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Human Behavior & Decision-Making

Human Behavior & Decision-Making

    • 2014
    • Book

    The Power of Noticing: What the Best Leaders See

    By: Max Bazerman

    This book will examine the common failure to notice critical information due to bounded awareness. The book will document a decade of research showing that even successful people fail to notice the absence of critical and readily available information in their environment due to the human tendency to focus on a limited set of information. This work is still in its formative stages, and I welcome comments about how bounded awareness affects you and your organization and how you have created solutions to such problems.

    • 2014
    • Book

    The Power of Noticing: What the Best Leaders See

    By: Max Bazerman

    This book will examine the common failure to notice critical information due to bounded awareness. The book will document a decade of research showing that even successful people fail to notice the absence of critical and readily available information in their environment due to the human tendency to focus on a limited set of information. This...

    • 2014
    • Article

    Time, Money, and Morality

    By: F. Gino and C. Mogilner

    Money, a resource that absorbs much daily attention, seems to be present in much unethical behavior thereby suggesting that money itself may corrupt. This research examines a way to offset such potentially deleterious effects—by focusing on time, a resource that tends to receive less attention than money but is equally ubiquitous in our daily lives. Across four experiments, we examine whether shifting focus onto time can salvage individuals' ethicality. We found that implicitly activating the construct of time, rather than money, leads individuals to behave more ethically by cheating less. We further found that priming time reduces cheating by making people reflect on who they are. Implications for the use of time versus money primes in discouraging or promoting dishonesty are discussed.

    • 2014
    • Article

    Time, Money, and Morality

    By: F. Gino and C. Mogilner

    Money, a resource that absorbs much daily attention, seems to be present in much unethical behavior thereby suggesting that money itself may corrupt. This research examines a way to offset such potentially deleterious effects—by focusing on time, a resource that tends to receive less attention than money but is equally ubiquitous in our daily...

    • Article

    The (Perceived) Meaning of Spontaneous Thoughts

    By: Carey K. Morewedge, Colleen Giblin and Michael I. Norton

    Spontaneous thoughts, the output of a broad category of uncontrolled and inaccessible higher-order mental processes, arise frequently in everyday life. The seeming randomness by which spontaneous thoughts arise might give people good reason to dismiss them as meaningless. We suggest that it is precisely the lack of control over and access to the processes by which they arise that leads people to perceive spontaneous thoughts to reveal meaningful self-insight. Consequently, spontaneous thoughts potently influence judgment. A series of experiments provides evidence supporting two hypotheses. First, we hypothesize that the more a thought is perceived to be spontaneous, the more it is perceived to provide meaningful self-insight. Participants perceived more spontaneous kinds of thought to reveal greater self-insight than more controlled kinds of thought in Study 1 (e.g., intuition versus deliberation), and perceived thoughts with the same content and target to reveal greater self-insight when spontaneously than deliberately generated in Studies 2 and 3 (i.e., childhood memories and impressions formed, respectively). Second, we hypothesize that greater self-insight attributed to thoughts that are (perceived to be) spontaneous leads those thoughts to more potently influence judgment. Participants felt more sexually attracted to an attractive person whom they thought of spontaneously than deliberately in Study 4, and reported their commitment to a current romantic relationship would be more affected by the spontaneous than deliberate recollection of a good or bad experience with their partner in Study 5. Much human thought arises unbidden, spontaneously intruding upon consciousness. The thought and name of a former lover might come to mind during dinner with one's spouse. Or worse, it may be blurted out during an intimate moment. Because no trace of the past lover is present, the thought lacks an apparent cause. In the latter case it almost certainly occurs without intent, given its potential consequences. The seeming randomness of such thoughts might provide reason to dismiss them as the wanderings of a restless mind. We propose that it is precisely the lack of control over and access to the process by which spontaneous thoughts come to mind that leads them to be perceived to reveal special self-insight. Drawing on previous theory and research, we propose that the greater self-insight they are attributed leads spontaneous thoughts to exert a greater impact on attitudes and behavior than similar deliberate thoughts. Compare a wife's thought of a former lover while perusing her yearbook to that same thought during an intimate moment with her husband. In the former case, the reason for the production of that thought is clear ("I thought of him because I looked at his picture while reminiscing about the past"). In the latter case, she lacks both control over the thought and access to its origin. We suggest that its apparent spontaneity should lead her to attribute it special meaning ("Why would I think of him in this moment unless it is important?"), and it should consequently exert a greater influence on her judgment ("I must still have feelings for him"). In this paper, we report a series of five studies examining how the perceived spontaneity of thought influences the extent to which it is believed to yield meaningful self-insight and influences judgment.

