Ian Larkin
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Ian Larkin is an assistant professor of business administration in the Negotiation, Organizations, and Markets Unit. He teaches the Managing, Negotiating, and Organizing for Value (MONV) course in the MBA elective curriculum, and in several Executive Education programs on employee decision making.
Ian researches the impact of formal and informal extrinsic rewards on employee decisions and firm performance, using real-world data from corporations and data generated from experiments. He is currently working on a major research project that examines how the incentives of pharmaceutical sales representatives affect physician prescribing behavior. Ian’s research has been published in the Journal of Labor Economics, Strategic Management Journal, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics and Academy of Management Papers and Proceedings, and has been cited by media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and National Public Radio.
Ian received his Ph.D. from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. He completed an M.Sc. in Development Economics from the University of London, where he was a British Marshall Scholar. As part of his undergraduate work at the University of Arizona, Ian spent over three years living in China, Japan, and Taiwan, and he speaks conversational Mandarin Chinese and Japanese. As a junior, he was awarded a Harry S. Truman Scholarship, given to students who commit to a career in public service. Before entering his Ph.D. program, Ian spent four years as an associate and engagement manager in the Hong Kong and Silicon Valley offices of McKinsey & Company, advising senior executives on corporate strategy in the banking and high technology industries. He serves on the Selection Committee for the British Marshall Scholarship and previously played the same role for the Harry S. Truman and Flinn scholarships.
Pursuing one of his many nonacademic interests, Ian completed a three-week executive chef course in France and is currently trying to learn to bake, unfortunately with little success. He also enjoys travel, the theater, and reading and writing fiction. Although he has never been to Wisconsin, he is an avid fan of the Green Bay Packers. He lives in Somerville with his wife Gita, Director of Commerce and Community at Zipcar.
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Article
| Journal of Labor Economics
| Forthcoming
The Cost of High-Powered Incentives: Employee Gaming in Enterprise Software Sales
Ian Larkin
This paper investigates the pricing distortions that arise from the use of a common non-linear incentive scheme at a leading enterprise software vendor. The empirical results demonstrate that salespeople are adept at gaming the timing of deal closure to take advantage of the vendor's accelerating commission scheme. Specifically, salespeople agree to significantly lower pricing in quarters where they have a financial incentive to close a deal, resulting in mispricing that costs the vendor 6-8% of revenue. Robustness checks demonstrate that price discrimination by the vendor does not explain the identified effects.
Keywords: incentives;
motivation;
compensation;
gaming;
sales force management;
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Column
| Negotiation
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Reining In a Rising Star
Ian Larkin
Citation: Larkin, Ian. "Reining In a Rising Star." Negotiation 15, no. 7 (July 2012).
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Article
| American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
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Incentive Schemes, Sorting and Behavioral Biases of Employees: Experimental Evidence
Ian Larkin and Stephen Leider
We investigate how the convexity of a firm's incentives interacts with worker overconfidence to affect sorting decisions and performance. We demonstrate experimentally that overconfident employees are more likely to sort into a non-linear incentive scheme over a linear one, even though this reduces pay for many subjects and despite the presence of clear feedback. Additionally, the linear scheme attracts demotivated, underconfident workers who perform below their ability. Our findings suggest that firms may design incentive schemes that adapt to the behavioral biases of employees to "sort in" ("sort away") attractive (unattractive) employees; such schemes may also reduce a firm's wage bill.
Keywords: Motivation and Incentives;
Performance;
Behavior;
Prejudice and Bias;
Decisions;
Employees;
Wages;
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Article
| Strategic Management Journal
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The Psychological Costs of Pay-for-Performance: Implications for the Strategic Compensation of Employees
Ian Larkin, L. Pierce and F. Gino
Keywords: Cost;
Compensation and Benefits;
Motivation and Incentives;
Strategy;
Employees;
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Journal Article
| Negotiation
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The Danger of 'Take it or Leave it'
Ian Larkin
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Article
| Negotiation
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Dear Negotiation Coach: Should You Get the Kinks Out?
Ian Larkin
Keywords: Negotiation;
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Article
| Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings
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Bargains-then-ripoffs: Innovation, Pricing and Lock-in in Enterprise Software
Ian Larkin
Keywords: Innovation and Invention;
Software;
Information Technology;
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Article
| Negotiation
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Negotiations versus Auctions: New Advice for Buyers
Ian Larkin
Keywords: Negotiation;
Auctions;
Information;
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Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2013
The Dirty Laundry of Employee Award Programs: Evidence from the Field
Timothy Gubler, Ian I. Larkin and Lamar Pierce
Many scholars and practitioners have recently argued that corporate awards are a "free" way to motivate employees. We use field data from an attendance award program implemented at one of five industrial laundry plants to show that awards can carry significant spillover costs and may be less effective at motivating employees than the literature suggests. Our quasi-experimental setting shows that two types of unintended consequences limit gains from the reward program. First, employees strategically game the program, improving timeliness only when eligible for the award, and call in sick to retain eligibility. Second, employees with perfect pre-program attendance or high productivity suffered a 6-8% productivity decrease after program introduction, suggesting they were demotivated by awards for good behavior they already exhibited. Overall, our results suggest the award program decreased plant productivity by 1.4%, and that positive effects from awards are accompanied by more complex employee responses that limit program effectiveness.
