Publications

06 Jan 2016
What Do You Think?

Why Do Leaders Get Their Timing Wrong?

Summing Up Is Good Timing in Management Primarily a Function of Strategy or Culture? Timing in executing change is an important responsibility of leadership. Responses to this month’s column suggest that if timing is the result of one... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Auto; Fashion

08 Jul 2020
News

We Have an Unemployment Crisis. Now What?

18 Nov 2021
News

What Do Black Executives Really Want?

March 2007 (Revised December 2008)
Case

Green Dot Public Schools: To Collaborate or Compete?

In order to execute a strategy to transform the entire 768-school Los Angeles public school district, Green Dot Public Schools, a nonprofit charter school management organization with 10 high-performing high schools around Los Angeles, is faced with a crucial choice... View Details

Keywords: Secondary Education; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Nonprofit Organizations; Competition; Cooperation; Los Angeles

September 2010
Case

Quanta Research Institute: Rainforest or Hothouse?

By: Willy C. Shih, Jyun-Cheng Wang and Ho Howard Yu

Barry Lam, the CEO and founder of Quanta Computer (the largest notebook computer manufacturer worldwide), has recognized for many years that he had to transform the company to decrease its dependence on producing commodity hardware for other global brands and move the... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Research and Development; Computer Industry; Taiwan

2012
Chapter

Structuring Consulting Firms

By: Tim Morris, Heidi K. Gardner and N. Anand

This chapter presents a model of the way in which consulting and other professional-service firms organize themselves and grow. We will argue that the fundamental structural-design challenge for consulting firms, like other professional firms, is to adapt appropriately... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Management Practices and Processes; Demand and Consumers; Service Operations; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Projects; Groups and Teams; Consulting Industry; Service Industry

10 Nov 2015
Op-Ed

Authentic Leadership Rediscovered

organizations who have a deep sense of purpose and are true to their core values who have the courage to build their companies to meet the needs of all their stakeholders, and who recognize the importance of their service to... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

April 21, 2023
Article

When Scenario Planning Fails

By: Kalle Heikkinen, William R. Kerr, Mika Malin, Panu Routila and Eemil Rupponen

How can organizations perform scenario planning when they are hit by shocks outside of leaders’ field of vision? Interviews with Nordic executives, who experienced both the Covid-19 pandemic and were in close proximity to Russia as the country invaded Ukraine, can... View Details

Keywords: Planning; Crisis Management; Organizational Structure; Forecasting and Prediction; System Shocks; Organizational Change and Adaptation

Read Now

14 Jun 2010
Research & Ideas

The Hard Work of Measuring Social Impact

Ebrahim explains. You can count the number of people being fed, sheltered, and clothed. “The implication for managers is to figure out where their organization sits in the contingency framework.” "A more... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

07 Jun 2004
Research & Ideas

What Drives Supply Chain Behavior?

To err is human, but most research on supply chain management doesn't take psychological, functional, incentive-related, and other biases into account. HBS professors Rogelio Oliva and Noel Watson have devised their latest research to... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Johnston

September – October 2008
Article

Care Platforms: A Basic Building Block for Care Delivery

By: Richard Bohmer and David Lawrence

Without significant operational reform within the nation's health care delivery organizations, new financing models, payment systems, or structures are unlikely to realize their promise. Adapting insights from high-performing companies in other high-risk, high-cost,... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Management Systems; Standards; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Business Processes; Organizational Design; Customization and Personalization; Health Industry

Find at Harvard

March 2005 (Revised May 2009)
Case

Columbia's Final Mission

By: Michael Roberto, Amy C. Edmondson, Richard M.J. Bohmer, Laura Feldman and Erika Ferlins

On February 1, 2003, the Shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, and the seven astronauts onboard lost their lives. Explores Columbia's final mission from the perspective of six key managers and engineers associated with NASA's Space... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Leadership; Crisis Management; Management Teams; Organizational Culture; Aerospace Industry

18 Sep 2013
Research & Ideas

Unspoken Cues: Encouraging Morals Without Mandates

Morals"? A: I hope the book will be read on multiple levels. First, any leaders or managers thinking about how to instill "values" or "morals" in his or her organization will... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Education

11 AM – 12 PM EST, 25 Jan 2018
Webinars: Trending@HBS

Becoming Effective Change Makers: The Power of Networks

Instituting change in an organization or in a sector of society has always been the bane of leaders. However, some leaders do succeed--often spectacularly--at transforming their organizations and even whole sectors of society. What makes some change makers triumph in a... View Details

November 1993 (Revised October 1995)
Case

Erik Peterson (A)

By: John J. Gabarro

Describes the problems facing a recent MBA graduate in his job as general manager of a mobile cellular company owned by a parent corporation. Raises issues of corporate divisional relationships and the difficulties facing an inexperienced manager who seems to be... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Managerial Roles; Organizational Design; Problems and Challenges; Relationships; Mobile Technology

19 Jul 2004
Research & Ideas

Why Innovations Sit on the Shelf

leadership has the courage to initiate the measures necessary to do so. We've discovered that standard initiatives such as employee surveys, interviews by external consultants, and even relatively straightforward, one-on-one conversations between View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer, Russell Eisenstat & Derek Schrader

Article

Enfranchisement of Service Workers

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and James Heskett

Enfranchisement is achieved through an integration of empowerment with methods of pay for performance. Evidence from Ito Yokado Group in Japan and Nordstrom in the US demonstrates the positive effects of enfranchisement. Successful efforts to enfranchise employees: 1.... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Franchise Ownership; Employees; Compensation and Benefits; Service Industry; Japan; United States