Publications

Article

The Impact of the 'Open' Workspace on Human Collaboration

By: Ethan Bernstein and Stephen Turban

Organizations’ pursuit of increased workplace collaboration has led managers to transform traditional office spaces into “open,” transparency-enhancing architectures with fewer walls, doors, and other spatial boundaries, yet there is scant direct empirical research on... View Details

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November 2012
Case

Teaming at GE Aviation

By: Rakesh Khurana, Jeffrey Polzer, Willy Shih and Eric Baldwin

Describes the challenges and successes encountered by GE's Aviation business in implementing a teaming work structure and culture in plants across its supply chain. GE Aviation leadership had seen dramatic gains in productivity, quality, and worker satisfaction in... View Details

Article

Investors as Stewards of the Commons?

By: George Serafeim

Over the past few years, there has been a significant increase in the number of initiatives seeking to mobilize investor voice towards positive social impact. In this paper, I provide a framework outlining the role of investors as stewards of the commons. While... View Details

Keywords: Collaboration; Industry Self-regulation; Sustainability; ESG; Capital Markets; Investor Behavior; Investment Activism; Social Issues; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Cooperation

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2021
Book

The Power of Trust: How Companies Build It, Lose It, Regain It

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta

Trust is the most powerful force underlying the success of every business. Yet it can be shattered in an instant, with a devastating impact on a company’s market cap and reputation. How to build and sustain trust requires fresh insight into why customers, employees,... View Details

April 2011 (Revised September 2011)
Case

BlackRock Solutions

By: Kenneth A. Froot and Scott Waggoner

The BlackRock Solutions case examines the different functions and economics of a global asset manager's value chain, with particular emphasis on the "money management" and the "investment systems platform" businesses. Students analyze why BlackRock decided to unbundle... View Details

Keywords: Investment Management; Strategic Vision; Organizational Behavior; Economies Of Scale And Scope; Unbundling Of Services; Strategic Planning; Risk Management; Financial Management; Asset Management; Competitive Advantage; Value; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Culture; Investment; Financial Strategy

Research Summary

Overview

I am an ethnographer and field researcher studying how people experience and interpret their work and cultural contexts, as well as how this shapes inequality and organizational outcomes like normative control. I specialize in utilizing in-depth, inductive field... View Details

Keywords: Qualitative Research; Ethnography; Corporate Culture; Organizational Behavior; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Theory; Working Conditions; Consulting Industry

May 2014 (Revised March 2017)
Case

Unilever's Lifebuoy in India: Implementing the Sustainability Plan

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Unilever's new Global Brand VP must not only revitalize Lifebuoy soap's sagging market performance, but simultaneously impact the health of one billion people worldwide. The latter challenge comes from Unilever's new CEO who has introduced the Unilever Sustainable... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Management; Corporate Social Responsibility; Strategy Implementation; Marketing Strategy; Mission And Purpose; Change Management; International Business; Global; Fast-moving Consumer Goods; Soap; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Health Care and Treatment; Environmental Sustainability; Global Strategy; Developing Countries and Economies; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Health Industry; India

Research Summary

Overview

Hisano’s research addresses the social and cultural implications of technological development and economic changes mainly in the twentieth-century United States. By analyzing the regulation, manipulation, and presentation of food color, her current book project links... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Consumer Behavior; Agribusiness; Food And Environment; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Business And Government; Advertising; Goods and Commodities; Food; History; Government and Politics; Marketing; Business and Government Relations; Advertising Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Chemical Industry; United States

December 2016
Supplement

Ron Johnson: A Career in Retail

By: Ryan Raffaelli, Joshua D. Margolis and Das Narayandas

This is a video supplement, to be used when teaching the Ron Johnson case. See abstract:

In April 2013, Ron Johnson (HBS '84) stepped down after just 18 months as CEO of J.C. Penney. In his brief tenure, Johnson, an acclaimed retailer respected for his... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Leadership Development; Legal Industry; Procurement; Professional Service Firms; Pricing; Competition; Organizational Behavior; Change Management; Innovation Leadership; Situation or Environment; Failure; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Retail Industry; United States

