Publications

SSRN

August 1981 (Revised December 1995)
Background Note

Orientation for Viewing ""Twelve O'Clock High""

Orients the student to the film "Twelve O'Clock High." Contains a list of the characters and exhibits summarizing the evolution of the organization structure of the 918th bomber group during the film. Also provides for student note taking on various stages in the... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure

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

2010
Working Paper

Integrity: A Positive Model That Incorporates the Normative Phenomena of Morality, Ethics, and Legality Abridged

By: Werner H. Erhard, Michael C. Jensen and Steve Zaffron

We present a positive model of integrity that, as we distinguish and define integrity, provides powerful access to increased performance for individuals, groups, organizations, and societies. Our model reveals the causal link between integrity and increased... View Details

Keywords: Trust; Performance Productivity; Information Technology; Knowledge; Moral Sensibility; Opportunities; Competitive Advantage; Legal Liability; Cost vs Benefits

SSRN

Article

Why Leadership Training Fails—and What to Do about It

By: Michael Beer, Magnus Finnström and Derek Schrader

U.S. corporations spend enormous amounts of money—some $456 billion globally in 2015 alone—on employee training and education, but they aren't getting a good return on their investment. People soon revert to old ways of doing things, and company performance doesn't... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership Development; Organizational Design; Employees; Business Processes; United States

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25 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Chasing Stars: Why the Mighty Red Sox Struck Out

sports, a two-year campaign to acquire star performers with extraordinary multimillion-dollar, multiyear contracts. “It seems like more and more in our economy, we believe if you were a star somewhere else, we can bring you over and right... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Sports; Banking

Article

GitLab: Work Where You Want, When You Want

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Kevin Crowston, Linus Dahlander, Marco S. Minervini and Sumita Raghuram

GitLab is a software company that works “all remote” at the scale of more than 1,000 employees located in more than 60 countries. GitLab has no physical office and its employees can work from anywhere they choose. Any step of the organizational life of a GitLab... View Details

Keywords: New Forms Of Organizing; Remote Work; All Remote; Virtual Organizations; COVID-19; Organizational Design; Employees; Geographic Location; Health Pandemics

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October 2003 (Revised November 2003)
Module Note

Organizing to Learn Module Note

By: Amy C. Edmondson

Teaches a framework for managing in dynamic or uncertain organizational contexts, designed for either MBA or Executive Education courses. Offers a new perspective on how managers can help stimulate and guide a collective learning process in their organizations. The... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Business Strategy

April 2005
Case

FBI: Mission Extended

Following the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, there was consensus that the FBI needed to make organizational changes. The FBI had long distinguished itself as the world's pre-eminent organization for conducting after-the-fact investigations that laid the... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Law Enforcement; United States

November 2003 (Revised October 2005)
Case

Leading the Josie Esquivel Franchise (A)

By: Boris Groysberg and Laura Morgan Roberts

Reviews Josie Esquivel's career history, detailing how, through her personal attributes, skills, experiences, and organizational practices she has developed into a star analyst. Should Esquivel accept an offer to leave Lehman Brothers for Morgan Stanley? To make this... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Decision Choices and Conditions; Resignation and Termination; Job Offer; Franchise Ownership; Performance; Personal Development and Career; Personal Characteristics; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage

03 Oct 2017
Sharpening Your Skills

7 Effective Ways to Lead Teams

Temporary Teams Lightweight organizational structure improves performance of ad hoc teams. It’s Not Nagging: Why Persistent, Redundant Communication Works Managers who inundate their teams with the same... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

June 2007 (Revised July 2007)
Case

Leslie Brinkman at Versutia Capital

By: Julie Battilana and Robert Steven Kaplan

Leslie Brinkman is the founder and CEO of a hedge fund, Genuity Capital. Leslie spent late 2002 and early 2003 assembling her team and launched the fund in early 2003. While the firm performed well during 2003 and 2004 (both in terms of returns and new assets), in 2005... View Details

Keywords: Management Style; Organizational Design; Performance Improvement; Groups and Teams

Teaching Interest

AMP 170 - General Management: Processes and Action

The Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program (AMP) helps drive corporate performance by honing individual capabilities to the highest level of performance. The result is a... View Details

22 Jan 2019
Interview

Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Curt Nickisch

Amy Edmondson, professor at Harvard Business School, first identified the concept of psychological safety in work teams in 1999. Since then, she has observed how companies with a trusting workplace perform better. Psychological safety isn’t about being nice, she says.... View Details

Keywords: Psychological Safety; Trust; Organizational Culture; Performance Effectiveness

May 2005 (Revised April 2010)
Case

GlaxoSmithKline: Reorganizing Drug Discovery (A)

By: Robert S. Huckman and Eli Strick

Describes the reorganization of drug discovery at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) following the formation of GSK from the merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham. This reorganization placed nearly 2,000 research scientists into six centers of excellence in drug discovery... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Choices and Conditions; Operations; Organizational Structure; Performance Improvement; Research and Development; Pharmaceutical Industry

31 Aug 2021
Book

Feeling Powerless at Work? Time to Agitate, Innovate, and Orchestrate

Although CEOs hold positions of power, many can feel powerless in certain ways—particularly when it comes to influencing the behaviors and performance of their employees. Yet perhaps they aren’t taking the time to understand what drives... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Code of Change

Two dramatically different approaches to organizational change are being employed in the world today, according to our observations, research, and experience. We call these Theory E and Theory O of change. Like all managerial action,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer & Nitin Nohria

Research Summary

Teamwork and Innovative Behavior with Professor Jeff Polzer and Hila Lifshitz

In a field setting, we explore how teamwork could enhance team members' interpersonal relationships and work performance. We collect longitudinal survey data and measure creative performance of a US company's employees before, during, and after they... View Details

May 2009
Case

Tokyo Electron Ltd.

By: Willy C. Shih and Andrew A. King

Tokyo Electron Ltd. operates in a constrained innovation environment, defined by modular boundaries that are long standing in the industry that it serves, the global semiconductor manufacturing industry. While the original motivation for these boundaries was division... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Markets and Industries; Governance Controls; Technological Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Boundaries; Manufacturing Industry; Semiconductor Industry

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March 2016
Article

Where in the World are the Workers? Cultural Underrepresentation in I-O Research

By: Christopher G. Myers

Few would dispute that the nature of work, and the workers who perform it, has evolved considerably in the 70 years since the founding of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) as the American Psychological Association's (APA's) Division 14,... View Details

Keywords: Global Organizations; Research; Industrial Organization; Organizations; Globalization