Publications

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November 2020 (Revised March 2021)
Case

Amazon: Cult or Culture?

By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah L. Abbott and Tricia Gregg

Amazon was one of the first entrants in e-commerce. Under the leadership of founder Jeff Bezos, Amazon had expanded beyond books to manufacturing and selling a wide range of products and services globally. Bezos had built a customer-centric culture that permeated all... View Details

Keywords: Culture; Technology Companies; Retail; Human Resource Practices; Growth; Founder; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Growth Management; Information Technology; Human Resources; Talent and Talent Management; Technology Industry; Technology Industry

26 Mar 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Mitigating the Negative Effects of Customer Anxiety Through Access to Human Contact

Keywords: by Michelle A. Shell and Ryan W. Buell; Health

05 Mar 2001
What Do You Think?

Fine Coupling: Can Human Resource Management Learn from Supply Chain Management?

To some degree, this has exacerbated the challenge to those responsible for staffing these activities by creating more frequent peaks and valleys in demands for talent. Are there lessons for human resource management in what is being done... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

May 2012
Case

BoldFlash: Cross-Functional Challenges in the Mobile Division

By: Michael Beer and Rachel Shelton

Roger Cahill has spent less than a year as head of the Mobile Division of BoldFlash, a flash memory component maker. On the corporate level, BoldFlash has adapted to an evolving and difficult marketplace, but the Mobile Division is struggling. The four groups within... View Details

Keywords: United States; Massachusetts; Morale; Human Resource Management; Technology; Leadership; Opportunities; Organizational Design; Conflict and Resolution; Product Development; Change Management; Information Infrastructure; Business Processes; Manufacturing Industry; Electronics Industry; Massachusetts

25 Oct 2018
Cold Call Podcast

Vodafone’s Innovative Approach to Advanced Technologies

Keywords: Telecommunications

August 2011 (Revised February 2012)
Supplement

Ockham Technologies (B): Building the Board

By: Noam Wasserman

Describes the issues facing a founder-ceo regarding building a board, assembling an executive team, managing tension between co-founders, and outsourcing development work. View Details

Keywords: Human Resources; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Management Teams; Groups and Teams

16 Dec 2022
Research & Ideas

Why Technology Alone Can't Solve AI's Bias Problem

human toll to letting algorithms do the work. “Maybe there is a bias from people who have been traditionally hiring men.” Searches on popular recruiting sites might seem like a neutral way to find prospective candidates, but their... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology

March 2006 (Revised March 2014)
Teaching Note

Founder-CEO Succession at Wily Technology (TN)

By: Noam Wasserman

Teaching Note to 805150. View Details

Keywords: Management Succession; Governing and Advisory Boards; Selection and Staffing; Transformation; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Decisions

November 1988 (Revised July 1997)
Case

Technology Transfer at a Defense Contractor

By: Linda A. Hill

At a time of great changes in the corporate environment, Larry Yoshino, a design lab manager at Parsons Controls Corp., faces a delay in a costly defense project due to the inability of one of his subordinates to gain the cooperation of engineers at Parsons'... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Conflict Management; Managerial Roles; Management Teams; Employees; Competitive Strategy; Projects

2019
Book

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

By: Shoshana Zuboff

In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Profiling; Consumer Behavior; Forecasting and Prediction; Information Technology; Power and Influence; Ethics; Society; Transformation

Find at Harvard

10 Sep 2021
News

Human or Computer? Who’s Really Helping You With Customer Service?

29 Aug 2020
News

How technology enabled women’s rights, and changed the institution of marriage

February 1997 (Revised July 1997)
Case

Vermeer Technologies (A): A Company Is Born

By: Ashish Nanda

Charles Ferguson has just heard from a venture capital (VC) consortium that it is willing to finance Vermeer Technologies, a company he has cofounded for developing Internet software. The funds are sorely needed, but the VCs have imposed some onerous conditions,... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Selection and Staffing; Applications and Software; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology Industry