Publications

SSRN

01 Mar 2025
News

Venture: Time Heals All

Assembling a nursing schedule for a hospital ward can be surprisingly difficult—a little like playing three-dimensional Tetris, says Ilana Springer Borkenstein (MBA 2022). “It is a really challenging, tedious task.” Nurse managers must take into consideration a host of... View Details

Keywords: Amy Crawford; Illustration by Klaus Kremmerz; Ambulatory Health Care Services; Health, Social Assistance

November 1988 (Revised March 1990)
Case

Progressive Corp.: Coping with the Problem of Dual Career Parents (A)

By: Shoshana Zuboff

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Work-Life Balance; Problems and Challenges

Career Coach

Annette Rodriguez-Ferrer

equity, managing career transitions and juggling work-life balance. She also has an expertise in coaching C-level executives of private equity backed businesses, given her years as an investor. Additionally, Annette has a passion for... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Products; Entrepreneurship; Impact Investing; Financial Services (All); Investment Banking; Financial Services (All); Investment Management; Financial Services (All); Private Equity; Financial Services (All); Health Care; Retail; Startup - Founder; Entrepreneurship; Startup - Joiner; Entrepreneurship

08 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

Women’s Summit Celebrates ‘Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuit’

"If there is one thing that I hope this event will do, it is change the relationship that each of you has with this remarkable institution. We need you to be a part of this institution with all your heart." Survey On Work-life... View Details

Keywords: by Katie Koch & Harvard Gazette

11 Mar 2013
Research & Ideas

Marissa Mayer Should Bridge Distance Gap with Remote Workers

Marissa Mayer's decision to ask Yahoo! employees to work from offices rather than at home has at least two potentially negative consequences, one for her and one for her employees. But she can mitigate both by linking personal and professional identity for herself and... View Details

Keywords: by Lakshmi Ramarajan; Publishing; Web Services

August 2020
Case

Sheena Gupta (A)

By: Leslie Perlow and Matthew Preble

Sheena Gupta (A) is a first-person narrative of a Harvard Business School alumna (class of 2008) who has thoughtfully and purposefully crafted the various components of her life in a way that aligns with her personal values and needs. Gupta shares her life story, and... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Values and Beliefs; Work-Life Balance

Educators

July 2012
Case

Revenue Solutions, LLC

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Ari Wasserman and Nick Esayian were both dissatisfied with their future prospects in their current careers. Wasserman, who managed an infomercial business for a direct response consumer marketing company, wanted more flexibility and ownership. Esayian was the CEO of... View Details

Keywords: Work-Life Balance; Partners and Partnerships; Small Business; Israel; United States

Educators

Purchase

May 27, 2022
Article

How 'Digital Nomad' Visas Can Boost Local Economies

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury

More and more companies are offering their employees the option to “work from anywhere,” whether in their home office, in another state, or even halfway around the globe. A growing group of remote professionals are taking the “anywhere” in work-from-anywhere to new... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; COVID-19 Pandemic; Collaboration; Work-Life Balance; Human Resources; Collaborative Innovation and Invention

Register to Read

July 1997
Case

Graffs, The (C)

By: Carl S. Sloane and Gregory C. Rogers

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Work-Life Balance; Family and Family Relationships; Conflict Management

29 Aug 2024
Blog Post

Exploring Sustainable Energy: A Visit to Vestas Wind Turbine Manufacturing in Odense, Denmark

Cultural Dynamics: A Danish Approach to Work-Life Balance Beyond the impressive machinery and manufacturing prowess, this visit also gave us unique insight into the cultural dynamics that define Vestas'... View Details

August 13, 2024
Editorial

Can AI Save Physicians from Burnout?

By: Susanna Gallani, Lidia Moura and Katie Sonnefeldt

Keywords: Well-being; AI and Machine Learning; Work-Life Balance; Health Industry

2024
White Paper

Healthy Outcomes: How Employers' Support for Employees with Caregiving Responsibilities Can Benefit the Organization

By: Joseph B. Fuller

Keywords: Work-Life Balance; Performance Productivity; Employees; Human Capital

1997
Book

Finding Time: How Corporations, Individuals, and Families Can Benefit from New Work Practices

By: Leslie Perlow

Why do Americans work so hard? Are the long hours spent at work really necessary to increase organizational productivity? Perlow documents the work life of employees who assume that for their own success and the success of their organization they must put in extended... View Details

Keywords: Time Management; Working Conditions; Work-Life Balance; Performance Productivity

July–August 2025
Article

How the Busiest People Find Joy

By: Leslie A. Perlow, Sari Mentser and Salvatore J. Affinito

Joy, along with achievement and meaningfulness, is one of the three keys to a satisfying life. Yet it’s the missing piece for many ambitious individuals, the authors found after examining data on how nearly 2,000 professionals spend their days. Jam-packed schedules are... View Details

Keywords: Well-being; Satisfaction; Work-Life Balance; Happiness

2024
White Paper

Hidden Workers: The Case for Caregivers

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Manjari Raman and Francis Hintermann

Keywords: Labor; Work-Life Balance; Selection and Staffing; Retention

October 2013
Article

Shattering the Myth of Separate Worlds: Negotiating Non-Work Identities at Work

By: Lakshmi Ramarajan and Erin M. Reid

How much of our self is defined by our work? Fundamental changes in the social organization of work are destabilizing the relationship between work and the self. As a result, parts of the self traditionally considered outside the domain of work, i.e., "non-work"... View Details

Keywords: Identity; Diversity; Strategy; Jobs and Positions; Work-Life Balance

November 2009
Case

An Entrepreneur's Journey: Simi Nwogugu

By: John A. Davis and Shirley Spence

This multimedia case follows Simi Nwogugu's life from childhood in Lagos, Nigeria to Mount Holyoke and Wall Street, back to Lagos to found a chapter of Junior Achievement, through marriage and HBS to motherhood and disenchantment with opportunities for mothers in the... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Work-Life Balance; Customization and Personalization; Business Ventures; Nigeria; United States

Educators

Purchase

Article

From Wealth to Well-Being? Money Matters, but Less than People Think

By: Lara B. Aknin, Michael I. Norton and Elizabeth W. Dunn

While numerous studies have documented the modest (though reliable) link between household income and well-being, we examined the accuracy of laypeople's intuitions about this relationship by asking people from across the income spectrum to report their own... View Details

Keywords: Happiness; Work-Life Balance; Satisfaction; Income; Household