    • Article

    The (Perceived) Meaning of Spontaneous Thoughts

    By: Carey K. Morewedge, Colleen Giblin and Michael I. Norton

    Spontaneous thoughts, the output of a broad category of uncontrolled and inaccessible higher-order mental processes, arise frequently in everyday life. The seeming randomness by which spontaneous thoughts arise might give people good reason to dismiss them as meaningless. We suggest that it is precisely the lack of control over and access to the...

    • Article

    Past, Present and Future Research on Multiple Identities: Toward an Intrapersonal Network Approach

    By: Lakshmi Ramarajan

    Psychologists, sociologists, and philosophers have long recognized that people have multiple identities—based on attributes such as organizational membership, profession, gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and family role(s) and that these multiple identities shape people's actions in organizations. The current organizational literature on multiple identities, however, is sparse and scattered and has yet to fully capture this foundational idea. I review and organize the literature on multiple identities into five different theoretical perspectives: social psychological; microsociological; psychodynamic and developmental; critical; and intersectional. I then propose a way to take research on multiple identities forward using an intrapersonal identity network approach. Moving to an identity network approach offers two advantages: first, it enables scholars to consider more than two identities simultaneously, and second, it helps scholars examine relationships among identities in greater detail. This is important because preliminary evidence suggests that multiple identities shape important outcomes in organizations, such as individual stress and well-being, intergroup conflict, performance, and change. By providing a way to investigate patterns of relationships among multiple identities, the identity network approach can help scholars deepen their understanding of the consequences of multiple identities in organizations and spark novel research questions in the organizational literature.

    • Article

    Past, Present and Future Research on Multiple Identities: Toward an Intrapersonal Network Approach

    By: Lakshmi Ramarajan

    Psychologists, sociologists, and philosophers have long recognized that people have multiple identities—based on attributes such as organizational membership, profession, gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and family role(s) and that these multiple identities shape people's actions in organizations. The current organizational literature on...

    • March 2014
    • Article

    Cheating More for Less: Upward Social Comparisons Motivate the Poorly Compensated to Cheat

    By: Leslie K. John, George Loewenstein and Scott Rick

    Intuitively, people should cheat more when cheating is more lucrative, but we find that the effect of performance-based pay rates on dishonesty depends on how readily people can compare their pay rate to that of others. In Experiment 1, participants were paid 5 cents or 25 cents per self-reported point in a trivia task, and half were aware that they could have received the alternative pay rate. Lower pay rates increased cheating when the prospect of a higher pay rate was salient. Experiment 2 illustrates that this effect is driven by the ease with which poorly compensated participants can compare their pay to that of others who earn a higher pay rate. Our results suggest that low pay rates are, in and of themselves, unlikely to promote dishonesty. Instead, it is the salience of upward social comparisons that encourages the poorly compensated to cheat.

    • March 2014
    • Article

    Cheating More for Less: Upward Social Comparisons Motivate the Poorly Compensated to Cheat

    By: Leslie K. John, George Loewenstein and Scott Rick

    Intuitively, people should cheat more when cheating is more lucrative, but we find that the effect of performance-based pay rates on dishonesty depends on how readily people can compare their pay rate to that of others. In Experiment 1, participants were paid 5 cents or 25 cents per self-reported point in a trivia task, and half were aware that...

    • 2014
    • Article

    Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men

    By: Alison Wood Brooks, Laura Huang, Sarah Kearney and Fiona Murray

    Entrepreneurship is a central path to job creation, economic growth, and prosperity. In the earliest stages of start-up business creation, the matching of entrepreneurial ventures to investors is critically important. The entrepreneur's business proposition and previous experience are regarded as the main criteria for investment decisions. Our research, however, documents other critical criteria that investors use to make these decisions: the gender and physical attractiveness of the entrepreneurs themselves. Across a field setting (three entrepreneurial pitch competitions in the United States) and two experiments, we identify a profound and consistent gender gap in entrepreneur persuasiveness. Investors prefer pitches presented by male entrepreneurs compared with pitches made by female entrepreneurs, even when the content of the pitch is the same. This effect is moderated by male physical attractiveness: attractive males were particularly persuasive, whereas physical attractiveness did not matter among female entrepreneurs.

