Publications

May 2018
Article

The Downside of Downtime: The Prevalence and Work Pacing Consequences of Idle Time at Work

By: Andrew Brodsky and Teresa M. Amabile

Although both media commentary and academic research have focused much attention on the dilemma of employees being too busy, this paper presents evidence of the opposite phenomenon, in which employees do not have enough work to fill their time and are left with hours... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Working Conditions; Performance Consistency; Performance Productivity

Web

HBS Working Knowledge – Harvard Business School Faculty Research

World by Rachel Layne 04 JUN 2024 | Research & Ideas Consumers expect companies to do everything they can to protect their personal data, but breaches continue to happen at an alarming rate. Eva Ascarza and Ta-Wei Huang say companies must... View Details

28 Nov 2011
Research & Ideas

Rethinking the Fairness of Organ Transplants

simulations, the model suggests that life-year expectancies for the program can be increased by up to 8 percent, depending on variables plugged into the process. As with the "Moneyball" metrics movement in baseball, the goal of... View Details

Keywords: by Dennis Fisher; Health

March 2010 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Roll Back Malaria and BCG: The Change Initiative

By: Nava Ashraf, Rachel Gordon and Catherine Ross

Roll Back Malaria, a global partnership dedicated to fighting malaria has not met its founders' expectations of effectively combatting malaria. In 2005, after several internal evaluations, RBM leadership has decided to engage the Boston Consulting Group to work on a... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Evaluation; Communication Strategy; Communication Intention and Meaning; Non-Governmental Organizations; Change Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Negotiation; Health Industry

Educators

July 1999
Article

Analysts' Forecast Accuracy: Do Ability and Portfolio Complexity Matter

By: Michael B. Clement

Prior studies have identified systematic and time persistent differences in analysts’ earnings forecast accuracy, but have not explained why the differences exist. Using the I/B/E/S Detail History database, this study finds that forecast accuracy is positively... View Details

Keywords: Analysis; Forecasting and Prediction; Performance Evaluation; Experience and Expertise

22 Jan 2008
Research & Ideas

New Challenges in Leading Professional Services

New Model for High Performance But lately the challenges for professional service firms (PSFs) have been growing in size and complexity, and the excitement is more the type you need a stomach antacid to control. The dilemma, says HBS... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Consulting; Accounting; Legal Services

30 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 30

short-term volatility of inflation-indexed bond returns do not invalidate the basic case for these bonds, that they provide a safe asset for long-term investors. Governments should expect inflation-indexed bonds to be a relatively cheap... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

May 2013
Article

Hybrid Innovation in Meiji Japan

By: Tom Nicholas

Japan's hybrid innovation system during the Meiji era of technological modernization provides a useful laboratory for examining the effectiveness of complementary mechanisms to patents. Patents were introduced in 1885, and by 1911, 1.2 million mostly non-pecuniary... View Details

Keywords: Prizes; Technological Innovation; System; Patents; Knowledge; Value; Cost vs Benefits; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Performance Effectiveness; Japan

2022
Article

Towards Robust Off-Policy Evaluation via Human Inputs

By: Harvineet Singh, Shalmali Joshi, Finale Doshi-Velez and Himabindu Lakkaraju

Off-policy Evaluation (OPE) methods are crucial tools for evaluating policies in high-stakes domains such as healthcare, where direct deployment is often infeasible, unethical, or expensive. When deployment environments are expected to undergo changes (that is, dataset... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Research

November 2008
Journal Article

Can Research Committees Add Value for Investors? An Analysis of Lehman Brothers' Ten Uncommon Values® Recommendations

By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Yang Gui

Since 1949 Lehman Brothers has used an investment committee to select the top ten recommendations made by its analysts each year. We examine the performance of this committee's recommendations and find that on average its selections generated abnormal returns of 2.7%... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Stocks; Financial Markets; Investment; Investment Return; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Performance Expectations; Groups and Teams; Research; Value Creation

July 2002 (Revised August 2003)
Case

Unilever Superannuation Fund vs. Merrill Lynch, The

By: Andre F. Perold and Joshua Musher

In 2001, the Unilever Superannuation Fund sued Merrill Lynch for damages of 130 million British pounds. Over the period 1977 to 1998, the Unilever Fund had significantly underperformed the benchmark, and its trustees contended that the poor returns resulted from... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Lawsuits and Litigation; Performance Evaluation; Agreements and Arrangements; Customer Relationship Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Asset Management; Risk Management; Legal Liability; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom

Educators

2008
Book

Becoming a New Manager

By: Linda A. Hill

You've just been promoted to a managerial position for the first time—congratulations! But beware: the managerial role differs markedly from the individual contributor role. Go into the job with mistaken assumptions about what to expect, and you just may be blindsided... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Management Skills; Management Style; Managerial Roles; Performance Improvement; Groups and Teams

29 Oct 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Estimating the Effects of Large Shareholders Using a Geographic Instrument

Keywords: by Bo Becker, Henrik Cronqvist & Rüdiger Fahlenbrach

June 2004
Case

AT&T's Transmission Systems Business Unit (A)

By: Rogelio Oliva, Elizabeth Keating and James Quinn

The newly appointed director of the project dedicated to reducing product development time for AT&T's Transmission Systems Business Unit (TSBU) is trying to decide how best to sustain the momentum of its Achieving Process Excellence (APEX) teams. During the past three... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Groups and Teams; Performance Improvement; Business Processes; Product Development; Telecommunications Industry

Educators

22 Jan 2013
First Look

First Look: Jan. 22

attests to the idea that ritual behavior stimulates goal-directed action (to consume). Experiment 3 found that performing rituals oneself enhanced consumption more than merely watching someone else perform... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2012
Article

Coming Through When It Matters Most

By: Heidi K. Gardner

All teams would like to think they do their best work when the stakes are highest-when the company's future or their own rests on the outcome of their projects. But too often something else happens. In extensive studies of teams at professional service firms, I have... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Projects; Performance Expectations; Failure; Risk and Uncertainty; Safety; Experience and Expertise; Knowledge Sharing

Web

Accounting & Management - Doctoral

individual firms; rewarding and monitoring the performance of managers; formulating, executing and evaluating strategy by firm managers; understanding the profitability of suppliers, products, customers, distribution channels, and... View Details

January 2012
Article

How Leaders Kill Meaning at Work

By: Teresa Amabile and Steven J. Kramer

Senior executives routinely undermine creativity, productivity, and commitment by damaging the inner work lives of their employees in four avoidable ways. This article is based on analysis of hundreds of work diaries from professionals describing everyday events that... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Creativity; Performance Productivity; Motivation and Incentives; Innovation Strategy; Performance; Strategic Planning; Leading Change; Balanced Scorecard; Mission and Purpose