Publications

March 2011 (Revised April 2011)
Exercise

The Future of BioPasteur

By: Giovanni Gavetti and Francesca Gino

The purpose of this exercise is to let students experience a few biases that can be deleterious to strategic decision-making. In particular, students are induced to fall into a confirmatory trap, and to experience other biases such as anchoring and sampling bias.... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Decision Choices and Conditions; Outcome or Result; Groups and Teams; Prejudice and Bias; Strategy

02 Jan 2013
What Do You Think?

Should We Rethink the Promise of Teams?

Summing Up Under what conditions do teams, introverts, and innovation go together? Properly structured and led, teams can support innovative thinking that depends on contributions from both extroverts and introverts. That's the consensus of respondents to this month's... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

01 Nov 1999
Research & Ideas

Companies, Cultures and the Transformation to the Transnational

structure, social history, and educational system, companies developed under a system of family management that emphasized personal relationships more than formal structures, and relied more on broad-gauged financial controls than on... View Details

Keywords: by Christopher A. Bartlett & Sumantra Ghoshal

17 Jan 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: January 17

Abstract—Conversation is a fundamental human experience, one that is necessary to pursue intrapersonal and interpersonal goals across myriad contexts, relationships, and modes of communication. In the current research, we isolate the role... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Mar 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Mitigating the Negative Effects of Customer Anxiety Through Access to Human Contact

Keywords: by Michelle A. Shell and Ryan W. Buell; Health

July 2002 (Revised November 2002)
Case

Crucial Conversations

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Vineeta Vijayraghavan

Todd McKenna, a third-year associate at an investment banking firm, confronts his boss. His boss had told him he would be the top paid associate at the firm, and McKenna finds out that this isn't true. He approaches his boss to find out why he was lied to. View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Investment Banking; Executive Compensation; Employee Relationship Management; Rank and Position; Banking Industry

14 Feb 2012
First Look

First Look: February 14

dynamic groups, don't learn naturally. I outline the factors that prevent them from doing so, such as interpersonal fear, irrational beliefs about failure, groupthink, problematic power dynamics, and information hoarding. With Teaming,... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

December 2000 (Revised May 2002)
Case

Reverend Jeffrey Brown: Cops, Kids and Ministers

By: Kathleen L. McGinn and Alexis Lefort

Introduces Reverend Jeffrey Brown, one of the cofounders of the Ten Point Coalition in Boston, Mass. The Ten Point Coalition, a group of ministers that worked to change the dynamics between the Boston Police Department and the kids on the street, was instrumental in... View Details

Keywords: Change; Civil Society or Community; Alliances; Interpersonal Communication; Power and Influence; Law Enforcement; City; Boston

15 Nov 2006
Research & Ideas

Lessons Not Learned About Innovation

innovation teams under too much bureaucracy, treating the innovators as more valued corporate citizens than those who work in the current business, and hiring leaders who don't have the relationship and communications skills necessary to... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

January 2008 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Comcast New England: A Journey of Organizational Transformation

By: Michael Beer and Anita Arun

This case describes how Kevin Casey, Comcast's New England Region general manager, transformed a low commitment and performance organization. When he took charge of this Comcast region he inherited an organization that was bureaucratic, had low customer satisfaction,... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Interpersonal Communication; Customer Satisfaction; Employee Relationship Management; Management Teams; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Performance Improvement; Telecommunications Industry; New England

August 2011 (Revised November 2012)
Case

Ramesh Patel at Aragon Entertainment Limited

By: Anthony J. Mayo and Joshua D. Margolis

Ramesh Patel, a high potential employee, was excited to be named to the company's New Horizons Board, a select team responsible for producing recommendations for new products or line extensions for Aragon Entertainment. Patel's co-worker and friend, Jeremy Gibson was... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Conflict and Resolution; Conflict Management; Interpersonal Communication; Spoken Communication; Communication Intention and Meaning; Jobs and Positions; Performance; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

18 Dec 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 18, 2018

Mitigating Malicious Envy: Why Successful Individuals Should Reveal Their Failures By: Brooks, Alison Wood, Karen Huang, Nicole Abi-Esber, Ryan W. Buell, Laura Huang, and Brian Hall Abstract—People often feel malicious envy, a destructive View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

08 Feb 2011
First Look

First Look: Feb. 8

mortality, respectively). Contrary to prediction, interdisciplinary collaboration mediates, rather than moderates, the relationship between using deliberate learning activities and workgroup performance. Thus, our data suggest that using... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 Dec 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, December 5, 2017

Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53537 in press Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin Advice Giving: A Subtle Pathway to Power By: Schaerer, M., L.P. Tost, L. Huang, F. Gino, and R.P. Larrick Abstract—We propose that View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 1999
Case

Leaving

By: David A. Thomas

A company supervisor listens to an employee, an African American woman, announce she is leaving the company and tries to understand the situation. View Details

Keywords: Resignation and Termination; Retention; Race; Behavior; Diversity; Interpersonal Communication; Labor and Management Relations

October 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Century Bank: Closing Time?

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Bill Kwon

Barry Sloane, second-generation Chairman, President, and CEO of his family’s bank, Century Bank, weighed whether to sell to Eastern Bank. As a small regional bank, Century faced a number of challenging trends, such as digitization and market share decline in the coming... View Details