Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(874)
- Faculty Publications (161)
- January 1998 (Revised April 1998)
- Case
Lincoln Electric: Venturing Abroad
By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Jamie O'Connell
Lincoln Electric, a 100-year-old manufacturer of welding equipment and consumables based in Cleveland, Ohio, motivates its U.S. employees through a culture of cooperation between management and labor and an unusual compensation system based on piecework and a large... View Details
- September 1996 (Revised April 1998)
- Case
Mobil USM&R (B): New England Sales and Distribution
By: Robert S. Kaplan
The general manager of a local gasoline/distillate sales and distribution business unit must communicate a new strategy to the unit's 300 employees. An initial strategic planning exercise identified a high-priority list of opportunities that blended the parent... View Details
- May 1996
- Background Note
The GM's Operational Challenge: Managing Through People
By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Ashish Nanda
Highlights and explores how a general manager adds value to the firm at the operational level by managing through people. Discusses how assumptions about human motivation influence the employment contract that the general manager implicitly enters into with the workers... View Details
- October 1995
- Article
Start-ups, Spin-offs, and Internal Projects
By: James J. Anton and Dennis Yao
We examine the incentive problem confronting a firm and employee when the employee privately discovers a significant invention and faces a choice between keeping the invention private and leaving the firm to form a new company (start-up), or transferring knowledge and... View Details
- May 1994
- Article
The Work Preference Inventory: Assessing Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivational Orientations
By: T. M. Amabile, K. G. Hill, B. A. Hennessey and E. M. Tighe
The Work Preference Inventory (WPI) is designed to assess individual differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations. Both the college student and the working adult versions aim to capture the major elements of intrinsic motivation (self-determination,... View Details
- January 1994
- Case
ABC Sales and Service Division: A Case Study of Personal and Organizational Transformation
By: D. Quinn Mills, Brock W. Orwig, Janet M. Pumo, Todd C. Stilson and Richard C. Wei
In the midst of dramatic changes in the information systems industry and declining profits at the ABC Co., the vice president in charge of the sales and service division, Jeff, and his managers attempt to transform their division. The transformation gets off to a good... View Details
- November 1993 (Revised March 1997)
- Case
Romeo Engine Plant
By: Amy P. Hutton and Robert S. Kaplan
A newly reopened automobile engine plant has been organized along total quality and teamwork principles. Employees now is to solve problems and ensure quality, rather than watch parts being produced. New operating and financial systems have been installed to promote... View Details
- autumn 1993
- Article
Motivational Synergy: Toward New Conceptualizations of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in the Workplace
By: T. M. Amabile
The foundation for a model of motivational synergy is presented. Building upon but going beyond previous conceptualizations, the model outlines the ways in which intrinsic motivation (which arises from the intrinsic value of the work for the individual) might interact... View Details
- July 1993 (Revised December 2003)
- Case
Sears Auto Centers (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Michael Santoro
The CEO of Sears must decide how to respond to allegations that the company's auto repair division has been misleading consumers and charging them for unnecessary repairs. View Details
- May 1992 (Revised June 1993)
- Case
Jan Carlzon: CEO at SAS (A)
Describes Jan Carlzon's actions on assuming the CEO's responsibility at SAS in a time of financial and organizational difficulty. After tracing Carlzon's development as a manager, it focuses on the way in which he developed, then communicated a clear and motivating... View Details
- June 1991 (Revised April 1993)
- Case
Acer, Inc.
By: Robert H. Hayes
Acer is undergoing two major transitions at the time of this case: from a small, entrepreneurially-run company to a large professionally-run one; and from a largely domestic company to a multinational one. After a decade of phenomenal growth, it is now facing a major... View Details
- January 1991 (Revised March 2010)
- Case
Westchester Distributing, Inc. (A)
By: Robert L. Simons and Robert Boxwell
Focuses on the three-way interaction among internal controls, employee behavior, and incentives. Salesmen are illegally providing kickbacks to customers of this beer-distribution firm. In turn, salesmen are reimbursing themselves by filing fraudulent expense reports.... View Details
- Article
Enfranchisement of Service Workers
By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and James Heskett
Enfranchisement is achieved through an integration of empowerment with methods of pay for performance. Evidence from Ito Yokado Group in Japan and Nordstrom in the US demonstrates the positive effects of enfranchisement. Successful efforts to enfranchise employees: 1.... View Details
- March 1990 (Revised October 1999)
- Case
Mary Kay Cosmetics: Sales Force Incentives (A)
By: Robert L. Simons and Hilary Weston
Describes the incentive system by which Mary Kay Cosmetics motivates the sales force of 200,000 independent agents who comprise the firm's only distribution channel. Illustrates the powerful effect on sales-force behavior that results when creative types of employee... View Details
- March 1987 (Revised October 1993)
- Case
Au Bon Pain: The French Bakery Cafe, The Partner/Manager Program
By: W. Earl Sasser
In recent years, Au Bon Pain (ABP), a chain of upscale French bakeries/sandwich cafes based in Boston, confronted a set of human resource problems endemic to the fast food industry (i.e., a labor shortage which made it difficult to attract and maintain quality crew... View Details
- October 1981
- Background Note
Note on Rewards Systems
By: Michael Beer
Looks at rewards in general, and pay in particular, and studies the conditions that may enhance or detract from employee satisfaction and organizational effectiveness. View Details
- Teaching Interest
Compensation Committees
By: Suraj Srinivasan
Executive compensation has become a flashpoint issue for board members, institutional investors, regulators, and the media. Compensation committees are challenged to design compensation programs that not only tie business or corporate strategies to company performance,... View Details
- Research Summary
Designing Productive Zones of Privacy
A common theme that integrates my research and course development is how increasingly transparent workplaces can improve productivity and performance by putting up certain boundaries to observation. While the research above empirically and theoretically explores the... View Details
- Research Summary
Moral Muscle
By: Sandra J. Sucher
Can we get better at moral decision making? How is the capacity to exercise moral leadership developed? One answer to these questions is the notion of “moral muscle,” which is a combination of moral awareness (the ability to recognize situations that can be... View Details