Publications

25 May 2011
HBS Case

QuikTrip’s Investment in Retail Employees Pays Off

Zeynep Ton goes behind the scenes to discover how the Tulsa, Oklahoma—based chain of convenience stores manages to outperform its competitors while maintaining a loyal workforce of over 10,000 employees. These workers enjoy above-average... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

2014
Working Paper

The Unfairness Trap: A Key Missing Factor in the Economic Theory of Discrimination

By: Jordan I. Siegel, Naomi Kodama and Hanna Halaburda

Prior evidence linking increased female representation in management to corporate performance has been surprisingly mixed, due in part to data limitations and methodological difficulties, and possibly to omission of a fairness factor in the economic theory of... View Details

Keywords: Managerial Roles; Fairness; Performance Productivity; Gender; Japan

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21 Aug 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, August 21, 2018

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=54887 forthcoming Production and Operations Management The Operational Value of Social Media Information By: Cui, Ruomeng, Santiago Gallino, Antonio Moreno, and Dennis J. Zhang... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

February 2009 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Jieliang Phone Home! (A)

By: Willy Shih, Ethan Bernstein and Nina Bilimoria

At Precision Electro-Tek's mobile phone manufacturing facility in southern China, thousands of operators—bright and capable young men and (mostly) women like Jieliang Hao—are motivated to improve line productivity through small innovations for faster assembly and have... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Job Design and Levels; Business Processes; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Manufacturing Industry; China

January 2021 (Revised March 2021)
Supplement

Toyota and Its Labor Union in Argentina (B)

By: Jorge Tamayo, Erik Snowberg and Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago

Toyota Argentina (TASA) and the union representing automotive industry workers in the country had been working together since 2011 to address the challenges faced by Toyota’s manufacturing plant in Zárate (Argentina). The strategy for moving forward was built on an... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing Performance; Production; Performance Improvement; Strategy; Labor Unions; Labor and Management Relations; Agreements and Arrangements; Strategic Planning; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Auto Industry; Argentina

31 Aug 2010
First Look

First Look: August 31

evidence for beneficial effects of both task change and start-of-day restarts on worker productivity. Together, these results offer insight into the underlying structure of productivity and suggest new ways... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2012
Article

Management Practices across Firms and Countries

By: Nicholas Bloom, Christos Genakos, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

For the last decade we have been using double-blind survey techniques and randomized sampling to construct management data on over 10,000 organizations across 20 countries. On average, we find that in manufacturing American, Japanese, and German firms are the best... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Competency and Skills; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Organizations; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Sectors; Performance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Private Equity; Multinational Firms and Management; United States; Germany; Japan; China; India

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2011
Working Paper

Management Practices Across Firms and Countries

By: Nicholas Bloom, Christos Genakos, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

For the last decade we have been using double-blind survey techniques and randomized sampling to construct management data on over 10,000 organizations across 20 countries. On average, we find that in manufacturing, American, Japanese, and German firms are the best... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Business Ventures; Public Sector; Private Sector; Country; Performance; Motivation and Incentives

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20 Oct 2015
First Look

October 20, 2015

fluctuations. We first exposit that in the presence of Cobb-Douglas production functions and consumer preferences, there is a specific pattern of economic transmission whereby demand-side shocks propagate upstream (to input-supplying... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

May–June 2023
Article

The High Cost of Neglecting Low-Wage Workers: Six Mistakes That Companies Make—and How They Can Do Better

By: Joseph Fuller and Manjari Raman

Many companies blame outside factors for the trouble they’ve been having in finding and retaining frontline workers: the pandemic, the government’s stimulus checks, the intrinsic nature of low-wage work. The authors argue that in fact the real problem lies in six big... View Details

Keywords: Retention; Recruitment; Human Capital; Personal Development and Career; Compensation and Benefits; Performance Productivity

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29 Sep 2003
Research & Ideas

Why Managing Innovation is Like Theater

clear objective. If you don't have a good fix on your destination—be it a product or service, a strategic or competitive outcome, or anything else—you may as well not start the journey. For a lot of your work, though, this so-called... View Details

Keywords: by Rob Austin & Lee Devin

February 2019
Teaching Note

Talent@Tencent

By: Tarun Khanna

Late in 2016, two senior human resources (HR) executives at Tencent Holdings (Tencent), China’s leading Internet services firm, are assessing the effectiveness of the company’s talent management practices in responding to Tencent’s sustained hypergrowth. Over the... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Employees; Retention; Entrepreneurship; Employee Relationship Management; Web Services Industry; China

11 Sep 2012
First Look

First Look: September 11

capital shortages, distributed urban territory to assuage losers of reform and promote economic growth. The findings suggest that 1) growth strategies, and the territorial politics they produce, are products of the post-Mao urban... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Feb 2013
First Look

First Look: Feb. 26

PublicationsCommentaries and Cases on the Law of Business Organization Authors:Allen, William T., Reiner Kraakman, and Guhan Subramanian Abstract This fourth edition is completely updated throughout. It now includes excerpts from important recent cases such as... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2014
Supplement

Quiet Logistics (B)

By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred

This two-part case focuses on how to identify and manage strategic uncertainties in an innovative, entrepreneurial start-up company. In the (A) case, students learn about Quiet Logistics, an e-commerce fulfillment company working with high-end apparel retailers such as... View Details

18 Oct 2012
HBS Seminar

Julie Battilana, Harvard Business School

November 2011 (Revised June 2012)
Case

The Big 3 Roar Back

By: William W. George

The "Big 3"—Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Chrysler—were all headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. Born between 1903 and 1928, they dominated the automobile industry in the U.S. for decades until they became complacent. In the 1970s they started losing share to... View Details

Keywords: Production; Labor Unions; Labor and Management Relations; Industry Clusters; Competitive Strategy; Auto Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Michigan

2016
Book

Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 17

By: Shane Greenstein, Josh Lerner and Scott Stern

The seventeenth volume of the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Innovation Policy and the Economy provides an accessible forum for bringing the work of leading academic researchers to an audience of policymakers and those interested in the interaction... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Governance; Policy; Economy

October 2014 (Revised June 2015)
Case

Quiet Logistics (A)

By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred

This two-part case focuses on how to identify and manage strategic uncertainties in an innovative, entrepreneurial start-up company. In the (A) case, students learn about Quiet Logistics, an e-commerce fulfillment company working with high-end apparel retailers such as... View Details