    • 2014
    • Article

    Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men

    By: Alison Wood Brooks, Laura Huang, Sarah Kearney and Fiona Murray

    Entrepreneurship is a central path to job creation, economic growth, and prosperity. In the earliest stages of start-up business creation, the matching of entrepreneurial ventures to investors is critically important. The entrepreneur's business proposition and previous experience are regarded as the main criteria for investment decisions. Our...

    • 2014
    • Chapter

    Appetite, Consumption, and Choice in the Human Brain

    By: Brian Knutson and Uma R. Karmarkar

    Although linked, researchers have long distinguished appetitive from consummatory phases of reward processing. Recent improvements in the spatial and temporal resolution of neuroimaging techniques have allowed researchers to separately visualize different stages of reward processing in humans. These techniques have revealed that evolutionarily conserved circuits related to affect generate distinguishable appetitive and consummatory signals, and that these signals can be used to predict choice and subsequent consumption. Review of the literature surprisingly suggests that appetitive rather than consummatory activity may best predict future choice and consumption. These findings imply that distinguishing appetite from consumption may improve predictions of future choice and illuminate neural components that support the process of decision making.

    • 2014
    • Chapter

    Appetite, Consumption, and Choice in the Human Brain

    By: Brian Knutson and Uma R. Karmarkar

    Although linked, researchers have long distinguished appetitive from consummatory phases of reward processing. Recent improvements in the spatial and temporal resolution of neuroimaging techniques have allowed researchers to separately visualize different stages of reward processing in humans. These techniques have revealed that evolutionarily...

Ever since their origins about three decades ago, the Behavioral Science areas of economics, ethics and managerial psychology have been rapidly evolving. In the 1980's and 1990's, early work by Max Bazerman in judgment and negotiation, Matthew Rabin in behavioral economics, and James Sebenius in negotiations was instrumental in shaping research on Human Behavior & Decision-Making. Today, our research focuses on individual and interactive judgment and decision making and explores the role of personal bias, cognition and learning, time, perception, ethics and morality, and emotion.

Recent Publications

Lisa Su and AMD (A)

By: Joshua D. Margolis, Matthew Preble and Dave Habeeb
  • April 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
This multimedia case study focuses on CEO Lisa Su’s turnaround and subsequent transformation of the technology company Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD). When Su accepted the top position in 2014, AMD was on the verge of collapse. Su focused the company’s culture, simplified its product roadmap, repaired relationships with key stakeholders, and placed a big bet on innovations in high performance computing and Artificial Intelligence to make AMD a tech powerhouse by late 2023. Lisa Su and AMD (A) and Lisa Su and AMD (B) are not standalone case studies. They are designed to be taught together. Lisa Su and AMD (A) explores AMD’s successes and challenges prior to Lisa Su becoming CEO. Lisa Su and AMD (B) helps students understand the key elements of the transformation, and how Su is positioning the company for the future.
Keywords: Turnaround; Artificial Intelligence; Semiconductors; Change Management; Transformation; Decision Making; Globalized Markets and Industries; Government and Politics; AI and Machine Learning; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Innovation Leadership; Leadership; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Management; Product Design; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Strategic Planning; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Research and Development; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Semiconductor Industry; Computer Industry; United States; California; Texas
Citation
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Margolis, Joshua D., Matthew Preble, and Dave Habeeb. "Lisa Su and AMD (A)." Harvard Business School Multimedia/Video Case 425-704, April 2025.

