Topping Rights - Publications - Faculty & Research

02 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Not All M&As Are Alike—and That Matters

vertically integrated GM, he was creating an industry.) The problem here is that attempts to gain strategic leverage by assembling disparate companies are idiosyncratic. Despite the players' sizes, this is entrepreneurial activity in progress, and success View Details

Keywords: by Joseph L. Bower

21 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

The Pandemic Conversations That Leaders Need to Have Now

When our team reached out to 600 CEOs during the pandemic’s early stages to ask them about their greatest concerns, many cited communication with employees. While the right communication strategy has been critical during the pandemic, it... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg, Robin Abrahams, and Katherine Connolly Baden

03 May 2022
Research & Ideas

Desperate for Talent? Consider Advancing Your Own Employees First

Job openings in the United States continue to hover at record high levels, exacerbated by the Great Resignation and a sputtering emergence from the pandemic. Competition remains fierce among companies struggling to find qualified workers. Yet many employers,... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

13 Apr 2009
Research & Ideas

Kind of Blue: Pushing Boundaries with Miles Davis

flat top of the S). “Miles Davis forced the musicians to approach the music without any expectations or preconceptions, often by giving them minimal sketches and sparse instructions."—Carl Størmer: Companies experience a lot of... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Music

22 Feb 2021
Book

Reaching Today's Omnichannel Customer Takes a New Sales Strategy

modern-day sales management. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity: Kristen Senz: What shifts in sales should managers and executives be aware of right now? Frank Cespedes: Prospects are now online and offline throughout... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

12 Mar 2014
Lessons from the Classroom

Managing the Family Business: Firing the CEO

Editor's note: This is part of a series of occasional columns on managing the family business written by Senior Lecturer John A. Davis. In this article, Davis discusses when to make changes at the top. No one needs convincing that the View Details

14 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

The Business Case for Becoming a Jack-of-All-Trades

hundred,” Nagle says. Not everyone leaped on the knowledge right away, however. Since the academic community hadn’t anticipated this development, some researchers were quicker to use it than others. In order to figure out who those... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

07 Apr 2020
Research & Ideas

What Customers Need to Hear from You During the COVID Crisis

marketing communications for the first and second quarter of the year. What’s the right strategy for a CMO during a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic? During the week of March 23, 2020, Edelman, a global communications firm, conducted... View Details

Keywords: by Jill Avery and Richard Edelman

10 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

The COVID Two-Step for Leaders: Protect and Pivot

top executive. Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, we are all taking in vast amounts of new information every day and adjusting to an entirely new set of behavioral habits. In addition, most of us are dealing with unprecedented tasks and... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly Baden

06 Mar 2020
Book

A Great Teacher's Lessons for Leading

content. At the same time, I’m managing my own internal dialogue about whether we are moving in the right direction. Maybe there’s a student who looks disengaged. There’s a student who’s emotional. There’s a student who has her hand up... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

26 May 2003
Research & Ideas

When Silence Spells Trouble at Work

least superficially. We do what we believe other group members want us to do. We say what we think other people want us to say. Consider what happened at one off-site meeting of top management at a Web-based education company. Concerned... View Details

Keywords: by Leslie A. Perlow

28 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Coronavirus Could Create a 'Bankruptcy Pandemic'

couple of years could top what we saw during the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis, when there were more than 100,000 business bankruptcies. Some analysts are forecasting that by the end of 2021 up to 20 percent of high-yield corporate... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Financial Services; Banking

11 Feb 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

10 Rules Entrepreneurs Need to Know Before Adopting AI

application may be best suitable at different stages. Data strategy is a strategic business decision that entrepreneurs need to define from the start. Even if your AI is brilliant, your product still needs great user experience (UX), the View Details

Keywords: by Rocio Wu

01 Sep 2006
What Do You Think?

Are We Ready for Self-Management?

or internal to the organization. However, the path to greater latitude on the job is not short. It involves, as Pradipta Saha commented, "Selecting the right entry-level employee ." We have found, for example, that high... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

13 Apr 2016
Research & Ideas

Why Your Company Wants to be a 'Cognitive Referent' (Hint: SpaceX)

©iStock/maislam To find out, McDonald fixed his sights on the emerging market of online investing, studying five unnamed competitors at the beginning of their race to the top and following their actions and success as the market developed... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Aerospace; Food & Beverage; Retail

25 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

Feeling Stuck? Getting Past Impasse

muscle through. Keep on pushing and throw more resources at it. But often what a clear impasse signifies is that you need to stop and realize that your model does not capture the reality of your business right now and the reality of your... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

25 Jul 2016
Research & Ideas

Who is to Blame for 'The Great Training Robbery'?

first identifying and beginning to remove barriers that block system effectiveness.” Because large corporations are made up of many subsystems—business units, global functions, regions, and operating units—across-the-board corporate programs are rarely the View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Education

07 Jun 2004
Research & Ideas

What Drives Supply Chain Behavior?

lengthy time horizons. Therefore, on top of this categorization of activities, it is necessary to overlay a coordination system: an explicit definition of processes, responsibilities, and structures to bring together multiple functions... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Johnston

18 Dec 2019
Book

6 Skills That Wise Companies Harness for World-Changing Innovation

always to improve mobility, and he did so through his company’s engine innovations. After coming up with the company’s trademarked CVCC engine, Honda declared that his company had pulled ahead of the top three car companies, “but his... View Details