Salary - Publications - Faculty & Research

15 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

IT Job Wages Are No Longer 'Exceptional'

profession as a whole (computer support specialists) and the highest (computer research scientists), comparing them with patterns in other STEM professions like chemist. While salaries in five places—Silicon Valley, San Francisco,... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Information Technology

June 2017 (Revised May 2019)
Supplement

Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (B)

By: Doug J. Chung

Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain founded in 1988 by brothers Marcus, Mikael and Fredrik Dahnelius. The company operated 84 stores, all company-owned, located mainly in the metropolitan areas of Sweden’s most popular cities: Stockholm, Gothemburg... View Details

Keywords: Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Change Management; Behavior; Electronics Industry; Sweden

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30 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

Donors Are Turned Off by Overhead Costs. Here’s What Charities Can Do

need to be paid, if given the choice of where their money would go, most people donating money wouldn’t choose to contribute to the salary of the organization’s CEO,” says Elizabeth A. Keenan, an assistant professor in the Marketing unit... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

13 Mar 2023
Op-Ed

How Leaders Should Leave

organization’s rhythm until you depart. You should attend all meetings already scheduled and keep your commitments. Avoid taking on new initiatives but clean up as many housekeeping items as possible (including title changes and salary... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

07 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

Supervisor of Sandwiches? More Companies Inflate Titles to Avoid Extra Pay

economic spectrum are creating faux management jobs, pointing to wage cases filed by workers at tech and financial services giants. The team found a five-fold increase in manager titles like “directors of first impressions” (aka front-desk assistants) with View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

29 Oct 2013
Research & Ideas

Do Employees Work Harder for Higher Pay?

In a famous scene from the film "Jerry Maguire," NFL wide receiver Rod Tidwell repeatedly screams, "Show me the money!" as his agent listens on the other end of the telephone. Intuition might tell us that showing the money motivates, and that increasing an employee's... View Details

Keywords: by Chuck Leddy & Harvard Gazette

03 Dec 2020
Research & Ideas

Cut Payroll Costs with Transparency, Fairness, and Compassion

from 260 employees to 38 in 10 days,” one CEO shared. “Decisions had to be made swiftly. It was heart-wrenching. My mindset has changed. Priorities have changed, personally and professionally.” Executives have turned to a handful of potential solutions, including View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott

09 Apr 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

The Dark Side of Performance Bonuses

Quotas Motivate the Sales Force Best Bonus programs are effective for motivating sales people, but also costly for companies to maintain. Which compensation schemes work best? If the CEO’s High Salary Isn't Justified to Employees, Firm... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

29 Jul 2022
Research & Ideas

Will Demand for Women Executives Finally Shrink the Gender Pay Gap?

Pressure to increase gender diversity in C-suites is so intense that companies are trying to draw women candidates with higher salary offers, a phenomenon that is closing the gender pay gap among senior executives, research shows. Female... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

20 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

Blind Spots: We’re Not as Ethical as We Think

ethical dimension, we ask them to prepare for the very question they hope won't be asked. When preparing for a job negotiation, for example, we encourage them to be ready to field questions about other offers they may have. Otherwise, when a potential employer asks... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

03 Jan 2023
Book

Confront Workplace Inequity in 2023: Dig Deep, Build Bridges, Take Collective Action

your corporate processes.” Questions she might ask of a company during the “dig” process include: What is the company’s pay scale by race, gender, and level? Would it share that data with everyone in the firm? Would it provide employees with View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

02 Jul 2018
Research & Ideas

Corporate Tax Cuts Don't Increase Middle Class Incomes

this pattern.” For those earning more than $200,000 a year, their income classified as salary decreased while their capital income–which is what the corporate tax cut is applied to–increased. The capital income increase was more than... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland

13 Feb 2006
Research & Ideas

When Gender Changes the Negotiation

inequities over time. Awareness of the factors that create gender-related advantages and disadvantages can help you mitigate their consequences—and promote a more egalitarian workplace. How Ambiguity Affects Negotiation At Park's firm, a high degree of uncertainty and... View Details

Keywords: by Dina W. Pradel, Hannah Riley Bowles & Kathleen L. McGinn

29 Nov 2021
Research & Ideas

How Bonuses Get Employees to Choose Work Over Family

choose to spend time with—work colleagues or family—based on how their pay is structured, in particular whether they get bonuses for a job well done or earn fixed salaries regardless of performance. In fact, employees who received... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Kim Raczka

08 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

Keep Your Weary Workers Engaged and Motivated

executives motivated who were asked to take a 50% salary reduction. Because we are now closed and have no revenue, we asked senior staff to take a 50% pay reduction until we reopen. Our CEO took a 100% pay reduction.” On the positive side... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

13 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Merck CEO Ken Frazier Discusses a COVID Cure, Racism, and Why Leaders Need to Walk the Talk

management, I'll be honest, when we're not perfect at Merck. When I look at people two or three salary grades below the senior team, the African American representation is terrible. And even though we've said, for example, that you should... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Pharmaceutical

28 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

Remote Workers Spend More on Housing. Do They Deserve Higher Pay?

To executives expecting to save on office space when some employees continue working remotely post-pandemic: Not so fast. Makeshift desks and kitchen tables have sufficed for many people working from home to avoid COVID-19. However, permanently remote workers tend to... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

08 Oct 2018
Research & Ideas

Knowing What Your Boss Earns Can Make You Work Harder

were recently published in How Much Does Your Boss Make? The Effects of Salary Comparisons, co-written by Zoë B. Cullen, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, and Ricardo Perez-Truglia, an assistant professor at UCLA’s... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

12 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

How Scale Changes a Manager's Responsibilities

was smaller. Compensation and incentives. As the company grows, so must employees’ careers, compensation, and incentives. Be thoughtful about salary structures and be mindful that haphazardly compensating new hires early on or bumping... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Austin

20 Dec 2010
Research & Ideas

Panama Canal: Troubled History, Astounding Turnaround

canal was squeezed by rising costs due to American mismanagement. Panama Canal employees in essence captured canal management and ran it for their own benefit: salaries escalated, along with costs and accident rates, and the... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Transportation

Publications