Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(4,485)
- Faculty Publications (846)
- 2017
- Working Paper
Task Selection and Workload: A Focus on Completing Easy Tasks Hurts Long-Term Performance
By: Diwas S. KC, Bradley R. Staats, Maryam Kouchaki and Francesca Gino
How individuals manage, organize, and complete their tasks is central to operations management. Recent research in operations focuses on how under conditions of increasing workload, individuals can increase their service time, up to a point, to complete work more... View Details
- Article
Your Sales Training Is Probably Lackluster. Here's How to Fix It
By: Frank V. Cespedes and Yuchun Lee
U.S. companies spend over $70 billion annually on training and an average of $1,459 per salesperson—almost 20% more than they spend on workers in all other functions. Yet, when it comes to equipping sales teams with relevant knowledge and skills, the ROI of sales... View Details
- June 2017
- Article
The Social Trajectory of a Finance Professor and the Common Sense of Capital
By: Marion Fourcade and Rakesh Khurana
This paper traces the career of Michael Jensen, a Chicago finance PhD turned Harvard Business School professor to reveal the intellectual and social conditions that enabled the emergence and institutionalization of what we call the “neoliberal common sense of capital,”... View Details
- May 2017
- Teaching Note
Partners Group: Ain't No Mountain High Enough
Partners Group (PG), a Swiss-based PE manager, initiated a series of strategic shifts and evolved from a predominately fund-of-funds manager into a large, multi-asset class PE firm focused on direct investments. PG was the first PE firm to go public in 2006. A number... View Details
- May 2017
- Article
Experimental Evidence of Pooling Outcomes Under Information Asymmetry
By: William Schmidt and Ryan W. Buell
Operational decisions under information asymmetry can signal a firm's prospects to less-informed parties, such as investors, customers, competitors, and regulators. Consequently, managers in these settings often face a tradeoff between making an optimal decision and... View Details
- 2017
- Other Teaching and Training Material
Organizational Behavior Reading: Leading Organizational Change
By: Ryan Raffaelli
This reading combines conceptual frameworks and research-based knowledge to provide practical guidance about how to lead organization change. The essential reading outlines key choices leaders must make when managing a change and the common traps that can cause a... View Details
- March 2017
- Case
Breakfast at the Paramount
By: Ryan W. Buell
The Paramount is a 44-seat diner on Charles Street in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston. A frequent "Best of Boston" award winner, the restaurant is a perennial favorite among locals and tourists, particularly for brunch on the weekends, when lines often stretch... View Details
- March 2017
- Case
Intellectual Ambition at Harvard Business School: Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger
By: Jan W. Rivkin and Amram Migdal
This case, set in the 1920s and 1930s, discusses the contributions of Harvard Business School (HBS) Professors Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger to management research and to the Human Relations Movement in management scholarship. The case focuses on their research... View Details
Keywords: Education; Business Education; Curriculum and Courses; Executive Education; Higher Education; Interdisciplinary Studies; Learning; History; Business History; Human Resources; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Management; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Organizations; Practice; Relationships; Groups and Teams; Labor and Management Relations; Rank and Position; Research; Social Psychology; Attitudes; Behavior; Emotions; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence; Social and Collaborative Networks; Status and Position; Trust; Society; Social Issues; Theory; Education Industry; United States; Massachusetts; Illinois
- 2017
- Case
Uncommon Schools (A): A Network of Networks
By: John J-H Kim and Sarah McAra
In 2013, Brett Peiser, CEO of the charter school management organization (CMO) Uncommon Schools, is reassessing the nonprofit’s strategy. For nearly 10 years, Uncommon had fulfilled its mission to bring high-quality education to students in low-income, urban areas... View Details
- 2017
- Supplement
Uncommon Schools (B): Seeking Excellence at Scale through Standardized Practice
By: John J-H Kim and Sarah McAra
The (B) case provides an update to the (A) case by illustrating how charter school management organization Uncommon Schools responded to the disparity in its students’ 2013 standardized test results. In 2015, CEO Brett Peiser and his management team decided to align... View Details
Keywords: Charter Schools; Nonprofit Organizations; Strategy; Teaching; Talent And Talent Management; Innovation; Education; Early Childhood Education; Middle School Education; Organizational Structure; Performance Consistency; Growth and Development Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Education Industry
