

Educators

Article

The Pursuit of Power Corrupts: How Investing in Outside Options Motivates Opportunism in Relationships

By: D. Malhotra and F. Gino

Across three laboratory studies, this paper illustrates how a common strategic decision aimed at increasing one's own power—investing in outside options—can lead to opportunistic behavior in exchange relationships. We show that the extent to which individuals have... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Motivation and Incentives; Opportunities; Relationships

Find at Harvard

25 Aug 2015
First Look

First Look Tuesday

stability. In light of this goal, reforms should reduce the ex-ante incentives for MMFs to take excessive risk and increase the ex post resilience of MMFs to system-wide runs. Our analysis suggests that... View Details

2022
Working Paper

Motivated Errors

By: Christine L Exley and Judd B. Kessler

In three sets of experiments involving 5,432 subjects, we show that agents make more errors when doing so allows them to justify selfish behavior. We show that errors relating to addition arise when they can help to justify selfishness but are eliminated when selfish... View Details

Keywords: Information; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

SSRN

24 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

Linking the Globe: The Role of Media and Communications

companies. For years, he said, the media industry has operated in a very fragmented economic structure that gave an individual company "a perverse incentive to defend its territory instead of attacking... View Details

Keywords: by Kenneth Liss; Information; Publishing; Journalism & News; Media & Broadcasting

May 2011 (Revised March 2012)
Supplement

Global Knowledge Management at Danone (C)

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Ruth Dittrich and Daniela Beyersdorfer

The (C) case provides an update on the B-case decision and describes the introduction of Dan 2.0, an internal social virtual network for the purpose of knowledge sharing in a company that was only used to face-to-face networking. View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Knowledge Sharing; Information Infrastructure; Opportunities; Problems and Challenges; Networks; Employees; Motivation and Incentives; Knowledge Management; Management Practices and Processes

18 Feb 2009
First Look

First Look: February 18, 2009

that this has a substantial impact in limiting the inequality of agreements and results in a non-montonicity of the discount rate. The general need to maintain incentives for cooperation means it may appear... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 1990 (Revised June 1991)
Case

IBM Corp.: ""Make It Your Business"" (A)

By: Robert L. Simons

In 1987, IBM changed its strategy in an attempt to become a market-driven company rather than a product-driven company. The case begins with a description of the new strategy and the reasons for the change and then describes the top-down sales planning and quota system... View Details

Keywords: Commercialization; Competitive Advantage; Business Strategy; Goals and Objectives; Strategic Planning; Motivation and Incentives; Sales; Volatility; System; Information Technology Industry

Educators

03 Dec 2008
What Do You Think?

Can Housing and Credit be “Nudged” Back to Health?

for another ... we have no choice but to let things be as they will, no matter how ludicrous and painful, until the understanding becomes knowledge." Tom Dolembo put it this way: "Nudge this back? Never ... As dumb as we are, we... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

16 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

Report from China: The New Entrepreneurs

tangible assets, and contacts that are useful to their ventures, the government has created incentives to attract them back to China, and is more lenient or flexible regarding new venture formation. Q: This was an unusual trip View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

10 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

Motivation and the Cross-Sector Alliance

created a strong incentive for producers to join the FSC certification scheme.16 Colombia's Hospital Management Center (CGH) is also a good example of this point. The CGH's mission was "to promote and... View Details

Keywords: by James Austin, Ezequiel Reficco & SEKN research team

January 2007
Exercise

Multifactor Models

By: Malcolm P. Baker

Students evaluate the performance of four mutual funds and compute the cost of capital for two companies using fixed benchmarks, the CAPM, and a multifactor model of returns. View Details

Keywords: Cost of Capital; Performance Evaluation; Business Model; Investment Funds; Investment Return; Motivation and Incentives; Markets