Techint: Strategic Choices for Community Impact

By: Lauren Cohen, Virak Prum, Kenneth Charman, Pedro Levindo and Mariana Cal
  • April 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
In early 2024 Erika Bienek, Chief Community Relations Officer at Techint, had to decide whether to invest in a new company-owned and operated technical school in Veracruz, Mexico, or invest instead in strengthening the city’s public education system. Techint, a global industrial conglomerate with $38.4 billion in annual revenues and 97,000 employees in 2023, had a longstanding commitment to community development through education. Over the past five years, the group invested $204 million in its Community Relations program, focusing on four synergistic education initiatives. The Roberto Rocca Technical School (RRTS)—owned and operated by Techint—offered high-quality technical education to underprivileged students, while other programs strengthened public school infrastructure, provided scholarships, and supported after-school learning. TenarisTamsa, Techint’s subsidiary in Veracruz, had been active in the region for decades, and a new RRTS would expand its footprint. However, some stakeholders argued that broader impact could be achieved by supporting public schools serving over 40,000 students or by launching a community training center to meet urgent workforce development needs in the local energy sector. With Techint’s tradition of deep community engagement and rigorous standards, the question for Bienek and her team was how to allocate the newly earmarked $30 million to generate the greatest long-term impact for Veracruz—through direct, measurable educational transformation, or broader support for the public system.
Keywords: Technical Institutes; Community Relations; Social Impact; Argentina; Mexico; Brazil; Conglomerate; Stakeholder Management; Government And Business; Community Impact; Philanthropy; Business Conglomerates; Business Subsidiaries; Business Headquarters; Family Business; Decision Making; Private Sector; Public Sector; Education; Curriculum and Courses; Middle School Education; Secondary Education; Teaching; Training; Learning; Energy; Engineering; Construction; Values and Beliefs; Geography; Global Range; Local Range; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Globalized Firms and Management; Government Legislation; Recruitment; Innovation and Invention; Disruptive Innovation; Knowledge; Resource Allocation; Industry Clusters; Infrastructure; Family Ownership; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Business and Community Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business and Government Relations; Creativity; Reputation; Social and Collaborative Networks; Civil Society or Community; Social Issues; Poverty; Strategy; Construction Industry; Education Industry; Energy Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Steel Industry; Europe; Italy; Latin America; North and Central America; Mexico; North America; United States; South America; Argentina; Buenos Aires; Brazil
Citation
Educators
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Cohen, Lauren, Virak Prum, Kenneth Charman, Pedro Levindo, and Mariana Cal. "Techint: Strategic Choices for Community Impact." Harvard Business School Case 825-058, April 2025.

Joe Mazzulla and the Boston Celtics (A)

By: Linda A. Hill, James I. Cash and Lydia Begag
  • April 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Joe Mazzulla's leadership journey with the Boston Celtics began in 2016 when he served as an assistant coach for their NBA G-League affiliate. In 2019, he was promoted to a "behind-the-bench" assistant coaching role with the Celtics, before being asked to become the interim head coach in September 2022 following the suspension of the head coach. All throughout the 2022-2023 NBA season, Mazzulla discovered the demands of the role, learning what his players and coaching staff needed from him as well as how to manage relationships with the Boston sports fanbase and the media. Despite the Celtics falling short in the 2023 NBA Eastern Conference Finals, Mazzulla used the offseason to recalibrate and refine his leadership and communication strategies for the upcoming 2023-2024 season. By June 2024, Mazzulla's hard work and evolution had paid off, with the Celtics reaching the NBA Finals for the second time in three years. As Game 4 of the Finals approaches (with the Celtics being up 3-0), Mazzulla finds himself at a crossroads, contemplating his pre-game message to the team. Should he rally them with an aggressive “go for the kill” mindset, or choose language that is more aligned with their “joyous intensity” culture? Mazzulla knows his rhetoric matters and how he communicates could determine if the franchise secures their 18th championship or not.
Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Change Management; Communication; Values and Beliefs; Innovation and Invention; Decision Making; Innovation Leadership; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Leading Change; Leadership Development; Leadership Style; Crisis Management; Management Skills; Business Processes; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Performance Efficiency; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States
Citation
Educators
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Hill, Linda A., James I. Cash, and Lydia Begag. "Joe Mazzulla and the Boston Celtics (A)." Harvard Business School Case 425-059, April 2025.

Giving Up on a Passion: Elizabeth Rowe at the Boston Symphony Orchestra

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Maisie Wiltshire-Gordon and Alexis Lefort
  • April 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
For 20 years, Elizabeth Rowe was a world-renowned principal flutist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. But in 2024, Rowe decided to leave her position to pursue a new full-time career as a leadership coach. At 50, Rowe was well under the typical retirement age, and, by all accounts, playing more beautifully than ever. But she had begun developing her coaching practice during the COVID-19 pandemic, and was excited by the growth and human connection that the work offered her. The case explores the factors that led Rowe to make such an unconventional decision, describing her musical formation, her time at the BSO, and the process of launching a coaching practice.
Keywords: Arts; Small Business; Social Media; Cost vs Benefits; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decisions; Learning; Music Entertainment; Values and Beliefs; Creativity; Happiness; Identity; Interests; Satisfaction; Motivation and Incentives; Prejudice and Bias; Reputation; Culture; Resignation and Termination; Personal Development and Career; Consulting Industry; Fine Arts Industry; Music Industry; United States
Citation
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Jachimowicz, Jon M., Maisie Wiltshire-Gordon, and Alexis Lefort. "Giving Up on a Passion: Elizabeth Rowe at the Boston Symphony Orchestra." Harvard Business School Case 425-037, April 2025.

