Publications

2000
Chapter

Is a Career in Marketing Right for You?

By: James Waldroop and Timothy Butler

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Personal Development and Career; Marketing

21 Aug 2019
Blog Post

Leveraging Academic Opportunities to Attain My Post-HBS Job

Plaid’s Head of Corporate Development on our research. By taking advantage of these academic opportunities, I was able to learn about Plaid’s products, their customers, growth vectors, and much more. In essence, I was able to understand... View Details

10 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

Become a Value Creator

motivations at the door." More Pie For Everyone In general, value creators work cooperatively with others to make the corporate pie bigger for all, whereas value claimers focus on taking more of the pie for themselves—like a thief steals for View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

2014
Article

Executive Compensation and Human Capital Investments Through Industry Selection

By: Boris Groysberg and Eric Lin

We use proprietary data capturing compensation levels of executives placed by a global search firm to investigate how executives evaluate rewards and risks of human capital investment choices. Our findings suggest that more isolated industries with lower opportunity to... View Details

Keywords: Executive Compensation; Human Capital; Personal Development and Career

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February 2022
Article

Borrowing to Save? The Impact of Automatic Enrollment on Debt

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and William L. Skimmyhorn

Does automatic enrollment into a retirement plan increase financial distress due to increased borrowing outside the plan? We study a natural experiment created when the U.S. Army began automatically enrolling newly hired civilian employees into the Thrift Savings Plan.... View Details

Keywords: Retirement Savings; Automatic Enrollment; Choice Architecture; Nudge; Financial Distress; Retirement; Saving; Borrowing and Debt; Behavior

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October 2018
Case

Learning How to Honnold

By: Eugene F. Soltes, Sara Hess and Dutch Leonard

Alex Honnold is the world’s most accomplished free climber. To many, climbing sheer vertical faces of rock—like the famed El Capitan—without a rope is viewed as not simply risky but reckless. Honnold contrasts this sentiment by presenting his perspective on risk taking... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Goals and Objectives; Personal Development and Career; Perspective

January 2008 (Revised May 2014)
Case

Kazuo Inamori, a Japanese Entrepreneur

By: Anthony J. Mayo, Masako Egawa and Mayuka Yamazaki

The case provides insight into a business leader whose cognizance of contextual forces (social, economic, and political) allowed him to drive significant change in an industry and Japanese society in the second half of the twentieth century. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business History; Leading Change; Management Style; Personal Development and Career; Telecommunications Industry; Japan

June 2001 (Revised May 2002)
Case

Tradeoffs: Juggling Careers in Professional Services Firms with Private Life

By: Thomas J. DeLong, Ashish Nanda, Scot Landry and Scott M O'Neil

Balancing professional and private lives continues to challenge single and committed partners alike. Professionals are expected to work long hours. It is simply part of the ethos of professional service firms. This case focuses on the lives of three couples connected... View Details

Keywords: Work-Life Balance; Family and Family Relationships; Problems and Challenges; Service Industry

October 2005 (Revised September 2008)
Case

Kevin Sharer at Amgen: Sustaining the High-Growth Company (A)

By: William W. George and Andrew N. McLean

Keywords: Leadership Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Style; Management Succession; Personal Development and Career

September 1988 (Revised July 2000)
Case

Alex Dean

By: Shoshana Zuboff, Dave DeLong and Kathleen Scharf

Traces the evolution of Alex Dean's internal and external careers, exploring his psychological and emotional development, as well as seemingly dramatic shifts in career direction from research scientist to venture capitalist. Designed to encourage students to reflect... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Jobs and Positions; Emotions; Research and Development; Venture Capital

November 2009 (Revised March 2011)
Case

New York Life and Immediate Annuities

By: Julio J. Rotemberg and John T. Gourville

By positioning Immediate Annuities as "guaranteed lifetime income," New York Life has built itself a $1.4 billion per year business by 2009. However, to make Immediate Annuities a mainstream financial product for retirees, New York Life must understand why many... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Personal Finance; Product Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Retirement; Salesforce Management; Insurance Industry

11 Feb 2022
Lecture

Explaining the Persistence of Gender Inequality: The Work-Family Narrative as a Social Defense Against the 24/7 Work Culture

By: Irene Padavic and Robin J. Ely

Are women’s family responsibilities the reason for their stalled advancement?

Conventional wisdom says “yes.” But is it true? When companies create solutions to address work-life conflict instead of rethinking the 24/7 work culture, they find their... View Details

Keywords: Gender; Equality and Inequality; Work-Life Balance

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November 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Kwame Spearman at Tattered Cover: Reinventing Brick-and-Mortar Retail

By: Ryan Raffaelli and Kerry Herman

The case spotlights Kwame Spearman’s career-shifting decision to leave a NYC-based consulting job to return to his hometown of Denver, Colorado, and take over an iconic independent bookstore, The Tattered Cover. The case lays out ways Spearman envisions a new approach... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Leadership; Leading Change; Competitive Strategy; Personal Development and Career; Publishing Industry; Retail Industry; United States

April 2010 (Revised May 2010)
Supplement

George Martin at The Boston Consulting Group (C)

By: Leslie A. Perlow and Kerry Herman

George Martin, managing partner at The Boston Consulting Group, is worried as some of his best performers have recently pulled him aside to discuss the challenges they face managing the demands of their work lives with their desire for more predictable time with their... View Details

Keywords: Work-Life Balance; Problems and Challenges; Employees

August 2007 (Revised April 2008)
Compilation

"Doer's Profile" Nelson Mandela (1918- )

By: Howard H. Stevenson and Shirley Spence

Profile of Nelson Mandela designed to facilitate a discussion of the nature of enduring success. Includes both biographical data and excerpts from autobiographical records. View Details

Keywords: Government and Politics; Leadership; Success; Personal Development and Career

May 2006
Article

The Changing Structure of the Legal Services Industry and the Careers of Lawyers

By: George P. Baker and Rachel Parkin

Keywords: Change; Law; Employees; Personal Development and Career; Organizational Structure; Legal Services Industry

October 1996 (Revised January 1997)
Case

MacTemps: Building Commitment in the Interim Workforce

MacTemps is a provider of temporary workers skilled in computer graphics and database management. Unlike many temporary agencies that treat temps as a commodity, MacTemps has attempted to build relationships with temps through offering benefits and training. This case... View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Organizational Design; Personal Development and Career; Information Technology Industry; Employment Industry