Boris Groysberg

Boris Groysberg

Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration

Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration

Boris Groysberg is a professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior unit at the Harvard Business School. Currently, he teaches courses on talent management and leadership in the school's MBA and Executive Education programs. He has won numerous awards for his research, which focuses on the challenge of managing human capital at small and large organizations across the world. His work focuses, in particular, on how firms can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage by engaging employees in the implementation of business strategy. Groysberg is author of the award-winning book Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance. A frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review, he has written many articles and case studies on how firms hire, engage, develop, retain, and communicate with their talented employees. Before joining the Harvard Business School faculty, he worked at IBM.

Organizational Behavior
+1 (617) 496-2784
 
Boris Groysberg
Unit
Contact Information
(617) 496-2784
Featured Work Publications Research Summary Awards & Honors

Professor Groysberg's research focuses on the challenges of managing professional service firms. In particular, his work investigates how a firm can be systematic in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage by leveraging its employees. In a number of related papers, he examines how firms develop, hire, retain, and utilize star knowledge workers. By focusing on the performance of these highly skilled professionals, his research contributes to the human capital theory, the theory of allocation of talent, the theory of labor market competition, and human research management studies.

Boris Groysberg is a professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior unit at the Harvard Business School. Currently, he teaches courses on talent management and leadership in the school's MBA and Executive Education programs. He has won numerous awards for his research, which focuses on the challenge of managing human capital at small and large organizations across the world. His work focuses, in particular, on how firms can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage by engaging employees in the implementation of business strategy. Groysberg is author of the award-winning book Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance. A frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review, he has written many articles and case studies on how firms hire, engage, develop, retain, and communicate with their talented employees. Before joining the Harvard Business School faculty, he worked at IBM.
Featured Work
Glass Half Broken
Shattering the Barriers That Still Hold Women Back at Work
Why the gender gap persists and how we can close it. For years women have made up the majority of college-educated workers in the United States. In 2019, the gap between the percentage of women and the percentage of men in the workforce was the smallest on record. But despite these statistics, women remain underrepresented in positions of power and status, with the highest-paying jobs the most gender-imbalanced. Even in fields where the numbers of men and women are roughly equal, or where women actually make up the majority, leadership ranks remain male-dominated. The persistence of these inequalities begs the question: Why haven't we made more progress? In "Glass Half-Broken," Colleen Ammerman and Boris Groysberg reveal the pervasive organizational obstacles and managerial actions--limited opportunities for development, lack of role models and sponsors, and bias in hiring, compensation, and promotion--that create gender imbalances. Bringing to light the key findings from the latest research in psychology, sociology, organizational behavior, and economics, Ammerman and Groysberg show that throughout their careers--from entry-level to mid-level to senior-level positions--women get pushed out of the leadership pipeline, each time for different reasons. Presenting organizational and managerial strategies designed to weaken and ultimately break down these barriers, "Glass Half-Broken" is the authoritative resource that managers and leaders at all levels can use to finally shatter the glass ceiling.
Chasing Stars
The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance

It is taken for granted in the knowledge economy that companies must employ the most talented performers to compete and succeed. Many firms try to buy stars by luring them away from competitors. But Boris Groysberg shows what an uncertain and disastrous practice this can be.

After examining the careers of more than a thousand star analysts at Wall Street investment banks, and conducting more than two hundred frank interviews, Groysberg comes to a striking conclusion: star analysts who change firms suffer an immediate and lasting decline in performance. Their earlier excellence appears to have depended heavily on their former firms' general and proprietary resources, organizational cultures, networks, and colleagues. There are a few exceptions, such as stars who move with their teams and stars who switch to better firms. Female stars also perform better after changing jobs than their male counterparts do. But most stars who switch firms turn out to be meteors, quickly losing luster in their new settings. Groysberg also explores how some Wall Street research departments are successfully growing, retaining, and deploying their own stars. Finally, the book examines how its findings apply to many other occupations, from general managers to football players. Chasing Stars offers profound insights into the fundamental nature of outstanding performance. It also offers practical guidance to individuals on how to manage their careers strategically, and to companies on how to identify, develop, and keep talent.


