Publications

10 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

Motivation and the Cross-Sector Alliance

Moving on to the specific drivers at play in our sample cases, we identified two powerful utilitarian motivations: risk-management and competitive advantage creation. Risk Management A common reason for engaging in cross-sector collaboration has been to make use of it... View Details

Keywords: by James Austin, Ezequiel Reficco & SEKN research team

February 2022
Case

Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi: Leading Through the Fog of the COVID-19 Pandemic

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards

As COVID-19 began to take lives, destroy healthcare systems, and shut down economies across the globe, Dr. Rakesh Suri, Chief Executive Officer of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, and his executive team adapted their leadership to instill the new levels of agility and... View Details

Article

Competition and Social Identity in the Workplace: Evidence from a Chinese Textile Firm

By: Takao Kato and Pian Shu

We study the impact of social identity on worker competition by exploiting the well-documented social divide between urban resident workers and rural migrant workers in urban Chinese firms. We analyze data on weekly output, individual characteristics, and coworker... View Details

Keywords: Social Identity; Coworker Effect; Productivity; Relative Performance Incentive; Intergroup Competition; Competition; Groups and Teams; Performance Productivity; Identity

Spring 2020
Article

Establishing High Performing Teams: Lessons from Health Care

By: Michael Anne Kyle, Emma-Louise Aveling and Sara J. Singer

Effective teams can be significant drivers of innovations that enable broader quality improvements and efficiency gains across organizations. But despite the wealth of research and managerial expertise describing characteristics of effective teams, people and... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Performance Effectiveness

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2012
Working Paper

Pay Dispersion and Work Performance

By: Alessandro Bucciol and Marco Piovesan

The effect of intra-firm pay dispersion on work performance is controversial and the empirical evidence is mixed. High pay dispersion may act as an extra incentive for employees' effort or it may reduce motivation and team cohesiveness. These effects can also coexist... View Details

Keywords: Performance; Wages; Motivation and Incentives; Groups and Teams; Italy

05 May 2009
First Look

First Look: May 5, 2009

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-127.pdf Feeling the Heat: The Effects of Performance Pressure on Teams' Knowledge Use and Performance Author:Heidi K. Gardner Abstract Why do some teams fail to use their... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

05 Dec 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Tommy Hilfiger’s Adaptive Clothing Line: Making Fashion Inclusive

Keywords: Fashion; Consumer Products; Apparel & Accessories; Retail

February 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Case

HubSpot and Motion AI: Chatbot-Enabled CRM

By: Jill Avery and Thomas Steenburgh

HubSpot, an inbound marketing, sales, and customer relationship management (CRM) software provider, announced that it had acquired Motion AI, a software platform that enabled companies to easily build and deploy chatbots, fueled by artificial intelligence, to interact... View Details

2012
Working Paper

Expertise Dissensus: A Multi-level Model of Teams' Differing Perceptions about Member Expertise

By: Heidi K. Gardner and Lisa Kwan

Why are some teams more effective than others at using their members' expertise to achieve short-term performance and longer term developmental benefits? We propose that a critical factor is expertise dissensus-members' differing perceptions of each other's level of... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Failure; Experience and Expertise; Research; Performance Effectiveness; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Perception; Personal Development and Career

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Research Summary

Current Research

Professor Gardner’s research investigates two primary research questions, both particularly relevant to the management of professional service firms: (1) How are project teams able to most effectively use their members’ expertise in order... View Details

2010
Working Paper

Disagreement about the Team's Status Hierarchy: An Insidious Obstacle to Coordination and Performance

By: Heidi K. Gardner

Hierarchies are pervasive in groups, generally providing clear guidelines for the dominance and deference behaviors that members are expected to show based on their relative ranks. But what happens when team members disagree about where each member ranks on the... View Details

Keywords: Performance Effectiveness; Groups and Teams; Behavior; Conflict and Resolution; Perception; Status and Position; Cooperation

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April 18, 2013
Article

Leading Clinicians and Clinicians Leading

By: Richard Bohmer

More effective models of care delivery are needed, but their successful implementation depends on effective care teams and good management of local operations (clinical microsystems). Clinicians influence both, and local clinician leaders will have several key tasks. View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Performance; Leadership; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

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2012
Book

Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy

By: Amy C. Edmondson

Continuous improvement, understanding complex systems, and promoting innovation are all part of the landscape of learning challenges today's companies face. I show that organizations thrive, or fail to thrive, based on how well the small groups within those... View Details

Keywords: Change; Interpersonal Communication; Learning; Values and Beliefs; Innovation and Invention; Management; Performance Improvement; Groups and Teams; Research; Strategy; Complexity; Value

Video

Organizational Leadership

2008
Working Paper

Product Development and Learning in Project Teams: The Challenges are the Benefits

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Ingrid M. Nembhard

The value of teams in new product development (NPD) is undeniable. Both the interdisciplinary nature of the work and industry trends necessitate that professionals from different functions work together on development projects to create the highest quality product in... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Learning; Management Skills; Product Development; Projects; Groups and Teams; Conflict Management; Social and Collaborative Networks

January–February 2020
Article

Give Your Colleague the Rating He Deserves—or the One He Wants?

By: Anthony J. Mayo, Joshua D. Margolis and Amy Gallo

The article presents a case study on business friendship and its possible effect on employee ratings. It mentions a hypothetical case where one member of a team didn't meet his deadlines on the development of a new product, the use of a peer-to-peer employee rating... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Relationships; Performance Evaluation; Decision Making

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April 2012
Article

Finding the Right Mix: How the Composition of Self-managing Multicultural Teams' Cultural Value Orientation Influences Performance Over Time

By: Chi-Ying Cheng, Roy Y.J. Chua, Michael W. Morris and Leonard Lee

This research investigates a new type of team that is becoming prevalent in global work settings, namely, self-managing multicultural teams. We argue that challenges that arise from cultural diversity in teams are exacerbated when teams are leaderless, undermining... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Performance; Problems and Challenges; Groups and Teams; Risk and Uncertainty; Culture; Value

Why are some teams more effective than others at using their members' expertise to achieve short-term performance and longer term developmental benefits? We propose that a critical factor is expertise dissensus-members' differing perceptions of each other's level of... View Details

March 2008 (Revised March 2009)
Case

Purolator Courier Ltd.

By: Rajiv Lal and Catherine Ross

On a fall day in September 2003, Robert Swanborough made his way down a thickly carpeted hallway in Purolator's headquarters in Toronto, Canada, toward a meeting with his two deputies. Several months earlier, Swanborough, then vice-president of Marketing, had been... View Details

Keywords: Conferences; Customer Focus and Relationships; Leading Change; Marketing Strategy; Performance Effectiveness; Strategic Planning; Research; Segmentation; Canada