Publications

SSRN

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2020
Working Paper

Are ISS Recommendations Informative? Evidence from Assessments of Compensation Practices

By: Ana Albuquerque, Mary Ellen Carter and Susanna Gallani

Using detailed information from the largest proxy advisor in the U.S., Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), we examine whether proxy advisors’ assessments of firms’ compensation practices are able to identify poor compensation practices as measured by subsequent... View Details

Keywords: Proxy Advisors; CEO Compensation; Say-on-Pay; Institutional Shareholder Voting; Executive Compensation; Performance

SSRN

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January 2011 (Revised April 2020)
Case

Executive Compensation at Talent Partners

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Talent Partners' CEO was very successful at growing the business and establishing its leadership position. He was compensated with a mix of salary and options and he did not own any equity in the company. The options were set so that if Talent Partners achieved its... View Details

Keywords: Executive Compensation; Stock Options; Compensation and Benefits

December 2001 (Revised June 2002)
Case

Compensation at Level 3 Communications

Level 3's unique compensation plan rewarded managers for the firm's performance only if the firm's stock price movement exceeded that of the market. This design was intended to maximize shareholder value by tying manager's performance more closely to that of the firm,... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Compensation and Benefits; Telecommunications Industry

January–February 2021
Article

Compensation Packages That Actually Drive Performance

By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah Abbott, Michael R. Marino and Metin Aksoy

By aligning executives’ financial incentives with company strategy, a firm can inspire its management to deliver superior results. But it can be hard to get pay packages right. In this article four experts break down the key elements of compensation and explain how to... View Details

Keywords: Executive Compensation; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Strategy; Performance

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26 Mar 2025
Blog Post

How to Approach Your Equity Compensation

Equity compensation can be an exciting ownership opportunity — but also one that can feel enormously complicated and confusing. When new hires receive equity grants as part of their compensation package,... View Details

September 2014
Article

Income Inequality and Social Preferences for Redistribution and Compensation Differentials

By: William R. Kerr

In cross-sectional studies, countries with greater income inequality typically exhibit less support for government-led redistribution and greater acceptance of wage inequality (e.g., United States versus Western Europe). If individual nations evolve along this pattern,... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Income; Government and Politics

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12 Feb 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Do Bonuses Enhance Sales Productivity? A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Bonus-Based Compensation Plans

Keywords: by Doug J. Chung, Thomas Steenburgh & K. Sudhir

20 Jan 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Income Inequality and Social Preferences for Redistribution and Compensation Differentials

Keywords: by William R. Kerr

March 2022 (Revised October 2022)
Case

Transforming Kimball International, Inc. (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

Kimball International, Inc. (KII), led by CEO Kristie Juster, and its board of directors, chaired by Kim Ryan, faced critical questions about KII’s future in the spring of 2021. Two years earlier, the board had appointed Juster as the new CEO of KII, a publicly traded,... View Details

February 2019 (Revised July 2019)
Case

Sales Force Management at Nobel Ilac

By: Doug J. Chung and Gamze Yucaoglu

Nobel Ilac was a Turkish generic pharmaceutical company marketing more than 100 drugs in 20 countries and, as of 2017, had over 2,500 employees worldwide. Nobel had implemented a transformation strategy—more specifically, a customer segmentation plan—whereby the sales... View Details

Keywords: Sales Strategy; Compensation; Employee Retention; Recruiting; Pharmaceuticals; Salesforce Management; Strategy; Organizational Design; Human Resources; Compensation and Benefits; Employees; Retention; Recruitment; Pharmaceutical Industry; Turkey

March 2022
Supplement

Transforming Kimball International, Inc. (B)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

May 2022
Article

Variance Analysis: New Insights from Health Care Applications

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Susanna Gallani

We use a health care application to illustrate how variance analysis can be used to benchmark costs across similar service delivery sites. Variances for personnel costs, typically the largest cost component in service organizations, are calculated for price, quantity,... View Details

Keywords: Variance Analysis; Benchmarking; Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; Health Care; Activity Based Costing and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Service Delivery; Service Industry

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Research Summary

Optimal Contracting with Reciprocal Agents

(with Florian Englmaier) (Job Market Paper)

Abstract: Empirically, compensation systems often seem to generate substantial effort despite weak incentives. We consider reciprocal motivations as a source of incentives. We solve for the optimal... View Details

May 2021 (Revised September 2021)
Case

Accounting for Bitcoin at Tesla

By: Charles C.Y. Wang and Siyu Zhang

On February 8, 2021, Tesla revealed, through its 10-K filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), that it had purchased $1.5 billion of Bitcoin, totaling 7.5% of the company’s cash, and that it planned to accept payments in the cryptocurrency soon. These... View Details

Keywords: Bitcoin; Accounting; Currency; Communication Intention and Meaning; Strategy; Investment Portfolio; Emerging Markets; Risk and Uncertainty; Value Creation

27 Nov 2006
What Do You Think?

What’s to Be Done About Performance Reviews?

received mixed reviews. Tery Tennant's opinion is that "forced ranking is injecting fear into the workplace." But as Nauman Faridi put it, "Ranking must be handled delicately . Organizations must first improve their... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

June 2019 (Revised July 2019)
Case

Building a Meritocracy at Alghanim Industries

By: Paul M. Healy, Susanna Gallani and Esel Çekin

Building on his father’s legacy, Omar Alghanim (MBA 2002) had been working on strengthening a performance-driven culture based on meritocracy in the family business, Alghanim Industries. The task had been particularly challenging because of traditional Middle East... View Details

Keywords: Meritocracy; Social Norms; Family Business; Organizational Culture; Performance; Diversity; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Middle East; Kuwait

25 Mar 2021
Research & Ideas

Steer Clear of the Blind Spots That Derail Experiments

what resonates with online users. Google and Amazon are among a growing list of companies running tens of thousands of tests per year. A growing number of companies are applying these techniques to marketing, strategy, and even View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

February 2025
Article

Innovations in Evaluating Ambulatory Costs of Cystic Fibrosis Care: A Comparative Study Across Multidisciplinary Care Centers in Ireland and the United States

By: Emma Brady, Ryan C. Perkins, Kate Cullen, Gregory S. Sawicki, Robert S. Kaplan and Gerardine Doyle

Lead clinicians at two large pediatric cystic fibrosis (CF) centers in the United States and Ireland measured and compared their ambulatory care costs. The clinicians selected three strata of patients (0–11 months, 1–5 years, and 6–17 years of age). Process maps were... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Cost; Service Delivery; Resource Allocation; Health Industry