Publications
Publications
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(120,372)
- Faculty Publications (578)
- May 2018
- Article
The Downside of Downtime: The Prevalence and Work Pacing Consequences of Idle Time at Work
By: Andrew Brodsky and Teresa M. Amabile
Although both media commentary and academic research have focused much attention on the dilemma of employees being too busy, this paper presents evidence of the opposite phenomenon, in which employees do not have enough work to fill their time and are left with hours... View Details
- April 2018 (Revised January 2019)
- Case
WeWork
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Sarah Gulick and Matthew G. Preble
WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey was concerned about the culture of his rapidly expanding global venture. In particular, he wanted to ensure that WeWork continued to be a great place to work, both because he cared about WeWork's people and because a better work... View Details
- March 2018 (Revised July 2018)
- Case
Whole Foods Under Amazon
By: Dennis Campbell, Tatiana Sandino, James Barnett and Christine Snively
In August 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. Whole Foods was struggling with high costs and faced growing competition from traditional supermarkets offering more organic products. Prior to the acquisition, Whole Foods began rolling out a new... View Details
- March 2018 (Revised March 2019)
- Case
Gender and Free Speech at Google (A)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh, Martha J. Crawford and Sarah Mehta
In August 2017, Google fired James Damore, a 28-year-old software engineer who had been employed by the company since 2013. The move came after Damore penned an internal company memo titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” which posited that innate biological... View Details
- March 2018
- Case
TrustSphere: Building a Market for Relationship Analytics
By: Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly Baden
Manish Goel was the CEO of TrustSphere, a seven-year-old company in the data analytics industry that focused squarely on relationship analytics, a space in which TrustSphere was pioneering a unique technology and solutions in the areas of sales, risk, and people... View Details
- March 2018 (Revised March 2019)
- Technical Note
Control or Flexibility? Structured Empowerment Offers Both — Lessons from Retail & Service Chains
By: Tatiana Sandino
This note explains how several retail and service organizations use a practice described here as “structured empowerment” to balance control and flexibility as they grow. I define structured empowerment as a practice that grants employees both (a) the power to make... View Details
- March 2018 (Revised August 2020)
- Case
Alaska Airlines: Empowering Frontline Workers to Make It Right
By: Ranjay Gulati, Andrew O'Connell and Caroline de Lacvivier
This case documents the ongoing efforts by Alaska Airlines to enhance its efforts to become more customer centric by empowering its employees using a service framework. It explores how the airline starts with a completely hands-off approach to empowerment in which... View Details
- March 2018
- Article
Enacting Knowledge Strategy Through Social Media: Passable Trust and the Paradox of Non-work Interactions
By: Tsedal Neeley and Paul Leonardi
Despite the recognition that knowledge sharing among employees is necessary to enact knowledge strategy, little is known about how to enable such sharing. Recent research suggests that social media may promote knowledge sharing because they allow social lubrication and... View Details
- Article
Why Compliance Programs Fail: And How to Fix Them
By: Hui Chen and Eugene Soltes
Firms spend millions of dollars annually on whistle-blower hotlines, training, and other efforts to ensure adherence to laws, regulations, and company policies. Yet malfeasance remains entrenched in the corporate world. Why? Too many firms treat compliance as a... View Details
- January 29, 2018
- Article
How to Build Trust with Colleagues You Rarely See
By: Tsedal Neeley
Building trust is key to success for any organization. But that can be tricky when it comes to colleagues that you only interact with virtually. What does it take to build trust when you can’t meet in person? In this piece, the author suggests that professionals should... View Details
- January 2018
- Case
Scaling Swagbucks (A)
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble
In early 2014, Chuck Davis (HBS '86) has joined Swagbucks as its first professional CEO to scale a successful and profitable brand promotion and consumer research business. Davis came into the job while serving as a venture partner at TCV, a growth stage VC firm,... View Details
Keywords: Loyalty Management; Scaling; Scale; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Leading Change; Growth Management; Religion; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Transition; Leadership; Web Services Industry; Technology Industry
- January 2018
- Supplement
Scaling Swagbucks (B)
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble
“Swagbucks (B),” HBS No. 817123, picks up in mid-2014 following the events described in “Swagbucks (A),” HBS No 817122. Davis and Gorowitz were successful in their efforts to position the company for scale without negatively affecting the company’s foundational... View Details
Keywords: Loyalty Management; Scaling; Scale; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Leading Change; Growth Management; Religion; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Transition; Leadership; Web Services Industry; Technology Industry
- January 2018 (Revised February 2025)
- Teaching Note
Collage.com: Scaling a Distributed Organization
By: Christopher Stanton and Shikhar Ghosh
Teaching Note for HBS No. 817-038. View Details
- January 2018 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
People Analytics at McKinsey
By: Jeffrey T. Polzer and Olivia Hull
A private equity–backed fast food chain has hired McKinsey’s new People Analytics group to help it improve performance. As the final client workshop approaches, Associate Partner Alex DiLeonardo ponders the best way to present the team’s findings, especially those that... View Details
Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Customer Relationship Management; Forecasting and Prediction; Cost Management; Human Resources; Employees; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Measurement and Metrics; Performance; Performance Capacity; Performance Efficiency; Performance Evaluation; Performance Improvement; Consulting Industry; Service Industry
- Article
Does Financial Misconduct Affect the Future Compensation of Alumni Managers?