Talk, Inc.
How Trusted Leaders Use Conversation to Power their Organizations
How can leaders make their big or growing companies feel small again? How can they recapture the “magic”—the tight strategic alignment, the high level of employee engagement—that drove and animated their organization when it was a start-up? As more and more executives have discovered in recent years, the answer to this conundrum lies in the power of conversation. In Talk, Inc., Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind show how trusted and effective leaders are adapting the principles of face-to-face conversation in order to pursue a new form of organizational conversation. They explore the promise of conversation-powered leadership—from the time-tested practice of talking straight (and listening well) to the thoughtful adoption of social media technology. And they offer guidance on how to balance the benefits of open-ended talk with the realities of strategic execution. Drawing on the experience of leaders at diverse companies from around the world, Talk, Inc., offers provocative insights and user-friendly tips on how to make organizational culture more intimate, more interactive, more inclusive, and more intentional—in short, more conversational. How can leaders make their big or growing companies feel small again? How can they recapture the “magic”—the tight strategic alignment, the high level of employee engagement—that drove and animated their organization when it was a start-up? As more and more executives have discovered in recent years, the answer to this conundrum lies in the power of conversation. In Talk, Inc., Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind show how trusted and effective leaders are adapting the principles of face-to-face conversation in order to pursue a new form of organizational conversation. They explore the promise of conversation-powered leadership—from the time-tested practice of talking straight (and listening well) to the thoughtful adoption of social media technology. And they offer guidance on how to balance the benefits of open-ended talk with the realities of strategic execution. Drawing on the experience of leaders at diverse companies from around the world, Talk, Inc., offers provocative insights and user-friendly tips on how to make organizational culture more intimate, more interactive, more inclusive, and more intentional—in short, more conversational.
Wall Street Research: Past, Present, and Future
Wall Street Research: Past, Present, and Future provides a timely account of the dramatic evolution of Wall Street research, examining its rise, fall, and reemergence. Despite regulatory, technological, and global forces that have transformed equity research in the last ten years, the industry has proven to be remarkably resilient and consistent. Boris Groysberg and Paul M. Healy get to the heart of Wall Street research—the analysts engaged in the process—and demonstrate how the analysts' roles have evolved, what drives their performance today, and how they stack up against their buy-side counterparts. The book unpacks key trends and describes how different firms have coped with shifting pressures. It concludes with an assessment of where equity research is headed in emerging markets, drawing conclusions about this often overlooked corner of Wall Street and the industry's future challenges.
Not Just Talk

This article by Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind on organizational conversation appeared in The World Financial Review, July-August 2012.

 

Grow Your Stars -- Don't Buy Them
An interview with Boris Groysberg, Professor, Harvard Business School. Many star performers hired from outside don't perform as expected at their new company. So, develop stars within your company; for example, through strong training and mentoring programs.
Books
Journal Articles
Book Chapters
Working Papers
Cases and Teaching Materials
Presentations
  • Nanda, Ashish, and Boris Groysberg. "Does Stardom Affect Job Mobility?" Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, August 1, 2002. View Details
Other Publications and Materials
Research Summary

Professor Groysberg's research focuses on the challenges of managing professional service firms. In particular, his work investigates how a firm can be systematic in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage by leveraging its employees. In a number of related papers, he examines how firms develop, hire, retain, and utilize star knowledge workers. By focusing on the performance of these highly skilled professionals, his research contributes to the human capital theory, the theory of allocation of talent, the theory of labor market competition, and human research management studies.

Awards & Honors
Won the 2011 Axiom Business Book Award Gold Medal in the Operations Management category for Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance (Princeton University Press, 2010).
Winner of the 2006 Emerald Management Reviews Citation of Excellence for "Which Types of Analyst Firms Are More Optimistic?" (with Amanda Paige Cowen and Paul Healy, Journal of Accounting & Economics, April 2006).
Winner of the 2001 George S. Dively Award for outstanding dissertation research.
Recipient of the Robert F. Greenhill Award in 2013 for contributions to the W50 programs celebrating the 50th anniversary of women at HBS.
Received the 2016 Charles M. Williams Award for Excellence in Teaching.
The Five Bestselling MIT Sloan Management Review Articles of 2019 include “The Magic That Makes Customer Experiences Stick” (Fall 2019).
“Keeping Google ‘Googley’ (Abridged)” with David A. Thomas and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld (HBS Case 409-099) was added to The Case Centre Classic Case Collection in 2021.
Additional Information
Areas of Interest
In The News

In The News

Additional Information

Areas of Interest

 More

Additional Topics

Industries

Geographies

 Less

In The News