Publications

Teaching Interest

Scaling Technology Ventures

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

This course is designed for students who plan to launch or join a hypergrowth technology venture, or who plan to invest in growth-stage tech companies. The course addresses key challenges founders and their teams face after achieving product-market fit – and how... View Details

Web

Help - Alumni

sanctioned events. Exceptions are made for school-sanctioned events (contact Alumni Communications ) and Reunions (contact Reunions team ), and alumni clubs-sanctioned events (contact the Clubs team ). MBA... View Details

24 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Part-Time Employees Want More Hours. Can Companies Tap This ‘Hidden’ Talent Pool?

program director and senior researcher for Managing the Future of Work, and Francis Hintermann, Global Lead of Accenture Research, collaborated on the paper. Where are workers hiding, and why? The team defines hidden workers in three... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

11 Apr 2023
Op-Ed

The First 90 Hours: What New CEOs Should—and Shouldn't—Do to Set the Right Tone

willing to tie their future to yours, and you may want to mentor them as potential successors. Your initial team should be finalized and in place by the end of week two and should be meeting on a regular schedule starting in week three.... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

October 2021
Background Note

How to Write an Action-Planning Memo

By: Ryan Raffaelli and Akshaya Varghese

The ability to communicate an action plan through writing is essential for advancing ideas, earning credibility, and garnering support. Research has shown that leaders who write formal plans are more likely to execute successfully—written plans help members of an... View Details

Keywords: Writing; Action Plan; Communication; Competency and Skills; Planning

Web

Named Fellowship Funds - Alumni

warmth, humor, and intelligence, who died at the age of 50 after a six-year battle with cancer. He spent 17 years at Berkshire Hathaway under its legendary chairman, Warren Buffett, leading General Reinsurance and serving as chairman of XTRA Lease. Bennett was an... View Details

Forthcoming
Article

Centralization and Organization Reproduction: Ethnic Innovation in R&D Centers and Satellite Locations

By: William R. Kerr

We study the relationship between firm centralization and organizational reproduction in satellite locations. For decentralized firms, the ethnic compositions of inventors in satellite locations mostly resemble their host cities, with little link to the inventor... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Reproduction; Centralization; Research and Development; Innovation and Invention; Organizational Design; Ethnicity

January 2022 (Revised October 2022)
Case

Second Harvest Heartland: Ending Hunger Together

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Courtney Han

In March 2020, Second Harvest Heartland, one of six Foodbanks serving Minnesota, was caught in the COVID-19 emergency with considerably more people exposed to hunger and food insecurity. Its management team led by CEO Allison O’Toole and COO Thierry Ibri alertly... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Food Insecurity; Social Enterprise; Food; Health Pandemics; Crisis Management; Strategy; Adaptation; Social Issues; Mission and Purpose; Decision Making; United States; Minnesota

January 26, 2017
Article

Executives and Salespeople Are Misaligned—and the Effects Are Costly

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Christopher Wallace

This article discusses the results of a survey of senior executives, middle managers, and sales people from companies across a variety of industries. The survey focused on questions about how well their companies’ strategies informed six critical elements of their... View Details

Keywords: Business Strategy; Sales; Perception

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2015
Chapter

Leave No Slice of Genius Behind: Selecting and Developing Tomorrow's Leaders of Innovation

By: Linda A. Hill

More than ever, leaders of nearly every kind of organization view their human resources teams as essential to institutional well-being and long-term growth and sustainability. That's the central and animating theme of "The Rise of HR: Wisdom from 73 Thought Leaders," a... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Talent Management; Talent Development And Retention; Innovation Leadership; Human Resources; Talent and Talent Management; Leadership; Leadership Development

Find at Harvard

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January 2004 (Revised July 2006)
Background Note

Incentives within Organizations

By: Brian J. Hall

Serves as a brief introduction to incentive design and implementation. The analysis first locates incentive strategy within the larger structure of organizations and markets and then helps to define the central components and difficulties of incentive design. Focuses... View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Motivation and Incentives

January 2001 (Revised August 2003)
Case

Diageo plc

A major U.K.-based multinational is reevaluating its leverage policy as it restructures its business. The treasury team models the tradeoffs between the benefits and costs of debt financing, using Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the savings from the interest tax... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Multinational Firms and Management; Capital Structure; Restructuring; United Kingdom

22 Jan 2020
News

Making Stakeholder Capitalism a Reality

June 2020
Supplement

RBC: Transforming Transformation (B)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Aldo Sesia

In 2017, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), a Canadian financial icon, mandated a swat team of “enablers of collaboration” (their job description) to support the personal and commercial bank in the enterprise-wide RBC Cultural Transformation initiative. Historically,... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Information Technology; Transformation; Change Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Decision Making; Human Resources; Management Systems; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Management Teams; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Canada

2023
Working Paper

Centralization and Organization Reproduction: Ethnic Innovation in R&D Centers and Satellite Locations

By: William R. Kerr

We study the relationship between firm centralization and organizational reproduction in satellite locations. For decentralized firms, the ethnic compositions of inventors in satellite locations mostly resemble their host cities, with little link to the inventor... View Details

Keywords: Ethnicity; Business Offices; Research and Development; Innovation and Invention; Organizational Design

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January 2014
Supplement

Amgen Inc.: Pursuing Innovation and Imitation? (B)

By: Ian Mackenzie

The (B) case reveals that Sharer decided that Amgen should enter the emerging biosimilars business. However, he took the better part of a year to syndicate the decision across the senior team while in parallel investing in some time-critical process development. The... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; Biotechnology Industry; United States

February 1999 (Revised June 2000)
Case

Cimetrics Technology (A-1)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Jose Royo

Jim Lee, president of Cimetrics (a young, fast growing, software start-up) is reevaluating his small company's geographically dispersed product development model. To take advantage of talented low-cost labor in Russia, the company has relied on two software engineering... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Applications and Software; Business or Company Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Labor and Management Relations; Product Development; Performance Evaluation; Information Technology Industry; Russia; Canada; United States