- January 2017
- Supplement
Intrapreneurship at DaVita HealthCare Partners: Cash Flow Tool
By: Joseph B. Fuller and Christopher Payton
DaVita Healthcare Partners Inc. (DaVita) is one of the U.S.'s leading dialysis providers, a process whereby persons with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) are connected to a machine that performs the functions of a healthy kidney. Kent Thiry, DaVita's CEO, has expanded... View Details
- 2017
- Article
Making Transparency Transparent: The Evolution of Observation in Management Theory
By: Ethan Bernstein
Observation is key to management scholarship and practice. Yet a holistic view of its role in management has been elusive, in part due to shifting terminology. The current popularity of the term “transparency” provides the occasion for a thorough review, which finds... View Details
Keywords: Transparency; Privacy; Observation; Tracking; Monitoring; Surveillance; Learning; Control; Disclosure; Process Visibility; Organizations; Theory; Information Technology; Relationships; Measurement and Metrics; Management Practices and Processes; Leadership; Law; Knowledge; Human Resources; Communication
- December 2016
- Article
Deal Process Design in Management Buyouts
Management buyouts (MBOs) are an economically and legally significant class of transaction: not only do they account for more than $10 billion in deal volume per year, on average, but they also play an important role in defining the relationship between inside and... View Details
- December 2016
- Article
Industry Window Dressing
By: Huaizhi Chen, Lauren Cohen and Dong Lou
We explore a new mechanism by which investors take correlated shortcuts and present evidence that managers undertake actions—in the form of sales management—to take advantage of these shortcuts. Specifically, we exploit a regulatory provision wherein a firm’s primary... View Details
- November 2016 (Revised December 2016)
- Module Note
Strategy Execution Module 14: Managing Strategic Risk
By: Robert Simons
This module reading provides an overview of the business conduct boundaries, strategic boundaries, and internal control systems used to manage risk. Boundary systems—linked to clear, enforceable sanctions—are essential whenever demanding performance goals are set and... View Details
Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Strategy Execution; Boundary Systems; Innovation; Internal Controls; Fraud; Human Behavior; Staff Experts; Strategy; Risk Management; Behavior; Governance Controls; Management Practices and Processes; Boundaries; Employees; Business Strategy; Innovation and Invention
- Article
Adding Value by Talking More
By: Robert S. Kaplan, Derek A. Haas and Jonathan Warsh
The prevailing fee-for-service payment model has led health care administrators and physician practices to impose severe constraints on the time physicians spend talking, for which they are reimbursed poorly or not at all. New value-based reimbursement models, however,... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
Alternative Paths of Green Entrepreneurship: The Environmental Legacies of The North Face's Doug Tompkins and Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard
By: Geoffrey Jones and Ben Gettinger
This working paper examines the impact of two entrepreneurs who offered alternative paths to reach their shared goal of a more sustainable world. Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins were respective founders of the prominent outdoor apparel brands Patagonia and The North... View Details
- 2017
- Article
The Impact of Training Informal Healthcare Providers in India: A Randomized Controlled Trial
By: Jishnu Das, Abhijit Chowdhury, Reshmaan Hussam and Abhijit Banerjee
Health care providers without formal medical qualifications provide more than 70% of all primary care in rural India. Training these informal providers may be one way to improve the quality of care where few alternatives exist. We report on a randomized controlled... View Details
- September 2016
- Case
Partners Group: Ain't No Mountain High Enough
By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Ricardo Andrade
Partners Group (PG), a Swiss-based PE manager, initiated a series of strategic shifts and evolved from a predominately fund-of-funds manager into a large, multi-asset class PE firm focused on direct investments. PG was the first PE firm to go public in 2006. A number... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised May 2018)
- Case
Zurich Insurance: Diversity and Inclusion
By: Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly
Zurich Insurance was undergoing organizational change after implementing five new people practices focused on manager development, diversity and inclusion, job model and data analytics, recruitment, and talent pipeline. The case “Zurich Insurance: Fostering Key People... View Details