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Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2009
Demographics, Career Concerns or Social Comparison: Who Games SSRN Download Counts?
Benjamin Edelman and Ian Larkin
We use a unique database of every SSRN paper download over the course of seven years, along with detailed resume data on a random sample of SSRN authors, to examine the role of demographic factors, career concerns, and social comparisons on the commission of a particular type of gaming: the self-downloading of an author's own SSRN working paper solely to inflate the paper's reported download count. We find significant evidence that authors are more likely to inflate their papers' download counts when a higher count greatly improves the visibility of a paper on the SSRN network. We also find limited evidence of gaming due to demographic factors and career concerns, and strong evidence of gaming driven by social comparisons with various peer groups. These results indicate the importance of including psychological factors in the study of deceptive behavior.
Keywords: Ethics;
Personal Development and Career;
Behavior;
Competitive Strategy;
Competitive Advantage;
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Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant
Ian Larkin
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Teaching Note
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
V-Cola (TN)
Ian Larkin
Citation: Larkin, Ian. " V-Cola (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 912-042, March 2012.
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Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Cash Adman
Ian Larkin
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Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Cly Entman
Ian Larkin
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Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Mark Ketting
Ian Larkin
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Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for C.F. Oh
Ian Larkin
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Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
|
2013
(Revised from original 2012 version)
V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Price Down
Ian Larkin
This is information for one of the six roles to be used in the V-Cola negotiation exercise. Please see V-Cola General Instructions (912043) and Teaching note (912042) for full information.
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Case
| HBS Case Collection
|
2012
(Revised from original 2011 version)
Arck Systems
Ian Larkin
The Arck Systems series of cases describes the dilemmas faced by a senior sales manager in determining a sales compensation plan at an enterprise software company. The existing compensation plan is aggressive and highly rewards "star" performers. The cases track a series of changes the manager makes to the sales compensation plan in response to negative and unintended consequences of the existing system. The cases illustrate the tradeoffs inherent in incentive plans (even outside of sales environments) and presents a framework for the design and management of incentive systems. It also is useful in addressing employee response to incentive system change.
Keywords: Compensation and Benefits;
Retention;
Performance Effectiveness;
Salesforce Management;
Motivation and Incentives;
Software;
Information Technology Industry;
Citation: Larkin, Ian. " Arck Systems." Harvard Business School Case 911-056, March 2012. (Revised from original March 2011 version.)
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Teaching Note
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
Ponce de Leon (TN)
Ian Larkin
Citation: Larkin, Ian. " Ponce de Leon (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 912-041, March 2012.
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Case
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
(Revised from original 2012 version)
V-Cola: General Instructions
Ian Larkin
V-Cola is a six-party exercise that simulates a negotiation between a boutique advertising agency and a beverage company that is launching a new product. Each of the six parties has different incentives and information, which leads to a complex, realistic simulation about agency issues, misaligned incentives, the value of information, and the (mis)use of contingent contracts.
Keywords: Advertising Industry;
Citation: Larkin, Ian. " V-Cola: General Instructions." Harvard Business School Case 912-043, July 2012. (Revised from original March 2012 version.)
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Teaching Note
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
(Revised from original 2011 version)
Arck Systems (TN) (A), (B), (C), (D), (E) and (F)
Ian Larkin
Teaching Note for 911056, 911057, 911058, 911059, 911060 and 911073.
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Case
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
Ponce de Leon: Confidential Instructions for Poppie Santoni, Director
Ian Larkin
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Case
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
Ponce de Leon: Confidential Instructions for Donald Sanger, Chief Financial Officer, Panama Studios
Ian Larkin
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Case
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
Ponce de Leon: Confidential Instructions for Elaine Bennett
Ian Larkin
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Case
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
Ponce de Leon: Confidential Instructions for Newman Knight, Elaine Bennett's Agent
Ian Larkin
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Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
|
2011
(Revised from original 2011 version)
Arck Systems (B)
Ian Larkin
The Arck Systems series of cases describes the dilemmas faced by a senior sales manager in determining a sales compensation plan at an enterprise software company. The existing compensation plan is aggressive and highly rewards "star" performers. The cases track a series of changes the manager makes to the sales compensation plan in response to negative and unintended consequences of the existing system. The cases illustrate the tradeoffs inherent in incentive plans (even outside of sales environments) and presents a framework for the design and management of incentive systems. It also is useful in addressing employee response to incentive system change.
Keywords: Change;
Framework;
Compensation and Benefits;
Management;
Organizational Design;
Outcome or Result;
Performance Evaluation;
Sales;
Motivation and Incentives;
System;
Software;
Citation: Larkin, Ian. " Arck Systems (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 911-057, June 2011. (Revised from original March 2011 version.)