Commentary: How Financial Influencers Can Make or Break Investment Platforms like Chocolate Finance

By: Daniel Rabetti
  • April 8, 2025 |
  • Other Article |
  • Channel News Asia (CNA)
Keywords: Power and Influence; Public Opinion; Social Media; Financial Services Industry
Citation
Read Now
Related
Rabetti, Daniel. "Commentary: How Financial Influencers Can Make or Break Investment Platforms like Chocolate Finance." Channel News Asia (CNA) (April 8, 2025).

Corporate Actions as Moral Issues

By: Zwetelina Iliewa, Elisabeth Kempf and Oliver Spalt
  • 2025 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
We examine nonpecuniary preferences across a broad set of corporate actions using a representative sample of the U.S. population. Our core findings, based on large-scale online surveys, are that (i) self-reported nonpecuniary concerns are large both for stock market investors and non-investors; (ii) concerns about the treatment of workers and CEO pay rank highest—higher than concerns about workforce diversity and fossil energy usage; (iii) moral universalism emerges as an important driver of nonpecuniary preferences. Combined, our findings provide new evidence on the importance of moral concerns as a key determinant of nonpecuniary preferences over corporate actions.
Keywords: Public Opinion; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Moral Sensibility
Citation
Related
Iliewa, Zwetelina, Elisabeth Kempf, and Oliver Spalt. "Corporate Actions as Moral Issues." Working Paper, April 2025.

Serving with a Smile on Airbnb: Analyzing the Economic Returns and Behavioral Underpinnings of the Host’s Smile

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Elizabeth Friedman, Kannan Srinivasan, Ravi Dhar and Xupin Zhang
  • April 2025 |
  • Article |
  • Journal of Consumer Research
Non-informational cues, such as facial expressions, can significantly influence judgments and interpersonal impressions. While past research has explored how smiling affects business outcomes in offline or in-store contexts, relatively less is known about how smiling influences consumer choice in e-commerce settings even when there is no face-to-face interaction. In this paper, we use a longitudinal Airbnb dataset and a facial attribute classifier to quantify the effect of a smile in the host’s profile photo on property demand and identify factors that influence when a host's smile is likely to have the biggest effect. A smile in the host’s profile photo increases property demand by 3.5% on average. This effect is moderated by a variety of host and property characteristics that provide evidence for the role of uncertainty underlying why smiling increases demand. Specifically, when there is greater uncertainty regarding either the quality of the accommodations or the interaction with the host, a host smile will have a greater effect on demand. Online experiments confirm this pattern, offering further support for uncertainty perceptions driving the effect of smiling on increased Airbnb demand, and show that the effect of smiling on demand generalizes beyond Airbnb.
Keywords: Sharing Economy; Airbnb; Image Feature Extraction; Machine Learning; Facial Expressions; Prejudice and Bias; Nonverbal Communication; E-commerce; Consumer Behavior; Perception
Citation
Read Now
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Zhang, Shunyuan, Elizabeth Friedman, Kannan Srinivasan, Ravi Dhar, and Xupin Zhang. "Serving with a Smile on Airbnb: Analyzing the Economic Returns and Behavioral Underpinnings of the Host’s Smile." Journal of Consumer Research 51, no. 6 (April 2025): 1073–1097.

Louis E. Caldera on the Panama Canal and DEI Under Trump's Administration

By: Louis Caldera and June Carolyn Erlick
  • 25 Mar 2025 |
  • Other Presentation |
  • Faculty Research
Louis E. Caldera, a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, chaired the Panama Canal Commission the year the Canal was returned to Panama, 1999. He was also the first (and only) Latino to serve as Secretary of the Army. He talks on issues ranging from President Trump's threat to "take back" the Canal to the implications of the ban of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) on the nation's military and security.
Keywords: Government Administration; History; National Security; Diversity; Panama; United States
Citation
Related
"Louis E. Caldera on the Panama Canal and DEI Under Trump's Administration." Faculty Voices (podcast), Harvard University, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, March 25, 2025.

