Actionable Knowledge - Publications - Faculty & Research

02 Feb 2010
First Look

First Look: Feb. 2

independent and dispersed contributors made highly interdependent contributions to the design of a single technical system (or sub-system). Based on a detailed analysis of the latter 28, we introduce the concept of actionable transparency... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

09 Feb 2009
Research & Ideas

Uncompromising Leadership in Tough Times

long-term study of successful CEOs, some of them outlined in the August 2008 Harvard Business Review article, "The Uncompromising Leader," cowritten with Russell A. Eisenstat, Nathaniel Foote, Tobias Fredberg, and Flemming Norrgren. He also offers HBS Working... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

19 Dec 2005
Research & Ideas

Public Education Goes to School

an action plan to implement back home what they've learned on campus. We then visit each district a few months later to check on the progress of their action plans, and to identify topics to study in the... View Details

Keywords: by Mallory Stark; Education

27 Sep 2010
Research & Ideas

Customer Experts Lose Influence When Teams are Pressured

some people's inputs count more than their actual knowledge warrants, to the detriment of the project. The problem is common—and avoidable, says HBS professor Heidi K. Gardner, who has developed and tested a theory of pressure on teams... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

28 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

Shareholders Key to Corporate Reform

people are held accountable for their actions as individuals rather than as a group, they tend to weigh their choices more carefully.—Cynthia A. Montgomery and Rhonda Kaufman Make directors accountable to shareholders. One compelling way... View Details

Keywords: by Cynthia A. Montgomery & Rhonda Kaufman

17 Dec 2020
Research & Ideas

The 10 Most Popular Stories of 2020

that eight of the 10 most-read HBS Working Knowledge stories of the year were COVID-focused. Readers sought insights from HBS faculty about everything from managing large-scale remote work to leading during a crisis. The year was also... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

27 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

Employee-Suggestion Programs That Work

fixing easy-to-solve problems had greater improvement in safety climate than those focused on identifying a bunch of hard-to-solve ones. "To our knowledge, this tradeoff between analysis and action in process improvement programs has not... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Guttry

02 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 2

corporate directors' fiduciary duties in that state. This change limited incentives to take actions favoring equity over debt. We show that, as predicted, this increased the likelihood of equity issues, increased investment, and reduced... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

06 Jun 2005
Research & Ideas

Microsoft vs. Open Source: Who Will Win?

was in cahoots with Microsoft. Our model indicates that if buyers are sufficiently forward-looking, such actions may jeopardize the ability of Linux to continue as an effective competitor in the operating system space. We also look at the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

19 Mar 2006
Research & Ideas

Do I Dare Say Something?

As every company knows, employees are its greatest resource. It's more than a shame, then, that many workers are either not encouraged or afraid to speak up and communicate ideas at work. Employers are losing valuable knowledge and... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

19 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

Rupert Murdoch and the Seeds of Moral Hazard

directors should ask the critical questions and debate whether it has sufficient visibility into the CEO's leadership style, interpersonal skills, and norm-setting/role-modeling behaviors. This debate will allow the board to assess its degree of View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Journalism & News; Publishing

14 May 2020
Research & Ideas

What Leaders Can Do to Fight the COVID Fog

goes, ‘Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its students.’ So, if time is of the essence, how to best think and frame the problems we need to solve with our teams to survive this crisis? What is sequence of those View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

15 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Find Your Pragmatic Path through Radical Uncertainty

Review) A Pandemic Won’t Kill The Open Office, But Slack Could (Vanity Fair) Read COVID-19 coverage from Working Knowledge “How do I spend my time and my money” is a question that requires rethinking during a time of crisis. Thus, the... View Details

Keywords: by Howard Stevenson, Eugene B. Kogan, and Shirley Spence

10 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

Motivation and the Cross-Sector Alliance

member of the Mexico City Junior League Environmental Committee (JLCM), explained that in the early 1990s "radical environmental groups arrived [at Tetra Pak] with a trailer full of empty containers and piled them up outside the plant. This type of View Details

Keywords: by James Austin, Ezequiel Reficco & SEKN research team

17 Oct 2006
First Look

First Look: October 17, 2006

believed that these holdout creditors created "collective action problems" and presented a major obstacle to successful sovereign debt restructurings. On the other hand, other observers argued that activist investors actually... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

29 Apr 2015
Lessons from the Classroom

Use Personal Experience to Pick Winning Stocks

able to find the diamonds—that's what separates the Warren Buffetts and Seth Klarmans out there. The first person to find the diamond gets the highest rewards." Outsmarting The Public Markets The trick to doing that is the difference between View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

25 Aug 2022
Research & Ideas

It’s All in a Name: Reputable Investors Help Startups Shine

decisions of whether to submit a job application, comparing the actions of those observing the badges with those who didn’t. The researchers found that exposure to information that a startup is backed by top VC investors increased job... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

08 May 2013
Research & Ideas

A Company’s Evolving View of Gender Equity

Emerita Deborah Kolb. "Despite bodies of knowledge about social institutions and social issues at the institutional and organizational levels, we know very little about how individual organizations experience and internalize gradual... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Accounting

11 Apr 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, April 11

one’s own knowledge attenuated reliance on algorithms. These tests are important because participants can improve their accuracy by relying more on algorithms (Experiment 4). Experiments 5 and 6 tested a mechanism for reliance:... View Details

03 Oct 2006
First Look

First Look: October 3, 2006

Building a Theoretical and Research Foundation, edited by J. Dutton and B. Ragins, 265-275. Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum, 2006 Abstract White-collar workers increasingly rely on group interaction rather than individual expertise to generate View Details