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January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
Case

PortageBay and ESG Analytics

By: Vikram S. Gandhi and Radhika Kak

In 2023, sustainable investors faced several challenges. The first was the lack of access to standardized and vetted environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data, and equally, the interpretation of this data into investment-useful insights. Reducing reliance on... View Details

Keywords: ESG Ratings; Investment Funds; Governance; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

02 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 3, 2008

Building on previous theories of how social activists inspire field-level change, we hypothesize that shareholder actions and regulatory threats are likely to prime firms to cooperate with shareholder requests for information disclosure.... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2001
Book

From Heresy to Dogma: An Institutional History of Corporate Environmentalism

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

This is a pathbreaking account of how the environmental movement has led to profound changes in the perceptions and practices of large-scale corporations, as shown here in the chemical and petroleum industries. The book traces how market, social, and political... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Environmental Sustainability; Public Opinion; Social Issues

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06 Nov 2023
Research & Ideas

Did You Hear What I Said? How to Listen Better

to make sure that listeners were really paying attention to the screen, they were given a financial incentive to remember as many commercials as they could. “There’s a lot of social pressure to convey we are... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

March 2009 (Revised May 2011)
Case

The Credit Suisse/Gerson Lehrman Group Alliance

By: Robert G. Eccles and Laura Winig

The equity research department of Credit Suisse and the expert network firm of Gerson Lehrman Group, historically competitors, have established a strategic alliance which both believe will give them a competitive advantage. Under the leadership of its head of equity... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Financial Crisis; Investment Banking; Innovation and Invention; Alliances; Social and Collaborative Networks; Competitive Advantage; Banking Industry

November–December 2024
Article

Why Employees Quit

By: Ethan Bernstein, Michael B. Horn and Bob Moesta

The so-called war for talent is still raging. But in that fight, employers continue to rely on the same hiring and retention strategies they’ve been using for decades. Why? Because they’ve been so focused on challenges such as poaching by industry rivals, competing in... View Details

Keywords: Retention; Recruitment; Talent and Talent Management; Employee Relationship Management; Motivation and Incentives

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17 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Money Isn’t Everything: The Dos and Don’ts of Motivating Employees

In a post-pandemic business world of hybrid work and quiet quitting, companies must rethink how they motivate employees. Good incentive plans and reward structures require a careful analysis of a company’s objectives, culture, and View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

03 Sep 2024
Research & Ideas

Is It Even Possible to Dam the Flow of Misleading Content Online?

Kominers worked with Jesse Shapiro, the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration at Harvard Business School, to study how content moderation works best. The debate over moderating content comes as the US presidential race heats up and View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Information Technology; Technology

02 Sep 2002
Research & Ideas

The Role of Government When All Else Fails

now—at the dawn of the twenty-first century—it is hard to conceive of any more important or pervasive governmental function. The federal government now devotes a larger part of its budget to social insurance (such as unemployment and... View Details

Keywords: by Laura Linard

April 2011 (Revised May 2012)
Case

City Year: The Journey

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and James Weber

Throughout its first two decades, City Year, a non-profit organization, was dedicated to recruiting young adults to give a year of public service. It had passed through several growth phases but by 2010 a new challenge, and opportunity, had arisen when City Year and... View Details

Keywords: Education; Service Operations; Nonprofit Organizations; Growth and Development Strategy; Performance Efficiency; Resource Allocation

November 2007 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Creativity under the Gun at Litmus Corporation

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Yana Litovsky

Teaches students to diagnose the circumstances under which time pressure can facilitate or hinder creativity. A team's creative "genius", Miles Grady, who previously conceptualized a revolutionary material for an important new product, must now significantly change... View Details

Keywords: Situation or Environment; Creativity; Innovation and Management; Problems and Challenges

01 Sep 2023
News

Bless this Stress

and mental reframing strategies—tools that he practices and eventually relies on to get himself across the crane. With a bachelor’s in psychology and a master’s in social psychology (also from Harvard), Akinola ordinarily studies the... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Educational Services

10 Sep 2007
Research & Ideas

High Note: Managing the Medici String Quartet

Why would a business school professor want to write a case study about a string quartet? The answer was easy for Robert Austin, a scholar with research expertise in the management of innovation. While attending an academic workshop near Copenhagen, he had the good... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Music

21 Sep 2009
Research & Ideas

Excessive Executive Pay: What’s the Solution?

intervention are quick to point out that more than two decades of well-meaning attempts to constrain ever-soaring corporate pay and to reform governance through legislation, regulation, and shareholder pressure have, for the most part,... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson

December 2020 (Revised June 2021)
Case

France Télécom (A): A Challenging Restructuring

By: Cynthia A. Montgomery and Ashley V. Whillans

These cases explore the impacts of industry shocks, resulting corporate actions that had a devastating impact on employees, and the legal conviction of corporate leaders for “institutional harassment."

This case series follows the evolution of France... View Details

09 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 9

particular relationship at hand. In so doing, they are exposed to unanticipated social influences because counterparts have more interests, attitudes, and preferences than would-be associates considered when they first chose to pair. This... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 2001 (Revised April 2002)
Case

Ginzel et al v. Kolcraft Enterprises et al (A)

By: Michael A. Wheeler

Examines the wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of an infant who died after a portable crib collapsed. The manufacturer, Kolcraft, licensed the Playskool brand name from the co-defendant, Hasbro Industries. Raises difficult questions about what the two... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Product; Negotiation; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Lawsuits and Litigation; Legal Liability; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry; United States

Research Summary

Overview

By: Ryan W. Buell

From creating flight itineraries online, to interacting with tellers to complete complex banking transactions, to engaging with the government to address civic problems, customers are playing an increasingly vital role in the performance of operations in a broadening... View Details

2018
Working Paper

Managing Through Organizational Change: Employee Alignment in the Presence of Unexpected Career Concerns

By: Ohchan Kwon and Jee-Eun Shin

This study examines performance consequences due to unexpected career concerns – layoff risks due to institutional reasons. Exploiting a company-wide announcement of a merger decision by management as a trigger event for unexpected career concerns, we examine employee... View Details

Keywords: Career Changes; Performance Measures; Incentives; M＆A; Employees; Personal Development and Career; Mergers and Acquisitions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance; Motivation and Incentives