July 2018
Teaching Note

Ron Johnson: A Career in Retail

By: Ryan Raffaelli

In April 2013, Ron Johnson (HBS '84) stepped down after just 18 months as CEO of J.C. Penney. In his brief tenure, Johnson, an acclaimed retailer respected for his innovation and success in shaping the retail image at Target and Apple, introduced dramatic departures... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Leadership Development; Legal Industry; Procurement; Professional Service Firms; Pricing; Competition; Organizational Behavior; Change Management; Innovation Leadership; Situation or Environment; Failure; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Retail Industry; United States

March 2015
Case

Tim Keller at Katzenbach Partners LLC (A) (Abridged)

By: Boris Groysberg and James Weber

Tracks the first six months of a recent MBA grad, Tim Keller, at Katzenbach Partners, a boutique consulting firm focused on organizational change and strategy. Covers how Keller initially struggles with his assignment and ends with a question of whether or not he... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Relations; Organization Behavior; Superior ＆ Subordinate; Managing Projects; Informal Organization; Consulting; Professional Services; Leadership; Work-Life Balance; Decision Choices and Conditions; Organizations; Rank and Position; Product Development; Service Industry; Consulting Industry

Research Summary

Overview

My research is at the intersection of organizational strategy, global sustainability governance, and social change. It explores the diffusion of sustainability standards to non-traditional sectors (e.g. jewelry, cannabis, plastics, pets) and the relationship between... View Details

April 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Mastercard Labs (A)

By: Linda A. Hill, Sunil Gupta, Emily Tedards and Julia Kelley

When Ajaypal (Ajay) Banga became the CEO of Mastercard in 2010, he shifted the company’s competitive focus from card networks to cash itself. Mastercard’s new vision of a “World Beyond Cash” distilled into a three-pronged framework: Grow the core business, Diversify... View Details

June 2013
Case

The World Economic Forum's Global Leadership Fellows Program

By: Rakesh Khurana and Eric Baldwin

This case examines a distinctive leadership development program within the World Economic Forum. The program, born out of the conviction that the complexity of global challenges at the beginning of the 21st century required a new generation of global leaders, recruited... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Leadership Skills; Training; Global Organizations; Global Leadership; World Economic Forum; Globalization; Leadership; Leadership Development; Leadership Style; Leading Change

01 Dec 2020
News

Steady as She Goes

120,000 employees came to work concerned that best-available safety protocols would not be enough to protect them from a little-understood novel coronavirus. “But now it has evolved into a real moment of pride for us,” Weckert reflects. “We are an essential service and... View Details

Keywords: April White; COVID-19; change management; leadership; women; grocery stores; Food and Beverage Stores; Retail Trade

December 2017 (Revised March 2018)
Case

Kellogg Company/eighteen94 capital

By: David Bell, Damien McLoughlin and Natalie Kindred

With 33,000 employees and revenues of $13 billion in 2016, Kellogg Company was the world’s largest producer of branded packaged cereal and a leader in branded convenience foods. Founded in 1906 and based in Michigan, the company had a proud history of product and... View Details

Anjali... View Details

October 2017 (Revised August 2020)
Case

RB

By: Joshua Margolis, Vincent Dessain and Jerome Lenhardt

As 2016 was approaching its end, Rakesh Kapoor, CEO of RB, one of the world’s major fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, envisioned the prospect of a major acquisition that would add a line of health-related products that promised growth in the developing... View Details

Keywords: Organization Behavior; Corporate Culture; Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Growth; Geographic Development; Mergers and Acquisitions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Growth and Development Strategy; France

April 2008
Case

Campbell and Bailyn's Boston Office: Managing the Reorganization

By: Anne Donnellon and Dun Gifford Jr

Ken Winston, the regional sales manager at a securities brokerage firm, has reorganized his generalist salespeople into Key Account Teams (KAT) to increase sales of specialized, higher-margin fixed income products. Winston is also implementing a new corporate... View Details