Filter Results
:
(23)
Show Results For
-
All HBS Web
(43)
- News (9)
- Research (23)
- Multimedia (1)
- Faculty Publications (17)
Show Results For
-
All HBS Web
(43)
- News (9)
- Research (23)
- Multimedia (1)
- Faculty Publications (17)
Page 1 of
23
Results
→
Sort by
- 2016
- Working Paper
Controlling Versus Enabling
By: Andrei Hagiu and Julian Wright
Revenue sharing between principals and agents is commonly used to balance double-sided moral hazard. We provide a theory of how, when such revenue-sharing is optimal, a principal allocates control rights over decisions that either party could make. We show that the...
View Details
Keywords:
Control Rights;
Decision Authority;
Employment;
Independent Contractors;
Organizational Theory;
Digital Platforms;
Governance Controls;
Ethics;
Vertical Integration
Hagiu, Andrei, and Julian Wright. "Controlling Versus Enabling." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-002, July 2015. (Revised July 2016.)
- September 2019 (Revised December 2019)
- Case
Google: To TVC or Not to TVC?
By: William R. Kerr and Carl Kreitzberg
In late 2018, evidence emerged that many of Google’s temporary help agency workers, vendors, and independent contractors (“TVCs”) were unhappy with the company. TVCs, who reportedly made up 49.95% of Google’s 170,000-person global workforce, had raised concerns of...
View Details
Keywords:
Workforce;
Independent Contractors;
Talent Management;
Silicon Valley;
Google;
Employee Attitude;
Employee Compensation;
Employee Engagement;
Future Of Work;
Innovation;
Innovation And Strategy;
Inequality;
Talent Acquisition;
Labor;
Talent and Talent Management;
Strategy;
Technological Innovation;
Employees;
Attitudes;
Innovation and Management;
Human Resources;
Equality and Inequality;
Information Technology Industry;
United States;
San Francisco
Kerr, William R., and Carl Kreitzberg. "Google: To TVC or Not to TVC?" Harvard Business School Case 820-048, September 2019. (Revised December 2019.)
- October 2019
- Teaching Note
Google: To TVC or Not to TVC?
By: William R. Kerr and Carl Kreitzberg
A Teaching Note for the "Google: To TVC or Not to TVC?" case study (HBS#820-048). The case discusses recent controversies regarding how Google manages temporary help agency workers, workers supplied by vendors, and independent contractors ("TVCs"). Such TVCs reportedly...
View Details
Keywords:
Workforce;
Independent Contractors;
Talent Management;
Silicon Valley;
Google;
Employee Attitude;
Employee Compensation;
Employee Engagement;
Future Of Work;
Innovation;
Innovation And Strategy;
Inequality;
Talent Acquisition;
Labor;
Talent and Talent Management;
Strategy;
Technological Innovation;
Employees;
Attitudes;
Innovation and Management;
Human Resources;
Information Technology Industry;
United States;
San Francisco
- August 1995 (Revised October 1996)
- Case
IDS Financial Services (Condensed)
By: John A. Deighton
Highlights the decision that must be made on balancing customer acquisition and retention and de-emphasizing the structural issues involved in administering the independent contractor sales force.
View Details
Keywords:
Customers;
Customer Focus and Relationships;
Decisions;
Corporate Governance;
Salesforce Management;
Financial Services Industry
Deighton, John A. "IDS Financial Services (Condensed)." Harvard Business School Case 596-045, August 1995. (Revised October 1996.) (request a courtesy copy.)
- 17 Aug 2015
- Research & Ideas
Who is Boss in the Sharing Economy?
is a delicate balancing act of incentives and control. Yet, the law as currently written creates a highly inefficient either/or situation. "The way the law is today, it forces you to make a binary decision: You are either a platform enabling View Details
- Research Summary
The New Social Contract: Contractors, Firms, and Agencies
The emergence of a 'new social contract' linking employees and organizations - perhaps most notable for the absence of a promise of lifelong job security - has been widely remarked. A related trend, less noted but potentially important, has been the emergence of a...
View Details
- March 2000 (Revised June 2001)
- Case
AES: Hungarian Project (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Ann Leamon
The AES Corp., the world's largest independent power producer, has put out a request for bids to build a new power plant in Hungary. Just after the closing date for submitting bids, one of the contractors calls to request an opportunity to "improve" its bid. Although...
View Details
Keywords:
Bids and Bidding;
Energy Generation;
Technology Adoption;
Business Startups;
Ethics;
Value;
Energy Industry;
Hungary
Paine, Lynn S., and Ann Leamon. "AES: Hungarian Project (A)." Harvard Business School Case 300-045, March 2000. (Revised June 2001.)
- January 2000 (Revised September 2002)
- Case
Hitting the Wall: Nike and International Labor Practices
By: Debora L. Spar and Jennifer Burns
In the mid-1990s Nike, one of the world's most successful footwear companies, is hit by a spate of alarmingly bad publicity. After years of high-profile media attention as the company that can "just do it," Nike is suddenly being portrayed as a firm that relies on...
View Details
Spar, Debora L., and Jennifer Burns. "Hitting the Wall: Nike and International Labor Practices." Harvard Business School Case 700-047, January 2000. (Revised September 2002.)