By: Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin and George Serafeim
We explore how an organization’s financial misconduct may affect pay for former employees not implicated in wrongdoing. Drawing on stigma theory we hypothesize that although such alumni did not participate in the financial misconduct, and they had left the organization... View Details
- December 2017 (Revised January 2018)
- Case
NatureSweet
By: Jose Alvarez, Forest Reinhardt and Natalie Kindred
This case describes the business model and workplace philosophy of NatureSweet, a privately owned, vertically integrated greenhouse grower and marketer of fresh tomatoes with sales across the United States and $329 million in 2016 revenues. CEO Bryant Ambelang treated... View Details
Keywords: NatureSweet; Tomatoes; Agriculture; Greenhouse; Ambelang; Cherry Tomatoes; Incentives; Worker Empowerment; Empowerment; Toyota Production System; Leadership; Branding; Produce; Manufacturing; Organizational Change; Agribusiness; Business Model; Employee Relationship Management; Working Conditions; Organizational Culture; Success; Problems and Challenges; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States; Mexico; North America
- November 2017 (Revised June 2019)
- Case
JOE & THE JUICE Crosses the Atlantic (with video link)
By: Ethan Rouen and Suraj Srinivasan
As JOE & THE JUICE began its rapid U.S. expansion in 2017, its founder and CEO, Kaspar Basse, fretted about how he could keep his employees feeling like they were doing meaningful work. Founded in 2001, JOE & THE JUICE had always focused on making healthy juices,... View Details
- October 2017 (Revised October 2020)
- Case
Coaching Makena Lane
By: Ethan Bernstein and Om Lala
Makena Lane has a gift for producing results, even in the challenging retail context of the 2010s, but she also has a knack for “ruffling some feathers” in the process. Recruited to a Fortune 500 grocery and pharmacy retailer after climbing to Associate Principal in... View Details
Keywords: Executive Coaching; Employee Promotions; Career Transition From Consulting To Operating Role; 360-degree Feedback; Retail; Organizational Behavior; Personal Strategy ＆ Style; Mentoring; Coaching; Talent and Talent Management; Growth and Development; Employees; Leadership Style; Leadership Development; Management Style; Performance Evaluation; Personal Development and Career; Retail Industry; Australia; Europe; Canada; South Africa; United States; Asia
- September 2017
- Article
Winning the War for Talent: Modern Motivational Methods for Attracting and Retaining Employees
By: Anais Thibault-Landry, Allan Schweyer and Ashley V. Whillans
Given the struggle that many organizations face hiring and retaining talent in today's tight labor market, it is critical to understand how to effectively reward employees. To address this question, we review relevant evidence that explains the importance of workplace... View Details
- August 2017 (Revised February 2023)
- Case
Managing Diversity and Inclusion at Yelp
By: Michael Luca, Joshua Schwartzstein and Gauri Subramani
This case explores the industry-wide lack of employee diversity in the technology sector and Yelp’s decision to take a leadership position in identifying strategies to increase diversity. The goal of the case is to provide an opportunity for students to develop a... View Details