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- 2023
- Article
Conduit Incentives: Eliciting Cooperation from Workers Outside of Managers' Control
By: Susanna Gallani
Can managers use monetary incentives to elicit cooperation from workers they cannot reward for their efforts? I study “conduit incentives,” an innovative incentive design, whereby managers influence bonus-ineligible workers’ effort by offering bonus-eligible employees...
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Keywords:
Organizational Behavior Modification;
Peer Monitoring;
Persistence Of Performance Improvements;
Crowding Out;
Implicit Incentives;
Compensation;
Healthcare;
Social Pressure;
Image Motivation;
Incentives;
Motivation;
Performance;
Behavior;
Motivation and Incentives;
Compensation and Benefits;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Organizational Culture;
Health Industry;
California
- Spring 2023
- Article
Incentive Contract Design and Employee-Initiated Innovation: Evidence from the Field
By: Wei Cai, Susanna Gallani and Jee-Eun Shin
This study examines how the design of incentive contracts for tasks defined as workers’ official responsibilities (i.e., standard tasks) influences workers’ propensity to engage in employee-initiated innovation (EII). EII corresponds to innovation activities that are...
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- 2023
- Working Paper
Is Pay Transparency Good?
By: Zoë Cullen
Countries around the world are enacting pay transparency policies to combat pay discrimination.
71% of OECD countries have done so since 2000. Most are enacting transparency horizontally,
revealing pay between co-workers of similar seniority within a firm. While...
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Keywords:
Pay Transparency;
Trends;
Transition;
Communication Strategy;
Wages;
Policy;
Europe;
North America;
Australia
- December 2022
- Article
Fostering Perceptions of Authenticity via Sensitive Self-Disclosure
By: Li Jiang, Leslie K. John, Reihane Boghrati and Maryam Kouchaki
Leaders’ perceived authenticity—the sense that leaders are acting in accordance with their “true self”—is associated with positive outcomes for both employees and organizations alike. How might leaders foster this impression? We show that sensitive self-disclosure, in...
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- November 2022
- Article
My Boss' Passion Matters as Much as My Own: The Interpersonal Dynamics of Passion Are a Critical Driver of Performance Evaluations
By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Andreas Wihler and Adam D. Galinsky
Companies often celebrate employees who successfully pursue their passion. Academic research suggests that these positive evaluations occur because of the passion percolating inside the employee. We propose that supervisors are also a key piece of this puzzle:...
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- Article
Developing a Digital Mindset: How to Lead Your Organization into the Age of Data, Algorithms, and AI
By: Tsedal Neeley and Paul Leonardi
Learning new technological skills is essential for digital transformation. But it is not enough. Employees must be motivated to use their skills to create new opportunities. They need a digital mindset: a set of attitudes and behaviors that enable people and...
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- April 2022 (Revised August 2022)
- Case
Conflicts of Interest at Uptown Bank
By: Jonas Heese
In 2013, two employees debated whether to blow the whistle on their employer, Bell Bank, after completing an internal review that revealed undisclosed conflicts of interest. Bell Bank’s Asset Management business disproportionately invested clients’ money in Bell Bank’s...
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Keywords:
Whistleblower;
Whistleblowing;
Mutual Funds;
Conflicts Of Interest;
Decision Making;
Decisions;
Judgments;
Ethics;
Moral Sensibility;
Values and Beliefs;
Finance;
Financial Institutions;
Banks and Banking;
Financial Management;
Investment;
Investment Funds;
Governance;
Corporate Accountability;
Corporate Disclosure;
Corporate Governance;
Governance Compliance;
Governance Controls;
Policy;
Law;
Legal Liability;
Social Psychology;
Motivation and Incentives;
Perception;
Perspective;
Trust;
Financial Services Industry;
North and Central America;
United States
- March 2022 (Revised January 2023)
- Case
Innovation at Moog Inc.
This case focuses on the challenges of incentivizing innovation within Moog, an engineering company based in New York state that designs and builds guidance systems for space, air, and land-based travel. The case enables students to grapple with the challenges of using...
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Keywords:
Innovation;
Innovation Lab;
Innovation Management;
Motivation;
Incentives;
Culture;
Compensation;
Compensation And Benefits;
Scalability;
Business Growth and Maturation;
Collaborative Innovation and Invention;
Independent Innovation and Invention;
Innovation and Management;
Innovation Leadership;
Innovation Strategy;
Organizational Culture;
Performance Consistency;
Performance Effectiveness;
Performance Efficiency;
Performance Productivity;
Performance Evaluation;
Creativity;
Motivation and Incentives;
Aerospace Industry;
Transportation Industry;
United States
- March 2022 (Revised April 2022)
- Teaching Note
France Télécom (A), (B), and (C)
By: Ashley Whillans
This case series discusses the evolution of France Télécom (now Orange) from a national telephone monopoly to a private company. During this process, the company faced numerous challenges including the entry of new competition from other countries and a workforce that...