Silicon Valley Bank: Gone in 36 Hours

By: Jung Koo Kang, Krishna G. Palepu, Charles C.Y. Wang and David Lane
  • March 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
This case examines factors contributing to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in March 2023, an event as unpredicted as it was quick. SVB funded nearly half of all U.S. venture-backed startups and at the end of 2022 held $173 billion in deposits, largely comprising the venture capital those startups had raised. On February 28, 2023, Moody’s warned SVB about a potential credit rating downgrade, reflecting concerns over "funding, liquidity, and profitability" which factored in substantial unrealized losses on SVB’s debt securities. To strengthen its balance sheet, SVB sold $21 billion in securities on March 8, but the move shocked its customers, as it resulted in a realized loss of $2 billion. The ensuing bank run intensified as SVB proved unable to placate investor fears or raise capital to plug that hole, and SVB was placed in receivership on the morning of March 10. Finger-pointing began immediately. Some argued that misguided pressure from Moody’s over the fair value of SVB’s debt securities prompted the bank’s death spiral. Others blamed SVB management and directors, its regulators, and the venture capitalists whom SVB otherwise benefited. What went wrong, and what lessons could be learned?
Keywords: Accounting Standards; Bank Runs; Financial Accounting; Financial Reporting; Social Media; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Investment Portfolio; Interest Rates; Debt Securities; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Statements; Risk Management; Failure; Fair Value Accounting; Credit; Corporate Governance; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; United States
Citation
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Kang, Jung Koo, Krishna G. Palepu, Charles C.Y. Wang, and David Lane. "Silicon Valley Bank: Gone in 36 Hours." Harvard Business School Case 125-094, March 2025.

Taylor Guitars: Making Employee Ownership Work The Taylor Way

By: Dennis Campbell, Petros Kusmu and Stacy Straaberg
  • March 2025 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
In 2013, guitar manufacturer Taylor Guitars’ co-founders Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug were considering several exit options including selling to a competitor or to a private equity firm. The co-founders decided, instead, to embark on a seven-year process to transfer 100% of the ownership of the company from themselves and third owner partner Andy Powers to Taylor Guitars employees. The co-founders felt an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) would best preserve the company’s values and distinct culture. In 2024, the co-founders, Powers (now president and CEO), CFO Barbara Wight, and Vice President of Human Resources Shaun Paluczak took time to reflect on the ESOP. Many employees were still unclear about what the ESOP meant for them, with some likening it to a retirement plan. The challenge for the leadership team was how to activate employees’ sense of ownership in the company to enhance Taylor Guitars’ performance.
Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Communication Strategy; Strategy; Announcements; Decisions; Music Entertainment; Values and Beliefs; Borrowing and Debt; Geographic Location; Global Range; Governance; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Management Style; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Private Ownership; Business Strategy; Management Succession; Manufacturing Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States; California; San Diego; Mexico; Netherlands
Citation
Educators
Related
Campbell, Dennis, Petros Kusmu, and Stacy Straaberg. "Taylor Guitars: Making Employee Ownership Work The Taylor Way." Harvard Business School Case 125-054, March 2025.
More Publications

Faculty

Max H. Bazerman
Teresa M. Amabile
Lynn S. Paine
Francesca Gino
Boris Groysberg
Rosabeth M. Kanter
Robin J. Ely
Michael I. Norton
Paul A. Gompers
Linda A. Hill
Joshua D. Margolis
Kathleen L. McGinn
→See All

HBS Working Knowlege

    • 28 Oct 2024

    Latino Voters Have Grown More Politically Divided. That’s Not Surprising.

    Re: Vincent Pons & Jesse M. Shapiro
    • 15 Oct 2024

    What Sequoia Capital Can Teach Leaders About Sustaining Long-Term Growth

    Re: Jo Tango & Christina M. Wallace
    • 07 Oct 2024

    Election 2024: Why Demographics Won't Predict the Next President

    Re: Vincent Pons & Jesse M. Shapiro
→More Articles

Harvard Business Publishing

    • February 21, 2025
    • Article

    How a Company’s Ownership Model Shapes the Mistakes It Makes

    By: Josh Baron
    • April 2025
    • Case

    Lisa Su and AMD (A)

    By: Joshua D. Margolis, Matthew Preble and Dave Habeeb
    • 2021
    • Book

    Glass Half-Broken: Shattering the Barriers That Still Hold Women Back at Work

    By: Colleen Ammerman and Boris Groysberg
→More Harvard Business Publishing
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