Publications

March 2009
Article

Trade-offs in Staying Close: Corporate Decision Making and Geographic Dispersion

By: Augustin Landier, Vinay Nair and Julie Wulf

We document the role of geographic dispersion on corporate decision-making. Our findings include: (i) geographically dispersed firms are less employee friendly; (ii) dismissals of divisional employees are less common in divisions located closer to corporate... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Business Headquarters; Decision Choices and Conditions; Geographic Location; Employees; Resignation and Termination; Retention

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June 2012
Article

Leadership Is a Conversation

By: Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind

Globalization and new technologies have sharply reduced the efficacy of command-and-control management and its accompanying forms of corporate communication. In the course of a recent research project, the authors concluded that by talking with employees, rather than... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Management Style; Interpersonal Communication; Leadership; Cooperation; Partners and Partnerships

April 2020 (Revised February 2023)
Case

GitLab and the Future of All-Remote Work (A)

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Emma Salomon

GitLab is arguably one of the world’s largest “all-remote” companies. Started in 2011 and with more than 1,000 employees at present, it has no physical offices and all employees, including the entire C-Suite, work remotely from all parts of the world. The case... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Internet and the Web; Technology Adoption; Value Creation; Business Model; Organizational Structure

Educators

04 Mar 2024
What Do You Think?

Do People Want to Work Anymore?

around fewer, carefully selected, better-paid people performing complex jobs requiring extensive training, with resulting higher employee retention and lower costs of selection, hiring, and training for new employees. This contrasts with... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Ashley V. Whillans

Ashley Whillans is the Volpert Family Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, where she teaches the Motivation and Incentives course to MBA students. Professor Whillans earned her PhD in Social Psychology from the University of... View Details

2021
Book

The Power of Trust: How Companies Build It, Lose It, Regain It

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta

Trust is the most powerful force underlying the success of every business. Yet it can be shattered in an instant, with a devastating impact on a company’s market cap and reputation. How to build and sustain trust requires fresh insight into why customers, employees,... View Details

05 Aug 2022
Research & Ideas

Why People Crave Feedback—and Why We’re Afraid to Give It

doctoral students Nicole Abi-Esber and Jennifer Abel, and Juliana Schroeder, an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business. The results are included in a recent paper published in the Journal of Personality and View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

02 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

10 Trends to Watch in 2024

The lightning-fast ascent of generative AI isn’t the only sea change on the horizon for businesses in the new year. The global economy is in flux as war, climate change, trade issues, and infrastructure problems demand attention. Many companies continue to struggle to... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

June 14, 2023
Article

Research: Your Love for Work May Alienate Your Colleagues

By: Mijeong Kwon, Julia Lee Cunningham and Jon M. Jachimowicz

Research shows that employees who are passionate about their work are more productive, innovative, and collaborative. New research suggests that these employees also see passion for work as a moral imperative, and they’re more likely to judge colleagues who are... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Motivation and Incentives

07 Feb 2020
Working Paper Summaries

The Old Boys' Club: Schmoozing and the Gender Gap

Keywords: by Zoë B. Cullen and Ricardo Perez-Truglia

July 2021 (Revised October 2021)
Case

Trouble at Basecamp: Managing Politics, Polarization, and Conflict in the Workplace (A)

By: Nour Kteily, Deepak Malhotra and David Lane

As founders of the software company Basecamp, Jason Fried and David H. Hansson were used to being the subjects of social media attention. Both maintained active and dedicated Twitter followings for their unique perspectives on management and life. But on April 26,... View Details

Educators

01 Sep 2013
News

Who Are We?

SOCIAL MEDIA James Kondo Managing Director, East Asia, Twitter M. James Kondo 103 alumni work in social media 41 at Facebook 31 at LinkedIn 7 at Twitter High Tech: 135 at Google 104 at Microsoft 23 at Apple... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; Julia Hanna; Dan Morrell; social media,; Twitter; SodaStream; consulting; consultant; CEO; farming; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information; Agriculture; Food Manufacturing; Manufacturing; Rail Transportation; Transportation

31 Jul 2019
Research & Ideas

Distressed Employees? Try Resilience Training

Every year depression affects one in every five employees and costs American businesses $210 billion in medical bills and lost productivity. In fact, for every worker with a depressive disorder, a company loses an average of 32 productive... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Health

08 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

Keep Your Weary Workers Engaged and Motivated

[This is the sixth installment in a monthly series on management issues in the time of COVID-19.] We recently asked 600 CEOs: What is keeping you awake at night during this global pandemic? A major and multifaceted concern that emerged is how to keep View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

2016
Chapter

Dishonesty Explained: What Leads Moral People To Act Immorally

By: F. Gino and D. Ariely

The last two decades have witnessed what seems to be an increasing number of cases of dishonesty, from corporate corruption and employee misconduct to questionable behaviors during the financial crisis and individual acts of unethical behavior in many spheres of... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Ethics; Organizations; Attitudes; Financial Crisis

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2023
Working Paper

Mapping Organizational-Level Networks Using Individual-Level Connections: Evidence from Online Professional Networks

By: Shelley Xin Li, Frank Nagle and Aner Zhou

Organization-level networks facilitate the flow of information and business activities in the economy. Prior research relies solely on high-level connections to measure these networks. Therefore, to understand the role of employee connections at all job levels in... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Value; Social and Collaborative Networks; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge Sharing; Employees; Social Media

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