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Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
|
2011
(Revised from original 2011 version)
Arck Systems (C)
Ian Larkin
The Arck Systems series of cases describes the dilemmas faced by a senior sales manager in determining a sales compensation plan at an enterprise software company. The existing compensation plan is aggressive and highly rewards "star" performers. The cases track a series of changes the manager makes to the sales compensation plan in response to negative and unintended consequences of the existing system. The cases illustrate the tradeoffs inherent in incentive plans (even outside of sales environments) and presents a framework for the design and management of incentive systems. It also is useful in addressing employee response to incentive system change.
Keywords: Change;
Framework;
Compensation and Benefits;
Employees;
Management;
Organizational Design;
Outcome or Result;
Performance Evaluation;
Sales;
Motivation and Incentives;
System;
Software;
Citation: Larkin, Ian. " Arck Systems (C)." Harvard Business School Supplement 911-058, June 2011. (Revised from original March 2011 version.)
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Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
|
2011
(Revised from original 2011 version)
Arck Systems (D)
Ian Larkin
The Arck Systems series of cases describes the dilemmas faced by a senior sales manager in determining a sales compensation plan at an enterprise software company. The existing compensation plan is aggressive and highly rewards "star" performers. The cases track a series of changes the manager makes to the sales compensation plan in response to negative and unintended consequences of the existing system. The cases illustrate the tradeoffs inherent in incentive plans (even outside of sales environments) and presents a framework for the design and management of incentive systems. It also is useful in addressing employee response to incentive system change.
Citation: Larkin, Ian. " Arck Systems (D)." Harvard Business School Supplement 911-059, June 2011. (Revised from original March 2011 version.)
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Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
|
2011
(Revised from original 2011 version)
Arck Systems (E)
Ian Larkin
The Arck Systems series of cases describes the dilemmas faced by a senior sales manager in determining a sales compensation plan at an enterprise software company. The existing compensation plan is aggressive and highly rewards "star" performers. The cases track a series of changes the manager makes to the sales compensation plan in response to negative and unintended consequences of the existing system. The cases illustrate the tradeoffs inherent in incentive plans (even outside of sales environments) and presents a framework for the design and management of incentive systems. It also is useful in addressing employee response to incentive system change.
Keywords: Transformation;
Framework;
Compensation and Benefits;
Organizational Design;
Performance Evaluation;
Salesforce Management;
Motivation and Incentives;
Software;
Citation: Larkin, Ian. " Arck Systems (E)." Harvard Business School Supplement 911-060, June 2011. (Revised from original March 2011 version.)
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Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
|
2011
Arck Systems (F)
Ian Larkin
The Arck Systems series of cases describes the dilemmas faced by a senior sales manager in determining a sales compensation plan at an enterprise software company. The existing compensation plan is aggressive and highly rewards "star” performers. The cases track a series of changes the manager makes to the sales compensation plan in response to negative and unintended consequences of the existing system. The cases illustrate the tradeoffs inherent in incentive plans (even outside of sales environments) and presents a framework for the design and management of incentive systems. It also is useful in addressing employee response to incentive system change.
Citation: Larkin, Ian. " Arck Systems (F)." Harvard Business School Supplement 911-073, June 2011.
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Case
| HBS Case Collection
|
2009
(Revised from original 2006 version)
Negotiating Star Compensation at the USAWBL (A-1): Confidential Instructions for Jesse J.
Ian Larkin, James K. Sebenius and Guhan Subramanian
In this three-party negotiation exercise, Jesse J, star center in the U.S.A. Women's Basketball League, with her agent, is negotiating a possible compensation package with the Boston Sharks involving a base salary, a possible share of team merchandising profits, and a performance incentive. Each player (Jesse J, her agent, the Sharks general manager) has a confidential brief as the basis for the negotiation.
Keywords: Compensation and Benefits;
Contracts;
Negotiation Process;
Negotiation Tactics;
Conflict and Resolution;
Sports;
Sports Industry;
United States;
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Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
|
2009
(Revised from original 2006 version)
Negotiating Star Compensation at the USAWBL (A-2): Confidential Instructions for the Boston Sharks General Manager
Ian Larkin, James K. Sebenius and Guhan Subramanian
Keywords: Negotiation;
Compensation and Benefits;
Sports;
Sports Industry;
Boston;
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Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
|
2009
(Revised from original 2006 version)
Negotiating Star Compensation at the USAWBL (A-3): Confidential Instructions for Jesse J's Agent
Ian Larkin, James K. Sebenius and Guhan Subramanian
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Supplement
| HBS Case Collection
|
2009
Negotiating Star Compensation at the USAWBL (A-4): Confidential Instructions for the Boston Sharks Chief Financial Officer
Ian Larkin and Nithyasri Sharma
Keywords: Negotiation;
Compensation and Benefits;
Information;
Management;
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Case
| 2007
Technology transfer and innovation at China's First Auto Works
Ian Larkin
Keywords: Technological Innovation;
Technology;
Auto Industry;
China;
Citation: Larkin, Ian. "Technology transfer and innovation at China's First Auto Works." 2007. (Haas School of Business case, used in MBA and executive education programs.)
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