Publications

06 Sep 2022
Research & Ideas

Does Hybrid Work Actually Work? Insights from 30,000 Emails

opposite. The results showed that hybrid workers produced more novel work than the other two groups, with managers subjectively rating their work as higher quality than the others. Choudhury notes that the new working paper may be the... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

November 1998 (Revised July 1999)
Background Note

Business as Stakeholder in Public Education: A History of Business Efforts to Improve Public Schools in the United States

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

Explores seven roles businesses and business leaders have played with respect to U.S. public education reform historically and today: "owners" helping set the agenda; "investors" donating funds; "customers" hiring graduates; "experts" contributing management know-how;... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Education; Performance Improvement; Business and Community Relations; United States

Find at Harvard

08 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

A Balanced Scorecard Approach To Measure Customer Profitability

expecting that the margin from a comprehensive set of services will transform the customer into a profitable relationship. Figure 1 shows how one insurance company managed its customer relationships once it... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan

September 2019 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Cooking Down a Storm: Changing Culture at Pasta Serafina (A)

By: Susanna Gallani, Francesca Gino and Raffaella Sadun

Plant management at Pasta Serafina, a pasta producer in the south of Italy, is struggling to contain employee absenteeism. While the misbehavior is concentrated in a minority of the workers, its effects impact not only the plant’s performance, but also the climate and... View Details

Keywords: Absenteeism; Moral Hazard; Employees; Behavior; Problems and Challenges; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Employee Relationship Management; Performance Productivity; Decision Making

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Myers studies the ways people learn from their own—and others’—experiences at work, with a particular emphasis on learning in health care organizations and emergency medical contexts. Though his interest is in individual-level learning, he focuses in... View Details

Keywords: Learning And Development; Learning Organizations; Learning By Doing; Health Care Industry; Innovation; Identity Construction; Medical Error; Knowledge Development; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Work; Learning; Leadership Development; Knowledge Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Health Industry; United States; Singapore; Asia

May 2018
Case

Inditex: 2018

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

In 2018, Inditex, based in Spain, was the largest specialist fashion retailer in the world, generating sales of $31.5 billion in 2017 from a portfolio of eight retail brands selling through a total of 7,475 stores located in 96 countries and from websites in 49... View Details

Keywords: Fashion; Succession; IPO; Competition; Initial Public Offering; Multinational Firms and Management; Management Succession; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry; Fashion Industry

July – August 2010
Column

Powerlessness Corrupts

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

Powerlessness damages organizations--especially in the middle ranks, says HBR columnist Rosabeth Moss Kanter. Hemmed in by rules and treated as unimportant, people get even with management by overcontrolling their own turf. Kanter urges leaders to give employees... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Opportunities; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence

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01 May 2009
What Do You Think?

Do Innovation and Entrepreneurship Have to Be Incompatible with Organization Size?

continued "focus on execution doing more of the same when they stalled," not size. Many reasons were put forth to explain why there is a perceived relationship between size and stalls due to general lack of innovation. Jeff... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

26 Mar 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Mitigating the Negative Effects of Customer Anxiety Through Access to Human Contact

Keywords: by Michelle A. Shell and Ryan W. Buell; Health

November 2002 (Revised April 2003)
Case

Charoen Pokphand Group: A Renewed Focus

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Cate Reavis

As one of Asia's biggest agriindustrial conglomerates, Charoen Pokphand, although solidly positioned in Thailand, was facing an increasingly competitive and complex business environment in China, where it made 30% of revenues. A change in management of the family-owned... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Agribusiness; Business Conglomerates; Family Business; Competition; Restructuring; Partners and Partnerships; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Thailand; China

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26 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 26, 2008

Working PapersAn Investigation of Earnings Management through Marketing Actions Authors:Craig J. Chapman and Thomas J. Steenburgh Abstract Combining new, hand-collected data with a widely studied dataset, we examine how firms use... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 1994 (Revised March 1995)
Case

NovaCare, Inc.: Living the Vision

By: Lynn S. Paine

NovaCare's CEO is considering how further to institutionalize the company's espoused values and beliefs. One challenge is integrating two newly acquired businesses; another is better aligning the values of the company's managers with those of its front-line... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Health Care and Treatment; Labor and Management Relations; Management Teams; Values and Beliefs; Mergers and Acquisitions; Mission and Purpose; Health Industry

13 Mar 2023
Op-Ed

How Leaders Should Leave

smoothly. Your departure may be more challenging if you’ve had an irreparable row with your boss, have been subject to harassment and are filing a claim, or if you’re leaving on short notice to join a competitor. But even in these cases, you’ll want to maintain good... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

March 2005 (Revised March 2006)
Case

Sealed Air Taiwan (A) (Abridged)

By: Lynn S. Paine

The general manager for U.S.-based Sealed Air Corp.'s Taiwan subsidiary must decide how to improve productivity and achieve profitability. In addition to considering a new approach to compensation, he is wondering how to bridge the gap between Sealed Air's corporate... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Relationships; Service Operations; Motivation and Incentives; Management Skills; Compensation and Benefits; Taiwan; United States

September 1992
Case

International Airlines

A frequent flyer for a large international airline encounters typical but recurring service problems. The marketing management of the company explores the use of information technology in understanding and dealing with the issues involved. Concepts of database... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Communications; Information Technology; Customer Focus and Relationships; Air Transportation Industry

01 Dec 2023
News

Happier-ness at Work

Professor Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey get the good news/bad news out of the way on page 5 of their new book, Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier. “If the secret to total happiness existed, we would have all found it by now,” they write.... View Details

Keywords: Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

Blog

Reinventing the GMP Experience

and how they built relationships with other participants. For additional information on the GMP experience, watch The General Management Program Impact video featuring GMP Faculty Chair Stefan Thomke and... View Details

June 2021
Case

Akira Fukabori and Kevin Kajitani at avatarin (A)

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards

In 2016, Akira Fukabori and Kevin Kajitani, aeronautical engineers at All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd., began to wonder why, in a world of accelerating globalization and digital connectivity, those who lived in far-remote villages or impoverished urban areas could not... View Details

Keywords: Agility; Ecosystem; Innovation Ecosystems; Crowdsourcing; Open Innovation; Partnership; Government; Collaboration; Co-creation; Purpose; Impact; Social Impact; Movement; Organizational Behavior; Organizational Ambidexterity; Ambidexterity; Culture; Culture Change; Global Teams; Experimentation; Space; Airline Industry; Start-up; Platform Business; Platform Strategy; Platform; Digital; Robotics; Robots; Mobility; Strategy; COVID-19; Intrapreneurship; Public-private Partnership; XPRIZE; Space Industry; Avatar; Telepresence; Innovation Lab; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Partners and Partnerships; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Alignment; Leadership; Leading Change; Diversity; Organizational Culture; Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Transportation Industry; Aerospace Industry; Japan

August 2016
Case

VMD Medical Imaging Center

By: Susanna Gallani and Eva Labro

VMD Medical Imaging Center, a local independent provider of medical imaging services, is facing some important challenges. Despite efficiency improvements and cost cutting initiatives carried out over the past few years, their profitability is shrinking; their prices... View Details

Keywords: Costing; Death Spiral; Transfer Pricing; Activity Based Costing and Management; Competitive Strategy; Medical Specialties; Health Industry