Publications

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March 2024
Article

When Are Social Protests Effective?

By: Eric Shuman, Amit Goldenberg, Tamar Saguy, Eran Halperin and Martijn van Zomeren

Around the world, people engage in social protests aimed at addressing major societal problems. Certain protests have led to significant progress, yet other protests have resulted in little demonstrable change. We introduce a framework for evaluating the effectiveness... View Details

Keywords: Protests; Social Issues; Outcome or Result; Measurement and Metrics; Power and Influence; Motivation and Incentives

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November 2008 (Revised November 2012)
Case

Savage Beast (A)

By: Noam Wasserman and LP Maurice

For several months, things had been spiraling downwards at Savage Beast, the music-recommendation company started three years before by Tim Westergren. The company's founder-CEO recently left due to pressures both at home and within the venture. Dozens of investors... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Lawsuits and Litigation; Leadership; Groups and Teams

Web

C. Roland Christensen - Christensen Center for Teaching & Learning

In addition, he taught in several other parts of the University, including the Graduate School of Education, the Law School, and the School of Public Health. In recognition of his contributions to the entire... View Details

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Past Issues - Alumni

reform law is drawing the attention of many observers, including the Obama administration. Could it work on a national scale? Your Taxi Is Waiting Will a new category of “very light jets” shake up the business of flying? These HBS... View Details

October 1996
Background Note

Building Effective One-on-One Work Relationships

By: Linda A. Hill

Addresses how to build effective one-on-one work relationships. Spells out the importance of analyzing your network and understanding on whom you are dependent. Also provides some criteria for assessing the quality of your relationships. Finally, it discusses how to... View Details

Keywords: Performance Effectiveness; Quality; Networks; Conflict and Resolution

Research Summary

Current Research

Ian studies extrinsic rewards -- monetary incentives from formal compensation systems, as well as other formal and informal external rewards-- in order to help businesses understand the tensions and tradeoffs inherent in motivating employees. His research takes a... View Details

August 2022
Case

Rocket Learning: Evidence in Action

By: Brian Trelstad, Tomas Rosales and Malini Sen

Founders of Rocket Learning, an India-based nonprofit which focused on early childhood education (ECE), received an invitation from MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL), a development research organization, to test its intervention for ECE with a... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Early Childhood Education; Nonprofit Organizations; Literacy; Values and Beliefs; Social and Collaborative Networks; Education Industry; India; Asia

22 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

Want Hybrid Work to Succeed? Trust, Don’t Track, Employees

The COVID-19 pandemic made remote work more the norm than the exception, and now many companies are struggling to map out a hybrid plan that both managers and employees can embrace long term. With... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

April 2022
Article

AI Insurance: How Liability Insurance Can Drive the Responsible Adoption of Artificial Intelligence in Health Care

By: Ariel Dora Stern, Avi Goldfarb, Timo Minssen and W. Nicholson Price II

Despite enthusiasm about the potential to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to medicine and health care delivery, adoption remains tepid, even for the most compelling technologies. In this article, the authors focus on one set of challenges to AI adoption: those... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Medicine; Health Care and Treatment; Legal Liability; Insurance; Technology Adoption; AI and Machine Learning

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20 Aug 2008
Op-Ed

The Time is Right for Creative Capitalism

In a much admired and debated speech given at the World Economic Forum in Davos last January, Bill Gates said that many of the world's biggest problems cannot be fixed by philanthropy, but instead require free-market... View Details

Keywords: by Nancy Koehn

September 2002 (Revised October 2002)
Case

Bank of America (A)

By: Stefan H. Thomke and Ashok Nimgade

Describes how Bank of America is creating a system for product and service innovation in its retail banking business. Emphasis is placed on the role of experimentation in some two-dozen real-life "laboratories" that serve as fully operating banking branches and as... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Problems and Challenges; Innovation and Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Change; Failure; Banks and Banking; Learning; Banking Industry

January 2004 (Revised June 2004)
Case

Friendly Fire

By: Scott A. Snook, Leslie J. Freeman, L. Jeffrey Norwalk and Bridget Gurtler

On April 14, 1994, two U.S. Air Force F-15 fighters accidentally shot down two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters over Northern Iraq, killing all 26 peacekeepers onboard. Describes the initial investigation and response to this accident and raises questions about the... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Style; Management Skills; Behavior; Spoken Communication; United States; Iraq

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Events - Business History

sustainability to take hold. Jun 5 05 Jun 2018 Conference New Perspectives on U.S. Regulatory History: Past & Present of Public Utilities and Antitrust Law This research conference brought together leading... View Details

August 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Toby Norman: Is Passion Enough for Simprints to Thrive?

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Amram Migdal and Max Hancock

As co-founder and CEO of Simprints—a social enterprise with the mission to “transform the way the world fights poverty"—Toby Norman was at a crossroads. His organization had developed ground-breaking technology used to verify aid delivery, reached more than 2.5 million... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Motivation and Incentives; Social Enterprise; Employees; Growth and Development Strategy

1996
Book

Creativity in Context

By: T. M. Amabile

Keywords: Creativity; Theory; Research; Motivation and Incentives; Situation or Environment; Organizational Culture; Measurement and Metrics; Personal Characteristics; Cognition and Thinking; Performance; Performance Evaluation; Social Psychology

30 Oct 2019
Research & Ideas

How to Recover Gracefully After Shutting Down Your Startup

$60 million from investors that included Kleiner Perkins—didn’t close for another two years. No one wants to be a quitter. Psychology professor Angela Duckworth tapped into the zeitgeist with her famous TED Talk View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

September 2017
Case

Sensing (and Monetizing) Happiness at Hitachi

By: Ethan Bernstein and Stephanie Marton

Inspired by research linking happiness and productivity, Hitachi had invested in developing new “people analytics” technologies to help companies increase employee happiness. Hitachi had begun manufacturing high-tech badges that quantify a wearer’s activity patterns.... View Details

Keywords: People Analytics; Japan; Sociometers; Wearables; Interpersonal Communication; Human Resources; Happiness; Technology Industry; Japan

2008
Book

Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal About the Minds of Consumers

By: Gerald Zaltman and Lindsay Zaltman

Why do advertising campaigns and new products often fail? Why do consumers feel that companies don't understand their needs? Because marketers themselves don't think deeply about consumers' innermost thoughts and feelings. Marketing Metaphoria is a... View Details

Keywords: Advertising Campaigns; Nonverbal Communication; Customer Satisfaction; Books; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Consumer Behavior; Failure; Nonprofit Organizations; Behavior; Emotions

April 2019
Article

Shooting the Messenger

By: Leslie John, Hayley Blunden and Heidi Liu

Eleven experiments provide evidence that people have a tendency to “shoot the messenger,” deeming innocent bearers of bad news unlikeable. In a preregistered lab experiment, participants rated messengers who delivered bad news from a random drawing as relatively... View Details

Keywords: Judgment; Communication; Sense-making; Attribution; Disclosure; Interpersonal Communication; Perception; Judgments; Motivation and Incentives