Publications

01 May 2013
News

Health Care’s Service Fanatics

03 Jun 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Eliciting Taxpayer Preferences Increases Tax Compliance

Keywords: by Cait Lamberton, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve & Michael I. Norton

Research Summary

Integrated Care for Total Knee Replacement: Quality of Life, Quality of Movement, User Acceptability

This study provides an opportunity to focus on the challenge of cross-organizational coordination in the healthcare setting. It is structured as a randomized clinical trial involving seven European hospitals (in seven different countries). It is focused specifically... View Details

November 2012
Case

Teaming at GE Aviation

By: Rakesh Khurana, Jeffrey Polzer, Willy Shih and Eric Baldwin

Describes the challenges and successes encountered by GE's Aviation business in implementing a teaming work structure and culture in plants across its supply chain. GE Aviation leadership had seen dramatic gains in productivity, quality, and worker satisfaction in... View Details

January 2011 (Revised March 2011)
Case

Development and Promotion at North Atlantic Hospital

By: Boris Groysberg, Lisa Leffert, Kerry Herman and Libby Williams

Dr. Elizabeth Harris, Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology (DA) at North Atlantic Hospital (NAH), faces several significant challenges. Staff satisfaction surveys confirmed her assessment that department faculty morale was low, the tenure and promotion system was... View Details

Keywords: Training; Employees; Retention; Performance Evaluation; Personal Development and Career; Motivation and Incentives; Health Industry

2021
Working Paper

COVID-19, Government Performance, and Democracy: Survey Experimental Evidence from 12 Countries

By: Michael Becher, Nicholas Longuet Marx, Vincent Pons, Sylvain Brouard, Martial Foucault, Vincenzo Galasso, Eric Kerrouche, Sandra León Alfonso and Daniel Stegmueller

Beyond its immediate impact on public health and the economy, the COVID-19 pandemic has put democracy under stress. While a common view is that people should blame the government rather than the political system for bad crisis management, an opposing view is that... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Government Performance; Democracy; Health Pandemics; Government and Politics; Crisis Management; Public Opinion

13 Feb 2024
HBS Seminar

Stijn van Osselaer, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

2015
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Mike Critelli and Dossia Service Corporation

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Patricia Bissett Higgins

In 2010, Mark Critelli was a well-seasoned corporate executive who had recently transitioned from being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company to that of a startup called Dossia. As an AL Fellow, he knew that despite believing in Dossia’s mission to empower individuals with... View Details

October 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Loris

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Das Narayandas, Stacy Straaberg and David Lane

In December 2022, Loris’s executive team considered their go-to-market strategy. Loris was an artificial intelligence (AI) software startup for the customer service industry with two products on the market: 1) Agent Assist which provided customer service agents (CSAs)... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Business Startups; AI and Machine Learning; Applications and Software; Marketing Strategy; Sales; Technology Industry; United States

Though they’ve been warned for decades about the dangers of overrelying on gut instinct and personal experience, managers keep failing to critically examine—much less challenge—the ideas their decisions are based on. To correct this problem they need to think and... View Details

autumn 1993
Article

Motivational Synergy: Toward New Conceptualizations of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in the Workplace

By: T. M. Amabile

The foundation for a model of motivational synergy is presented. Building upon but going beyond previous conceptualizations, the model outlines the ways in which intrinsic motivation (which arises from the intrinsic value of the work for the individual) might interact... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Theory; Creativity; Situation or Environment; Organizational Culture

Find at Harvard

February 1997 (Revised April 1998)
Case

first direct (A)

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

Describes the operations and strategy of the world's largest, fastest growing branchless bank. Using a person-to-person interface over conventional phone lines, First Direct provides standard banking and related financial products to nearly 700,000 customers throughout... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Customer Satisfaction; Banks and Banking; Innovation and Invention; Banking Industry; United Kingdom

2011
Case

Wrapitup

By: W. Earl Sasser

A restaurant chain based in California offers made-to-order sandwich wraps using fresh, healthy ingredients. The founders of the company take a very active role in day-to-day business and tightly control every aspect of the restaurant operation from hiring store... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Governance Controls; Revenue; Employee Relationship Management; Planning; Customer Satisfaction; Problems and Challenges; Profit; Change Management; Compensation and Benefits; Leadership Style; Service Industry; California

Research Summary

Personal Development and Interpersonal Feedback

Enabling individual development and learning are key to enabling organizational success as well as employee satisfaction and engagement. Many organizational approaches to employee development visualize feedback processes as mechanisms for illuminating individual... View Details

Keywords: Feedback; Personal Development

April 2008 (Revised October 2008)
Case

TD Canada Trust (A): The Green and the Red

By: Dennis Campbell and Brent Kazan

The case series illustrates the role of performance measurement and analytics in translating TD-Canada Trust's service model of "comfortable banking" into operational terms. In 2000, in a banking market where consumers and regulators were typically hostile to mergers... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Commercial Banking; Profit; Balanced Scorecard; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Banking Industry; Canada

October 2016 (Revised October 2020)
Case

Essent: From a State-Owned Utility to a Commercial Company

By: Ananth Raman and Elena Corsi

Patrick Lammers, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) for the Dutch energy company Essent NV, once a state-owned company, was pleased with the progress Essent’s consumer (“B2C”) business had made: Earnings Before Income Tax (EBIT) for B2C had gone from a loss of €18 million... View Details

Keywords: Lean Management; Operation Management; Service Management; Commercialization; Operations; Management; Energy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Service Operations; Performance; Energy Industry; Europe

July 2023
Case

Schuberg Philis: From Success to Significance

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Daniela Beyersdorfer

The founders of Dutch professional services firm Schuberg Philis, and the new leadership team entrusted with the day-to-day management, must set the path forward in 2019. The company has grown into a €70 million revenue strong IT provider with top ranks in the... View Details

Keywords: Management Succession; Growth Management; Change Management; Transformation; Mission and Purpose; Leadership; Leading Change; Information Technology Industry; Consulting Industry; Europe; Netherlands

2015
Chapter

Leading Socially Responsible, Value-Creating Corporations

By: Daniel A Brown, Rakesh Khurana and James O'Toole

We explore the role of the corporate leader in creating value for stakeholders throughout three eras: one of naïve idealism, one of naïve cynicism, and an emerging era of rugged idealism. We explain how the role of the corporate leader and society's perceptions of this... View Details

Keywords: Stakeholder Management; Value; Shared Value; Institution; Business School; Stakeholder Engagement; Value Creation; Leadership; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Alignment; Business Education; Business and Stakeholder Relations