- April 2019 (Revised March 2020)
- Case
Handy: The Future of Work? (A)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Kieron Stopforth
Witnessing numerous lawsuits alleging that online platform companies misclassified workers as contractors when they were actually employees, Handy’s founders faced a series of decisions. Handy was an online platform business that enabled customers to book appointments...
View Details
Keywords:
Employment;
Working Conditions;
Entrepreneurship;
Compensation and Benefits;
Internet and the Web;
Ethics;
Fairness;
Service Industry;
United States
Hsieh, Nien-hê, and Kieron Stopforth. "Handy: The Future of Work? (A)." Harvard Business School Case 319-103, April 2019. (Revised March 2020.)
- 25 May 2020
- Research & Ideas
Has Occupational Licensing Outlived Its Usefulness?
And this is not because they don’t care about quality. In fact, consumers put a lot of weight on online reviews when hiring service professionals. Our independent consumer survey offers some insights into why consumers may not care about...
View Details
- October 2012
- Case
Riding the Wave of Technological Change at RE/MAX, LLC.
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Ramiro Montealegre and Jeffrey Sweeney
David Liniger, cofounder of RE/MAX, LLC., wondered if his business was prepared to exploit the next wave of business opportunities in the real estate market. This industry had moved from one in which broker/owners controlled all of the consumers' access to information,...
View Details
Keywords:
General Management;
Business Strategy;
Entrepreneurship;
Business Model;
Information Technology;
Transformation;
Organizational Change and Adaptation
Applegate, Lynda M., Ramiro Montealegre, and Jeffrey Sweeney. "Riding the Wave of Technological Change at RE/MAX, LLC." Harvard Business School Case 813-054, October 2012.
- Research Summary
Overview
Dr. Burch’s research focuses on capitalism, work, and gender in the twentieth-century United States. Her work reinterprets the history of direct selling by placing it at the center, rather than on the margins, of narratives about advanced capitalism. Examining the...
View Details
- December 2022
- Article
Competition, Contracts, and Creativity: Evidence from Novel Writing in a Platform Market
By: Yanhui Wu and Feng Zhu
A growing number of people today are participating in the gig economy, working as independent contractors on short-term projects. We study the effects of competition on gig workers' effort and creativity on a Chinese novel-writing platform. Authors produce and sell...
View Details
Keywords:
Gig Workers;
Platform-based Markets;
Novel Writing;
Creative Production;
Platform Bias;
Employment;
Digital Platforms;
Creativity;
Books;
Competition;
Contracts
Wu, Yanhui, and Feng Zhu. "Competition, Contracts, and Creativity: Evidence from Novel Writing in a Platform Market." Management Science 68, no. 12 (December 2022): 8613–8634.
- Research Summary
Overview
By: Antonio Moreno
One major theme of Professor Moreno’s research has been retail channel integration and so-called “omnichannel retail.” In omnichannel retail, retailers provide their customers with a shopping experience that may involve different channels in a way that aims to be...
View Details
Keywords:
Omnichannel;
Omni-channel;
Omnichannel Retail;
Omnichannel Retailing;
Retail;
Customer Value and Value Chain;
Information Management;
Technological Innovation;
Distribution;
Distribution Channels;
Logistics;
Product;
Product Design;
Service Delivery;
Supply Chain;
Supply Chain Management;
Information Technology;
Internet;
Online Technology;
Technology Adoption;
Technology Platform;
Retail Industry;
Technology Industry;
Service Industry;
Europe;
Spain;
Latin America
- 10 May 2022
- Research & Ideas
Being Your Own Boss Can Pay Off, but Not Always with Big Pay
the number of jobs held by independent contractors has remained steady, fewer entrepreneurs are choosing to start ventures that require significant startup capital—and those are the same businesses that are...
View Details
Keywords:
by Jay Fitzgerald
- 29 Sep 2015
- Research & Ideas
Work 3.0: Redefining Jobs and Companies in the Uber Age
Are Uber drivers and HourlyNerd consultants independent contractors or employees? Interesting question, but the wrong one. Better to ask: Are we stifling innovation across the digital economy by forcing a...
View Details
- 29 May 2013
- Research & Ideas
Faculty Symposium Showcases Breadth of Research
way to garner solutions to major problems. It's also relatively inexpensive, he said, citing cases in which a $30,000 prize garnered better solutions in a matter of weeks than major contractors (with multimillion-dollar contracts)...
View Details
- 13 Jun 2005
- Research & Ideas
From Turf Wars to Learning Curves: How Hospitals Adopt New Technology
series of studies in the hospital sector as well as in the broader healthcare industry. These include additional studies of how the movement of physicians into and out of specific hospitals affects their performance. In one of these projects, we examine cardiac...
View Details
- 31 Aug 2016
- Research & Ideas
One Quarter of Entrepreneurs in the United States Are Immigrants
downs of their companies, and the ability of those enterprises to create jobs. “Before this, the most prominent source of information we had was self-employment statistics,” says Kerr. Self-employment, however, can mean many things and is frequently not connected with...
View Details
Keywords:
by Michael Blanding
- 07 Feb 2017
- First Look
First Look at New Research: February 7
The development unit at Supercell revolves around the concept of a “cell,” a small team consisting of anywhere from two to a dozen (or more) people who work together to make a game. Cells are highly independent and control all the...
View Details
Keywords:
Sean Silverthorne