Job Design - Publications - Faculty & Research

February 2025
Case

Luca de Meo at Renault Group (A)

By: Emily Truelove, Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag

When Luca de Meo became CEO of Renault Group in 2020, the 122-year-old French automaker faced financial challenges and the double technological disruption of the automotive industry: the shift to electric vehicles (EVs) and the rise of software-defined vehicles (SDVs).... View Details

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28 Mar 2018
HBS Seminar

Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Media

August 2009
Case

The TSMC Way: Meeting Customer Needs at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

By: Willy C. Shih, Chen-Fu Chien, Chintay Shih and Jack Chang

When L.C. Tu receives an emergency order, he is confronted with a range of production scheduling choices, each of which has unique costs and trade-offs. The case was designed to help students understand job-shop style production and the impact of disruptions and... View Details

Keywords: Disruption; Customer Relationship Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Cost; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Production; Semiconductor Industry; Taiwan

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20 Jun 2016
Research & Ideas

When Predicting Other People's Preferences, You're Probably Wrong

themselves, only 39.3 percent of the observers predicted their partners would make that choice. The observers did a better job of predicting their partners’ alternate preferences when the choices were relatively similar. In the fourth... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail

August 1974 (Revised April 1983)
Case

Peter Olafson (A)

By: John J. Gabarro

Describes the problems facing a recent MBA graduate in his job as general manager of a cable television 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; Television Entertainment; Managerial Roles; Organizational Design; Problems and Challenges

Citation

Find at Harvard

11 May 2009
Research & Ideas

The IT Leader’s Hero Quest

the story. We've had students at undergraduate, graduate, and executive levels telling us that they couldn't stop reading because they were eager to know what would happen next. In addition, chapters of the book are designed like teaching... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

2021
Working Paper

The Demand for Executive Skills

By: Stephen Hansen, Raffaella Sadun, Tejas Ramdas and Joseph B. Fuller

We use a unique corpus of job descriptions for C-suite positions to document skills requirements in top managerial occupations across a large sample of firms. A novel algorithm maps the text of each executive search into six separate skill clusters reflecting... View Details

Keywords: C-Suite; Jobs and Positions; Competency and Skills; Management Skills; Job Search; Job Design and Levels

Citation

Read Now

25 Jul 2005
Research & Ideas

An Organization Your Customers Understand

consumer products. Finally, a series of cubes represents major customers. The shapes lie scattered on your desk. Your job is to fit the pieces together. Do you place the spheres on top of the blocks so that functions report to the... View Details

Keywords: by Robert Simons

19 Oct 2010
First Look

First Look: October 19, 2010

key transitions that shape leaders' careers, specifying processes and moderating conditions for identity transformation. Implications for designing experiences and training that take identity processes into account are drawn. Purchase the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 1993 (Revised December 2001)
Case

General Dynamics and Computer Sciences Corporation: Outsourcing the IS Function (B)

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Katherine Seger

Designed to look at outsourcing from the perspective of a major computer services company trying to get into the business. View Details

Keywords: Communication Technology; Business Startups; Business Plan; Business Strategy; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Financial Management; Management Teams; Communication Strategy; Organizational Design; Product Design; Accounting; Activity Based Costing and Management; Computer Industry; Information Technology Industry

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18 Sep 2012
First Look

First Look: September 18

closed (low-power) poses, and then prepared and delivered a speech to two evaluators as part of a mock job interview, a prototypical social evaluation. All speeches were videotaped and coded for overall performance, hireability, and the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

15 Jul 2019
Blog Post

Exploring the World of Electric Adventure Vehicles

As a former consultant at EY-Parthenon, part of Chicago native and Northwestern University graduate Tayler Danziger’s (MBA 2020) job included travelling all over the U.S. and Europe, advising clients on growth strategy. Little did she... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing; Consumer Products / Retail

15 Mar 2024
HBS Case

Let's Talk: Why It's Time to Stop Avoiding Taboo Topics at Work

conversation Take Steve, a fictitious character who is almost 30 and heading to business school after a stint in private equity. Steve wants to know if he’s in line for the top job in his family’s steel company. How should he broach the... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

January 1994
Case

Evolving Finance Function: Judy C. Lewent at Merck & Co., Inc.

By: Timothy A. Luehrman

This case examines the career path of Merck's CFO, Judy C. Lewent, as a way of tracing changes over time in Merck's finance function. It describes the adoption of innovative quantitative analytical models, changes in job definitions and in the organization of the... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Mathematical Methods; Personal Development and Career; Organizational Design; Innovation and Invention; Pharmaceutical Industry

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07 Nov 2023
Research & Ideas

When Glasses Land the Gig: Employers Still Choose Workers Who 'Look the Part'

decisions. Troncoso adds that platforms must carefully design their recommendation systems, as practices like suggesting multiple freelancers for a particular job could further strengthen the use of pictures... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

05 Jun 2014
Research & Ideas

Fixing the ‘I Hate Work’ Blues

customers. It is the job of these leaders to facilitate the work of the people they lead by making their jobs easier, and removing bureaucratic impediments and other obstacles. Middle managers who cannot... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

20 Nov 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Pay Harmony: Peer Comparison and Executive Compensation

Keywords: by Claudine Gartenberg & Julie Wulf

20 May 2008
First Look

First Look: May 20, 2008

Working PapersGender in Job Negotiations: A Two-Level Game Authors:Hannah Riley Bowles and Kathleen L. McGinn Abstract We propose a two-level-game (Putnam, 1988) perspective on gender in job negotiations.... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

24 Sep 2009
Working Paper Summaries

“I read Playboy for the articles”: Justifying and Rationalizing Questionable Preferences

Keywords: by Zoë Chance & Michael I. Norton

April 1993 (Revised May 1994)
Case

General Dynamics and Computer Sciences Corporation: Outsourcing the IS Function (A)

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Katherine Seger

Designed to generate discussion on the issues of outsourcing from the perspective of a firm thinking about turning over its IS activities to a third-party vendor. View Details