Publications

January 2004 (Revised February 2005)
Case

Timberland and Community Involvement (Abridged Version)

By: James E. Austin and James Quinn

When Jeffrey Swartz became the third generation in his family to lead the Timberland Co., he made community involvement an integral part of the company's strategy. Under Swartz's leadership, Timberland formed a close partnership with City Year, the national corps of... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Business and Community Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Strategy; Manufacturing Industry

August 1994 (Revised May 1995)
Case

Engineering Inspection & Insurance Company

By: Robert H. Hayes

Engineering Inspection & Insurance Co. (EIIC) is a small but highly successful company that offers machinery and boiler inspection and insurance services. After years of above-average growth and profits, both are retreating toward the industry average, policy delivery... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Business Strategy; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Insurance; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges; Insurance Industry; United States

June 2014
Case

Making Progress at IDEO

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Katrina Flanagan

This case focuses on different types of client relationships at IDEO, the value of these relationships for IDEO and clients, and the implications for IDEO designers' everyday experience of work. As new types of client work have shifted away from the more classic design... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Motivation and Incentives; Employees; Customer Focus and Relationships; Service Industry

05 Oct 2016
Research & Ideas

Why Don't More People Get Flu Shots at Work?

the start of the influenza season in the United States. “It’s quite strong evidence that just the natural course of your day bringing you by the flu shot clinic increases your likelihood of getting a flu shot” Getting employees to go to... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Health

December 2022
Article

Scarlet Letters: Rehabilitation Through Transgression Transparency and Personal Narrative Control

By: Erin L. Frey, Ethan Bernstein and Nick Rekenthaler

When employees commit transgressions, organizations often use tools of organizational control to prevent them from transgressing again. We investigate whether organizations can use transgression transparency to rehabilitate transgressors. Although making transgressions... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Workplace; Transgressions; Qualitative Research; Management Practices and Processes; Organizations; Employees; Reputation; Communication

Find at Harvard

01 Feb 2022
What Do You Think?

Is Concierge Management an Answer to the “Big Quit”?

culture on post-pandemic employee engagement and organization performance in his book Win From Within: Build Organizational Culture for Competitive Advantage. References: Natasha Bernal, “Remote workers are... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

18 May 2015
Research & Ideas

Advertisers Get Serious About Playing With Their Brands

talk or Kardashian talk and sometimes they go a little bit too far” Play involves both intentional interaction and turn-taking—and social media engagement between marketer and consumer certainly qualifies—making play an appropriate word... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Advertising

02 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Casino Payoff: Hands-Off Management Works Best

customers if they think it will result in more business down the line. You can see this in lots of different settings." Though Campbell, Martinez-Jerez, and Epstein found that tightly monitoring employees significantly reduces the amount... View Details

Keywords: by Dennis Fisher; Entertainment & Recreation

10 Mar 2021
Blog Post

COVID Killed the Traditional Workplace

doing what you can to foster it, your workforce will be more engaged and, in the long run, more productive. Remember that being compassionate doesn’t mean being a pushover. You can still lead your employees... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

03 Jul 2018
What Do You Think?

Should CEO Satya Nadella Cancel Microsoft’s Contract with ICE?

Madrolly When Should a Board Encourage a Triple Bottom Line Philosophy? Respondents to this month’s column provided a resounding “no” to the question of whether CEO Satya Nadella should accede to the wishes of a vocal minority of View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Computer; Technology

11 Oct 2004
Research & Ideas

Four Ways to Create Lasting Change

Many managers know that even when their firm launches a change initiative with great fanfare, it is tough to make the changes last. More often than not, employees wearily dismiss the initiative as another management fad. Soon enough,... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Eliminate Strategic Overload

As companies respond to intensifying competitive pressures and challenges, they ask more and more of their employees. But organizations often have very little to show for the efforts of their talented and engaged workers. By selecting fewer initiatives with... View Details

31 Mar 2002
Research & Ideas

You’re Wasting Your Employees! What You Can Do About It

operations of any company that wishes to flourish in the new age. And yet, a decade of organizational delayering, destaffing, restructuring, and reengineering has produced employees who are more exhausted than empowered, more cynical than... View Details

Keywords: by Christopher A. Bartlett & Sumantra Ghoshal

11 Jan 2016
Research & Ideas

Is Group Loyalty a Force for Good or Evil?

See Evil or Engage in It. The paper—written with HBS colleague Max Bazerman, Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration; and Angus Hildreth, a doctoral candidate studying organizational behavior at UC Berkeley’s Haas School... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

2023
Working Paper

LALIGA—From a Soccer Competition Organizer to a Global Player in the Sports and Entertainment Industry

By: Stephen A. Greyser, Kenneth Cortsen and Juan Fuentes Fernández

LALIGA, the first- and second-tier professional soccer league (known as “football” outside of the U.S. and Canada) in Spain, enters its 100th soccer season later this decade. The most popular game in the world (Giulianotti, 2012) has gone through many changes since... View Details

Keywords: Soccer; ＂Sports Organizations,; Business History; Strategy; Brands and Branding; Technology Adoption; Sports Industry

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Research Summary

Overview

By: Ashley V. Whillans

Engaged with field work in East Africa, South Asia, and in several large hybrid organizations in the United States, Professor Whillans places a focus on exploring questions with strong theoretical motivation in the social psychological literature and relevant... View Details

04 Apr 2005
What Do You Think?

Can an Organization’s “Deep Smarts” Be Preserved?

but only by the firms that have employee longevity and a valued ... way of life." This may not mean retaining everyone, however, as Horacio Cavallero suggests in commenting that "I have always thought that it was very important... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

November 2009 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Miles Everson at PricewaterhouseCoopers

By: Robert G. Eccles and David Lane

Miles Everson, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), is the Global Engagement Partner (GEP) for a large U.S. financial institution and about to take over this role for a much larger global financial institution. The GEP role is a critical one at PwC. GEPs have... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Customer Relationship Management; Globalized Firms and Management; Managerial Roles; Consulting Industry