Publications

02 Feb 2007
What Do You Think?

Is There Too Little “Know Why” In Business?

that could not transition from a passion-driven enterprise to an execution-oriented enterprise." Paul Kohn pondered whether a sense of purpose wanes as an organization reaches a certain size. He commented: "It would be an... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

04 Mar 2015
What Do You Think?

Can a Laissez-Faire Approach Fix Labor Market Inequality?

Summing Up When Is It In An Employer's Self-Interest to Voluntarily Raise All Wages? A laissez-faire approach to fixing labor market inequality has widespread appeal, judging by responses to this month's column. For some it is an ideal,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

02 Jul 2014
What Do You Think?

Are Today’s Business Heroes Challenging Our Ideas About Leadership?

heroes of these large successful corporations, in spite of their dysfunctional 'leadership'." Today's leadership heroes, however, stimulated debate about just what constitutes leadership. It is an important discussion, as several pointed out. View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

01 May 2006
Research & Ideas

What Companies Lose from Forced Disclosure

work also provides insights into how firms can create employment contracts that are in step with company goals. This e-mail interview is based on two working papers by Autrey and colleagues Shane Dikolli and D. View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

September 2001 (Revised June 2005)
Case

Stevenson Industries (A)

By: John A. Davis and Kacie LaChapelle

Simon Carlson, chairman of the board of his family's fourth-generation industrial company, must decide how to deal with his conflict with the company's nonfamily CEO. Hired by the board just 15 months earlier to pursue growth more aggressively, CEO Paul Steel has upset... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Management Succession; Management Style; Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Teams; Rank and Position; Organizational Culture; Decision Making; Manufacturing Industry

07 Feb 2007
Research & Ideas

Dividends from Schumpeter’s Noble Failure

Business Cycles was Joseph Schumpeter's least successful book when measured by its professed aims and several other yardsticks. Yet the book contains two vital aspects that have largely been overlooked. First, the prodigious research that... View Details

Keywords: by Thomas K. McCraw

31 Jul 2015
Research & Ideas

The Faculty Reader: Who is Reading What This Summer?

perhaps history’s greatest leader in crisis, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson as well as Ryan Holiday’s instant classic The Obstacle is the Way. I have also been ramping... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Information; Publishing

11 Feb 2013
Research & Ideas

Neuroeconomics: Eyes, Brain, Business

fantasy but as a horror movie. "This season's biggest holiday extravaganza, 'The Polar Express,' should be subtitled 'The Night of the Living Dead,' " groused CNN reviewer Paul Clinton. "If I were a kid, I'd have nightmares," wrote Geoff... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

09 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

It’s Time to Reset Decision-Making in Your Organization

backlash from other organizational members. [div class=infogram-embed data-id=_/mcqxpioCi4O4ZaScUhLN][/div] In response to the broader perspective offered by his team’s devil’s advocate, one CEO shared that he took proposed... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott

19 Oct 2015
Research & Ideas

Business Research that Makes for Smarter Public Policy

went to Washington, I saw a tremendous need for fact-based analysis to inform policymaking” Last spring, Toffel sought to change that by taking the unusual step of convening academics and government regulators in the same room for a... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

October 2016
Case

The Quiet Ascension of LA Fitness

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

In 2016, LA Fitness was the largest chain of non-franchised fitness clubs in North America, operating 676 clubs, serving 4.9 million members, and generating revenues of over $1.9 billion. Founded by Chinyol Yi, Louis Welch, and Paul Norris in 1984, the privately held... View Details

Keywords: LA Fitness; Health Clubs; Fitness; Gyms; Chain; Exercise; Personal Training; Retention; Bally Total Fitness; 24 Hour Fitness; Planet Fitness; Buildings and Facilities; Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Customers; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Demographics; Age; Gender; Income; Residency; Borrowing and Debt; Capital; Capital Structure; Cash; Cash Flow; Cost; Private Equity; Financial Condition; Financial Liquidity; Financing and Loans; Investment Return; Price; Profit; Revenue; Geographic Location; Geographic Scope; Multinational Firms and Management; Business History; Employees; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Human Capital; Contracts; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Operations; Service Operations; Leasing; Private Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Sales; Salesforce Management; Situation or Environment; Opportunities; Sports; Strategy; Business Strategy; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Segmentation; Information Technology; Mobile Technology; Technology Platform; Health Industry; United States; California; Los Angeles

07 May 2008
Research & Ideas

The Intellectual History of Harvard Business School

theory" as advanced in the classic by Paul Lawrence and Jay Lorsch, Organization and Environment. This extraordinarily rich heritage has exercised an impact around the world and continues to inform the... View Details

Keywords: by Richard S. Tedlow; Education

24 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

Tax Reform is on the Front Burner Again. Here’s Why You Should Care

back in vogue in Washington D.C. House Republicans will start to fill in the details on a tax proposal ultimately expected to reach a thousand pages. The goal is to get the bill signed into law by President Donald Trump View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

06 Jul 2010
Research & Ideas

Renewable Energy: Winds at Our Back?

average winds, Cape Wind will provide three quarters of the Cape's and Islands' electricity needs." As the case details, however, before Cape Wind could realize its ambitions it first had to weather multiple regulatory, legal, and public relations hurdles, including... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Energy; Utilities

27 Sep 2004
Research & Ideas

How Leaders Build Winning Streaks

official responsibility for Continental Airlines' decision to keep flying during the power blackout in August 2003, but that decision was foreordained by the actions of all the other people who claimed leadership on the ground, and knew... View Details

Keywords: by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

01 Dec 2019
News

Bridging the Gap

successful,” says one Miami YALPer. Improving education for the city’s poorest populations could change that equation—but the ballot measure to fund the schools didn’t pass by a long shot. What went wrong? A participant from... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; illustration by Josh Cochran; photographed by Melissa Golden; cross sector collaboration; local government; nonprofits; education; leadership; Administration of Economic Programs; Government

06 May 2022
News

Professor David Moss: Strengthen

October 2009 (Revised March 2011)
Case

Qualcomm Incorporated 2009

By: David B. Yoffie, Andrei Hagiu and Elizabeth A. Kind

Paul Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Qualcomm Incorporated, smiled as he reflected on the success of Qualcomm's code division multiple access (CDMA) technology. By the summer of 2009, CDMA was the basis for all third generation technologies available for cellular... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Diversification; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Growth and Development Strategy; Telecommunications Industry