Publications

March 2020 (Revised May 2021)
Case

Employee Activism

By: Ethan Rouen and Akari Furukawa

Liz O’Sullivan, an employee at a fast-growing technology company called Clarifi, had a moral dilemma: She disagreed with Clarifi’s decision to sell its image-recognition technology to the U.S. Department of Defense for possible use in weaponized drones. This case... View Details

Keywords: Activism; Employees; Moral Sensibility; Personal Development and Career; Decision Choices and Conditions

September 1997 (Revised October 1997)
Case

French Pension System, The: On the Verge of Retirement?

By: David A. Moss, Anne Dias and Bertrand O. Stephann

Surveys the French pension system, its particular institutional characteristics, and some of the critical challenges and opportunities facing French reformers. Like almost every other industrialized country, France has a large pay-as-you-go public pension system that... View Details

Keywords: Retirement; Compensation and Benefits; Capital Markets; Economic Growth; Labor; Problems and Challenges; Opportunities; Welfare; Investment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Public Administration Industry; France

2007
Text Book

Teaching the Moral Leader: A Literature-Based Leadership Course

By: Sandra J. Sucher

This book is a comprehensive, practical manual to help instructors integrate moral leadership in their own courses, drawing from the experience and resources of the Harvard Business School course "The Moral Leader," an MBA elective taken by thousands of HBS students... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Curriculum and Courses; Moral Sensibility; Body of Literature; Books; Leadership; Personal Development and Career

Find at Harvard

June 2005 (Revised May 2006)
Case

Alex Montana at ESH Manufacturing Co.

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Michael Kernish

Alex Montana sat at his desk pondering the career decision before him. Alex was director of the North American division of ESH Manufacturing, a $4.6 billion, Cleveland-based company with operations on three continents. ESH's CEO had just offered Montana a promotion to... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Decision Choices and Conditions; Personal Development and Career; Work-Life Balance; Manufacturing Industry; Cleveland

April 2025
Case

Giving Up on a Passion: Elizabeth Rowe at the Boston Symphony Orchestra

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Maisie Wiltshire-Gordon and Alexis Lefort

For 20 years, Elizabeth Rowe was a world-renowned principal flutist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. But in 2024, Rowe decided to leave her position to pursue a new full-time career as a leadership coach. At 50, Rowe was well under the typical retirement age, and,... View Details

March 2024
Case

Katharine Graham: Changing the World

By: Robert Simons and Shirley Sun

This case traces the life of Katharine Graham from housewife to publisher of the Washington Post. Born into a family of wealth, Graham described herself as a “doormat wife” after she married Phil Graham and stayed at home to raise their children. His unexpected death... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Values and Beliefs; Power and Influence; Personal Characteristics; Leadership Style; Success; Work-Life Balance; News; Newspapers; Media; Gender; Publishing Industry

2024
Working Paper

Automating Short-Term Payroll Savings: Evidence from Two Large U.K. Experiments

By: Sarah Holmes Berk, James J. Choi, Jay Garg, John Beshears and David Laibson

Automatic enrollment is often used to increase retirement savings. What are the effects of using it (or, alternatively, requiring an active enrollment choice) to increase short-term savings? We evaluate two experiments in the U.K. at employers that enable workers to... View Details

Keywords: Retirement Savings; Participation; Automatic Enrollment; Retirement; Human Resources

Teaching Interest

Managing Human Capital: Keeping Hope Alive in Organizations (Not offered 2013-2014)

Managing Human Capital has been specifically designed to teach practical skills for the general manager who seeks to manage both other people and his or her own career with optimal effectiveness. Any and all students who believe they will need to effectively manage... View Details

December 2009 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Curt Schilling's Next Pitch

By: Noam T. Wasserman, Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Rachel Gordon

As his major-league pitching career was starting to wind down in 2006, baseball all-star Curt Schilling decided to become an entrepreneur. Looking to focus his tenacity and his passion for online role-playing games on a new challenge, he founded an online gaming... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Leadership; Personal Development and Career; Groups and Teams; Video Game Industry

17 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

What the Stockdale Paradox Tells Us About Crisis Leadership

his career studying survival. “We are all day-to-day survivors. We are alive today because from childbirth our behaviour has adapted to our own particular environment,” Leach writes. “The danger arises when we are forced outside of our... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

Web

Podcast - Business & Environment

challenges of sorting, processing, and regenerating blended fabrics at scale. Patrik also describes relevant policy trends such as extended producer responsibility and offers advice for those pursuing careers in the circular economy. Read... View Details

01 Feb 2023
Blog Post

How I Spent My HBS 2+2 Deferral: Jada Haynes

The HBS 2+2 program is a deferred admission process for current students in their final year of study, either in college or a full-time master’s degree program. If you are admitted through 2+2, you work for two to four years in a field of your View Details

2024
Working Paper

What Drives Variation in Investor Portfolios? Estimating the Roles of Beliefs and Risk Preferences

By: Mark Egan, Alexander MacKay and Hanbin Yang

We present an empirical model of portfolio choice that allows for the nonparametric estimation of investors' (subjective) expectations and risk preferences. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset of 401(k) plans from 2009 through 2019, we explore heterogeneity in asset... View Details

Keywords: Stock Market Expectations; Demand Estimation; Retirement Planning; Defined Contribution Retirement Plan; 401 (K); Finance; Investment Portfolio; Investment; Retirement; Behavioral Finance; Financial Services Industry; United States