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- January 10, 2022
- Article
The Secret Ingredient of Thriving Companies? Human Magic
By: Hubert Joly
The traditional corporate approach to motivating people has been a combination of carrots and sticks: a system of financial incentives designed to mobilize everyone around a plan designed by a few smart people at the top. Multiple studies have confirmed that, for any...
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- 1 Dec 2021
- Interview
Hubert Joly on Humanizing the Profit Motive
Can businesses afford to see employees in terms other than unit labor cost? How do you factor the Golden Rule into a profit and loss statement? Former Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly explains how unlearning business orthodoxies helped him prove that a human-centered approach...
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- Article
Are They Useful? The Effects of Performance Incentives on the Prioritization of Work Versus Personal Ties
By: Julia Hur, Alice Lee-Yoon and Ashley V. Whillans
Most working adults report spending very little time with friends and family. The current research explores the aspects of work that encourage employees to spend less time with personal ties. We show that incentive systems play a critical role in shaping how people...
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- May 2021
- Teaching Note
From Globalization to Dual Digital Transformation: CEO Thierry Breton Leading Atos Into 'Digital Shockwaves'
By: Tsedal Neeley
Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 419-027 and 419-046. Thierry Breton, chairman and CEO of IT company Atos, faces a pivotal juncture. After spending eight intense years scaling the company globally to over 100,000 employees in 70 countries, he sees digital shockwaves...
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- March 29, 2021
- Editorial
Research: A Little Recognition Can Provide a Big Morale Boost
By: Shibeal O'Flaherty, Michael Sanders and Ashley V. Whillans
As organizations large and small face the twin challenges of increasingly strained budgets and burned out workforces, what can managers do to keep employees engaged—without breaking the bank? In this piece, the authors share new research on the power of symbolic awards...
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- March 2021
- Article
Active Choice, Implicit Defaults, and the Incentive to Choose
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
Home-delivered prescriptions have no delivery charge and lower copayments than prescriptions picked up at a pharmacy. Nevertheless, when home delivery is offered on an opt-in basis, the take-up rate is only 6%. We study a program that makes active choice of either home...
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- March 2021
- Article
Opting-in to Prosocial Incentives
By: Daniel Schwartz, Elizabeth A. Keenan, Alex Imas and Ayelet Gneezy
The design of effective incentive schemes that are both successful in motivating employees and keeping down costs is of critical importance. Research has demonstrated that prosocial incentives, where individuals’ effort benefits a charitable organization, can sometimes...
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- January 2021
- Case
Value-Based Insurance Design at Onex
By: Joshua Schwartzstein, Amitabh Chandra and Amram Migdal
The operating executives of Health and Benefits for Onex Partners, Megan Jackson Frye and Sam Camens, faced a challenge: Healthcare costs for employees of Onex’s portfolio companies were continuing to rise above the consumer price index, reflecting broader trends...
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Keywords:
Decision Making;
Cost vs Benefits;
Decision Choices and Conditions;
Decisions;
Finance;
Behavioral Finance;
Insurance;
Health;
Health Care and Treatment;
Human Resources;
Compensation and Benefits;
Markets;
Demand and Consumers;
Consumer Behavior;
Social Psychology;
Behavior;
Interests;
Motivation and Incentives;
Perception;
Health Industry;
Insurance Industry;
North America;
United States
- 2021
- Article
Helping and Happiness: A Review and Guide for Public Policy
By: Lara B. Aknin and Ashley V. Whillans
Perhaps one of the most reaffirming findings to emerge over the past several decades is that humans not only engage in generous behavior, they also appear to experience pleasure from doing so. Yet not all acts of helping lead to greater happiness. Here, we review the...
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- November 2020 (Revised March 2022)
- Teaching Note
Social Salary Setting at Spiber
By: Ashley Whillans and John Beshears
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 920-050. The case tells the story of Spiber, a Japanese technology start-up company. To reflect the company’s values, the leadership team implemented a new and unique salary-setting process: each employee had the authority to choose their...
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- August 2020
- Article
Workplace Knowledge Flows
By: Jason Sandvik, Richard Saouma, Nathan Seegert and Christopher Stanton
We conducted a field experiment in a sales firm to test whether improving knowledge flows between coworkers affects productivity. Our design allows us to compare different management practices and to isolate whether frictions to knowledge transmission primarily reside...
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