Publications

November 1992
Case

Process Control at Polaroid (B)

By: H. Kent Bowen and Steven C. Wheelwright

The plant manager of a film production operation wants to create and implement a new approach to quality within the next 12 months. Issues of personnel (and their roles), production processes (and their control), and quality standards must be addressed. View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Job Design and Levels; Management Practices and Processes; Production; Quality; Mathematical Methods

23 May 2023
Research & Ideas

Face Value: Do Certain Physical Features Help People Get Ahead?

and the paper’s lead author; Kannan Srinivasan, professor at Carnegie Mellon; Xiao Liu, associate professor at New York University; and Cait Poynor Lamberton, professor at the University of Pennsylvania. The work could have ripples in the cutthroat business world,... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

Web

FAQs - Alumni

are not appropriate for individuals under the age of 21. For off-campus childcare, please refer to the 'childcare resources' question below. What off-campus childcare resources are available? The following childcare View Details

06 Jun 2018
Research & Ideas

Cut Salaries or Cut People? The Best Way to Survive a Downturn

literature in economics on why firms tend not to cut people’s pay,” says Stanton, an applied economist who is an assistant professor in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at HBS. “We can actually measure the consequences.” A ‘natural... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

April 2006 (Revised April 2020)
Case

"The Case of Leadership Inertia"

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter

The CEO of an international bank has raised the bank's performance by emphasizing a new culture of leadership that empowers people at all levels. Managers are rated both on their business results and their leadership—how they model new behaviors—but 12 senior managers... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Performance Evaluation; Employee Relationship Management

February 2018
Supplement

People Analytics at Teach For America (B)

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer and Julia Kelley

This is a supplement to the People Analytics at Teach For America (A) case. In this supplement, Managing Director Michael Metzger must decide how to extend his team’s predictive analytics work using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Forecasting and Prediction; Recruitment; Analysis

06 Aug 2014
What Do You Think?

What Is Warren Bennis’s Legacy?

Summing Up Was Warren Bennis's Optimism Regarding the Future of Leadership Warranted? In a recent obituary for Warren Bennis in the New York Times, former executive and HBS Professor Bill George was quoted as writing that "I look at Peter Drucker as the father of... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Education

09 Nov 2021
News

The Simple Secret of Effective Mentoring Programs

Keywords: Mentoring; mentorship

June 2020 (Revised January 2024)
Case

TraceTogether

By: Mitchell B. Weiss and Sarah Mehta

By April 7, 2020, over 1.4 million people worldwide had contracted the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Governments raced to curb the spread of COVID-19 by scaling up testing, quarantining those infected, and tracing their possible contacts. It had taken Singapore’s... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Contact Tracing; Government Administration; Crisis Management; Health; Health Pandemics; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Social Issues; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Health Industry; Public Administration Industry; Singapore

November 1995 (Revised October 2000)
Case

Acme Investment Trust

By: Josh Lerner

Acme Investment Trust is considering investing in a private equity partnership that is seeking only 15% of the profits, instead of the standard 20%. The management fee requested, however, is higher than in its earlier fund. The pension managers must consider the... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Private Equity; Organizations; Investment Funds; Motivation and Incentives; Financial Services Industry

February 2009 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Big Spaceship: Ready to Go Big?

By: Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind

Big Spaceship, a digital marketing agency, faced a rather big challenge: How to scale the distinctive culture that was essential to its competitive strategy? Renowned for the cutting-edge websites that it developed to market major Hollywood movies and leading consumer... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Management; Human Capital; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Groups and Teams; Competitive Strategy; Value Creation

03 May 2024
Research & Ideas

How Much Does Proximity Influence Startup Innovation? 20 Meters' Worth to Be Exact

some sort of mechanism that brings us together,” says Roche. “Our study shows that geography can be super powerful because you don’t necessarily pick who you’re going to run into, as it’s more provided by the physical environment.” Roche cowrote the paper, recently... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

June 2005 (Revised July 2009)
Case

Financial Reporting Problems at Molex, Inc. (A)

By: Paul M. Healy

Following an accounting problem at Molex, the firm's auditors request changes in management. The board of directors has to decide whether the auditors' concerns have merit or whether, as management argues, the accounting issue is immaterial. View Details

Keywords: Managerial Roles; Governing and Advisory Boards; Financial Reporting; Relationships; Resignation and Termination; Accounting Audits

April 2019 (Revised July 2019)
Case

Aperture Investors

By: Krishna G. Palepu, George Serafeim and David Lane

Aperture Investors is a startup investment firm that seeks to disrupt the asset management industry through competitive differentiation by charging investors primarily when its portfolio managers outperform the marketplace. Headed by Wall Street veteran Peter Kraus and... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Talent and Talent Management; Investment; Investment Funds; Asset Management; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Marketing Channels; Emerging Markets; Partners and Partnerships; Motivation and Incentives; Financial Services Industry

06 Oct 2014
Research & Ideas

Why Businesses Need a Language Strategy

global marketplace, it is imperative for multinational organizations to have clear language strategies. Neeley has coauthored a September Harvard Business Review article with HBS Professor of Management Practice Robert Steven Kaplan on... View Details

Keywords: Re: Tsedal Neeley

31 Oct 2014
Op-Ed

Ebola’s Call To Arms About Disaster Preparedness

desperate need of that slack. With public health, however, efficiency should not be the chief goal. Rather, the goal should be to optimize to mitigate catastrophes while managing routine concerns without interruption. That way, when View Details

Keywords: by Gautam Mukunda; Health

Web

Measure Outcomes & Cost for Every Patient - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

time required for each process. Overhead functions such as billing, information technology, and human resource management should be attributed to the condition based on View Details

20 Jan 2015
First Look

First Look: January 20

link: http://dx.doi.org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/10.1016/j.jebo.2014.10.004 January 2015 Economic Journal Does Management Matter in Schools? By: Bloom, Nicholas, Renata Lemos, Raffaella Sadun, and John Van Reenen Abstract—We collect data... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2025
Technical Note

Skills-First Talent Management: Hiring

By: Boris Groysberg, Tom Quinn, Robin Abrahams and Katherine Connolly Baden

The first in a series of notes on how organizations manage skills-first talent-management chains, covering recruiting: the process of creating a job description, publicizing the job and attracting applicants, and assessing candidates. Other notes in this series include... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Jobs and Positions