Publications

February 1998 (Revised March 2000)
Case

Burma Pipeline, The

By: Debora L. Spar and Lane LaMure

In 1996, Unocal Corp. joined forces with the French Total company to construct an ambitious natural gas pipeline from the Andaman Sea across the southern tip of Burma and into Thailand. At an estimated cost of $1.2 billion, the pipeline was designed to bring sorely... View Details

Keywords: Political Risk; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Foreign Direct Investment; Energy Industry; Asia

May 2009
Article

Authority versus Persuasion

By: Eric J. Van den Steen

This paper studies a manager's trade-off between using persuasion and using interpersonal authority to get an employee to 'do the right thing' from the manager's perspective (when the manager and employee disagree on the right course of action). It... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Managerial Roles; Projects; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence

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2009
Working Paper

Authority versus Persuasion

By: Eric J. Van den Steen

This paper studies a principal's trade-off between using persuasion versus using interpersonal authority to get the agent to "do the right thing"; from the principal's perspective (when the principal and agent openly disagree on the right course of action). It shows... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Managerial Roles; Projects; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence

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31 Mar 2008
HBS Case

JetBlue’s Valentine’s Day Crisis

good reputation and simply apologized without creating such a specific document. Flight Plan For The Future Finally, students discuss the longer-term changes they would recommend for JetBlue's operating strategy while analyzing new systems being implemented in View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Air Transportation

September 2022
Case

Deciding When to Engage on Societal Issues

By: Hubert Joly and Amram Migdal

This case provides brief descriptions of 18 examples of corporate leaders confronting questions of whether and how to engage with societal issues, including social, political, and environmental issues. Social issues include COVID-19; social and racial justice;... View Details

Keywords: Political Issues; Social Justice; Racial Justice; Environmental Issues; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Values and Beliefs

27 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

New Research: Surviving Bankruptcy, Useful Economics, and Retirement

Published Papers Do the Right Firms Survive Bankruptcy? Journal of Financial Economics Samuel Antill “In United States, Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, firms are either reorganized, acquired, or liquidated. I show that decisions to liquidate... View Details

17 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Being the Boss

report to you. But unless you manage the context in which your team resides, there's no way that your team can be successful. So you have to understand the political dynamics, you have to understand how to build a network with peers and bosses, and you have to set the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

10 Jul 2018
Blog Post

Successful Internship Matchmaking: “With Citadel, I could be myself.”

(MBA 2009), head of talent strategy at Citadel, recognized Sarah’s deep appreciation for talent. “I could see that she was interested in human capital, right off the bat,” he says. “We’re always looking for... View Details

14 Sep 2017
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: Google Engineer Deserved to be Fired by the CEO

correctness, free speech, or affirmative action. It is relating to people as authentic human beings, not as representatives of a group or class. Great harm is done when groups of people are stereotyped as having certain characteristics,... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

28 Oct 2020
Blog Post

Keep Your Weary Workers Engaged

and connected and OPTIMISTIC in appropriate measure while so many have so many competing personal and business and health and family issues right now.” Meanwhile, cost-cutting, uncertainty, and the necessities of social distancing... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

08 Dec 2020
Blog Post

Keep Your Weary Workers Engaged

and connected and OPTIMISTIC in appropriate measure while so many have so many competing personal and business and health and family issues right now.” Meanwhile, cost-cutting, uncertainty, and the necessities of social distancing... View Details

17 Nov 2011
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Organizational Design

managers allow so-called support function employees to become catalysts for change. Key concepts include: Marketers, human resources managers, finance managers, and other so-called support function employees often have trouble defining... View Details

Keywords: Re: Ranjay Gulati & Raffaella Sadun

August 29, 2023
Article

The Fragility of Artists’ Reputations from 1795 to 2020

By: Letian Zhang, Mitali Banerjee, Shinan Wang and Zhuoqiao Hong

This study explores the longevity of artistic reputation. We empirically examine whether artists are more- or less-venerated after their death. We construct a massive historical corpus spanning 1795 to 2020 and build separate word-embedding models for each five-year... View Details

Keywords: Natural Language Processing; Reputation; Arts

Article

How to Tackle Your Toughest Decisions

By: Joseph L. Badaracco

The toughest calls managers have to make come in situations when they have worked hard to gather the facts and have done the best analysis they can, but they still don’t know what to do. Then judgment—a fusion of thinking, feelings, experience, imagination, and... View Details

Keywords: Management; Judgments

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17 Oct 2016
HBS Case

Business Solutions That Help Cut Food Waste

As much as 40 percent of food grown in the United States for human consumption is wasted. Source: Eivaisla After decades of wasteful food practices, where perfectly good food is discarded even as poverty keeps many families hungry, solutions are starting to come... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Food & Beverage

August 2022
Case

In-Q-Tel: Innovation On A Mission

By: Joshua Lev Krieger and Josh Lerner

In 2022, the leaders of In-Q-Tel (IQT) considered what was next for the unique mission-driven organization. Since 1999, IQT had one mission: to be the most sophisticated source of strategic technical knowledge and capabilities to the U.S. government and its allies. IQT... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; National Security; Technological Innovation; Research; Geopolitical Units; Risk Management; Recruitment; Growth and Development Strategy; Venture Capital; Knowledge Management; Information Industry; Banking Industry

June 2013 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Kvadrat: Leading for Innovation

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott

In 2013, Anders Byriel, CEO of the family-owned Danish textiles company, Kvadrat, considered the firm's strategic plan. In 2000, Byriel and Mette Bendix, Kvadrat's Product Director, had taken over management of the company from their fathers, who had founded Kvadrat... View Details

Keywords: General Management; Organizational Behavior; Strategy; Performance Management; Leadership; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Human Resources; Denmark; Europe; Asia