Publications

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May 2017 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies: Building Breakthrough Innovations in Crowd-Powered Ecosystems

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Terri L. Griffith and Ann Majchrzak

Dirk Ahlborn, co-founder and CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, Inc. (HTT) looks back at the evolving organizational design and community that allows HTT to be crowd-powered. Since the founding in 2013, HTT has dealt with building an organization with less... View Details

Keywords: Collaboration; Crowdsourcing; Entrepreneurial Finance; Innovation; Organizational Design; Startups; Business Startups; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Product Development

December 2018 (Revised March 2021)
Background Note

Modern Automation (A): Artificial Intelligence

By: William R. Kerr and James Palano

This primer is meant to be a field guide to the late 2010s' surge in business use of "Artificial Intelligence" (AI), or enterprise software based in machine learning. First, it provides an overview of the key trends—digitization, connectivity, the continuation of... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Digitization; Connectivity; Computing; Future Of Work; Automation; AI and Machine Learning

2013
Article

The Strategic Fitness Process: A Collaborative Action Research Method for Developing Organizational Prototypes and Dynamic Capabilities

By: Michael Beer

Organizations underperform and sometimes fail because their leaders are unable to learn the unvarnished truth from relevant stakeholders about how the design and behavior of the organization is misaligned with its goals and strategy. The Strategic Fitness Process (SFP)... View Details

Keywords: Organization Alignment; Dynamic Capabilities; Organization Design; Organizational Prototyping; Organizational Silence; Organizational Learning; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Organizational Design

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12 Apr 2016
News

A clever Harvard experiment with cafeteria workers suggests a simple way to get better work from your employees

24 Jan 2023
Research & Ideas

Passion at Work Is a Good Thing—But Only If Bosses Know How to Manage It

Who wouldn't want to work for a company that values passion? And what employer wouldn't seek an employee who’s deeply passionate about their work? But, here's the rub, according to recent research from Harvard Business School: Employees... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Article

Platform Competition: Betfair and the U.K. Market for Sports Betting

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Neil Campbell

We examine two episodes of strategic interaction in the U.K. betting industry: (i) Betfair (an entrant multi-sided platform or MSP) vs. Flutter (also an MSP) and (ii) Betfair vs. traditional bookmakers. We find that although Betfair was an underfunded second mover in... View Details

Keywords: Platform Design; Betting; Complements; Competing Business Models; Co-opetition; Entry; Multi-Sided Platforms; Design; Network Effects; Business Model; Competition; Cooperation

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27 Feb 2025
Blog Post

IFC India 2025: HBS Visits Jindal Steel Works (JSW) Steel Dolvi Plant

action-packed days split evenly between Mumbai and Bangalore. We toured factories, met with executives, visited cultural and historic landmarks, and consumed more chai than we could’ve imagined. The course was designed to give us a... View Details

12 Aug 2020
News

Harvard Business School Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator Launches Strategic Playbook For Organizations Working To Bring Cures To Patients

Research Summary

Overview

Downstream businesses that utilize global suppliers frequently use auditing programs to monitor their suppliers’ working conditions and are often deployed to address reputational concerns associated with procuring from unregulated suppliers. Despite their widespread... View Details

Keywords: Audit Quality; Remote Work; Outsourcing; Econometric Analysis; Switching Costs; Service Operations; Performance Effectiveness; Retail Industry; Service Industry

2023
Working Paper

Virtual Water Coolers: A Field Experiment on the Role of Virtual Interactions on Organizational Newcomer Performance

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Jacqueline N. Lane and Iavor Bojinov

Designing management practices to better onboard organizational newcomers working remotely is a key priority for firms. We report results from a randomized field experiment conducted at a large global firm that estimates the performance effects of different types of... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Virtual Water Coolers; Social Interactions; Careers; Field Experiment; Employees; Interpersonal Communication; Internet and the Web; Performance; Personal Development and Career

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22 Sep 2021
Blog Post

Student Spotlight: Jesse Lou (MBA 2022) – Working to Change the Food System

mentorship and learnings in the early days of company building. I’m also cross-registered at MIT this semester in 15.366 Climate and Energy Ventures, a project-based class designed to bring cross-disciplinary folks together to View Details

04 Nov 2021
Blog Post

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: JESSE LOU (MBA 2022) – WORKING TO CHANGE THE FOOD SYSTEM

mentorship and learnings in the early days of company building. I’m also cross-registered at MIT this semester in 15.366 Climate and Energy Ventures, a project-based class designed to bring cross-disciplinary folks together to View Details

Keywords: Technology; Entrepreneurship

04 Nov 2021
Blog Post

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: JESSE LOU (MBA 2022) – WORKING TO CHANGE THE FOOD SYSTEM

mentorship and learnings in the early days of company building. I’m also cross-registered at MIT this semester in 15.366 Climate and Energy Ventures, a project-based class designed to bring cross-disciplinary folks together to View Details

Web

Why Soft Skills Still Matter in the Age of AI | Working Knowledge

‘skill entrapment,’ and it’s what causes disparities.” The findings have implications for retraining programs, says Hosseinioun. “Essentially, you can’t just take workers and teach them programming skills or graphic design and then expect... View Details

November 2014 (Revised March 2016)
Background Note

Mental Health and the American Workplace

By: John A. Quelch and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Mental illness has been described as an epidemic affecting nearly a quarter of all Americans in their lifetimes, often during their most productive working years. Managers who can design organizations that maximize mental health can minimize these risks and boost... View Details

Keywords: Public Health; Productivity; Competitiveness; Stress Management; Depression; Absenteeism; Presenteeism; Work Culture; Business or Company Management; Work-Life Balance; Performance Productivity; Organizational Culture; Medical Specialties; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; United States

Article

On the Correspondence of Contracts to Salaries in (Many-to-Many) Matching

By: Scott Duke Kominers

In this note, I extend the work of Echenique (2012) to show that a model of many-to-many matching with contracts may be embedded into a model of many-to-many matching with wage bargaining whenever (1) all agentsʼ preferences are substitutable and (2) the matching with... View Details

Keywords: Many-to-Many Matching; Stability; Substitutes; Contract Design; Unitarity; Market Design; Contracts; Marketplace Matching; Balance and Stability; Economics

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13 Oct 2019
News

About the debate: We have some questions about the future of work we’d like to see asked

May 2019
Case

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation: 'One CMHC' and Version 3.0

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott

When Evan Siddall was appointed CEO of Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation (CMHC) five years earlier, he had embarked on a major organizational restructuring. Now he is spearheading another round of changes. CMHC has adopted an ambition vision and five year strategic... View Details