Publications

Find at Harvard

14 Oct 2021
In Practice

Reunited and It Feels (Not) So Good: Tips for Managing a Rocky Return

employees, while maintaining the safety and flexibility to weather an uncertain path ahead. Jeffrey Polzer (@jeffpolzer) is the UPS Foundation Professor of Human Resource Management in the Organizational... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

April 1996 (Revised May 2008)
Exercise

Adam Baxter Company/Local 190: 1985 Negotiation Baxter Management Confidential Information

By: Kathleen L. McGinn and Victoria Medvec

ncludes a series of three negotiation exercises portraying management/labor relations at ABC over a period of seven years. ABC, initially a family-owned business, had prided itself on its cooperative relationship with its union, Local 190. With the skyrocketing... View Details

Keywords: Inflation and Deflation; Compensation and Benefits; Wages; Working Conditions; Management; Negotiation Process; Labor and Management Relations

May 22, 2023
Other Article

How to Manage Workforce Risk Amid Old Challenges, New Disruptions

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Michael Griffiths, Reem Janho, Michael Stephan, Carey Oven and Keri Calagna

C-suites and boards have an opportunity to improve management and expand governance of their workforce to mitigate related risks more effectively. View Details

Keywords: Employees; Risk and Uncertainty

12 Mar 2012
Research & Ideas

Crowded at the Top: The Rise of the Functional Manager

game-changers such as e-mail accounts, intranets, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. "You might expect that advances in information technology would increase the number of people you could View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

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

Keywords: Data Analytics; People Analytics; Talent Management; Human Resources; Networks; Relationships; Analysis; Employee Relationship Management; Core Relationships; Applications and Software; Communication; Technology Industry; Singapore

Educators

2017
Article

Making Transparency Transparent: The Evolution of Observation in Management Theory

By: Ethan Bernstein

Observation is key to management scholarship and practice. Yet a holistic view of its role in management has been elusive, in part due to shifting terminology. The current popularity of the term “transparency” provides the occasion for a thorough review, which finds... View Details

2008
Chapter

A New Generation of Pension Fund Management

By: Robert C. Merton

In talking about pension plans at this point in American economic and corporate history, we need to discuss three linked issues: the defined-benefit (DB) corporate plans that worked for our parents; the defined-contribution (DC) plans we're getting today because... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Investment Funds; Compensation and Benefits; Risk Management; Retirement; United States

06 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

The Right Way to Manage Customer Churn for Maximum Profit

bucket and in a little over three years all your current customers might be gone,” says Gupta, the Edward W. Carter Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. For that reason, many companies have a program to actively View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Retail; Service; Financial Services

August 2015
Teaching Note

Rana Plaza (C): Primark and Victim Compensation

By: John A. Quelch

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility; Business Ethics; Human Resource Management; Workplace Safety; Safety; Working Conditions; Supply Chain Management; Ethics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Human Resources

February 2014 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Go Mobile: Aligning District Managers and Store Teams

By: Tatiana Sandino

Indian cell phone retailer Go Mobile had implemented high-powered incentives to motivate its store employees to behave as owners and provide exceptional service. As the company scaled up, it faced multiple challenges in building a layer of district managers that were... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Growth Management; Organizational Design; Salesforce Management; Motivation and Incentives; Management Practices and Processes; Telecommunications Industry; India

Educators

07 Mar 2005
What Do You Think?

Should Business Management Be Regarded as a Profession?

Summing Up Many of this month's respondents appear to agree that business management is a profession, but certification will do little to influence its practice. Of course, we may have a bit of a response bias here, since respondents... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2016
Working Paper

Overcoming Institutional Voids: A Reputation-Based View of Long Run Survival

By: Cheng Gao, Tiona Zuzul, Geoffrey Jones and Tarun Khanna

Emerging markets are characterized by underdeveloped institutions and frequent environmental shifts. Yet they also contain many firms that have survived over generations. How are firms in weak institutional environments able to persist over time? Motivated by 69... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Voids; Intangible Resources; Business Ventures; Business or Company Management; Business History; Reputation; Emerging Markets

SSRN

25 Nov 2013
Research & Ideas

Hiding From Managers Can Increase Your Productivity

Companies all over the world have striven for transparency in the workplace, literally tearing down walls in an effort to let managers and employees observe each other. Take, for example, one of the 14 key principles of The Toyota Way,... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Manufacturing

February 2018 (Revised December 2020)
Supplement

People Analytics at Teach For America (Data Set)

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer

This data set is a supplement to the People Analytics at Teach For America (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Analytics; Human Resource Management; Data; Workforce; Hiring; Talent Management; Forecasting; Predictive Analytics; Organizational Behavior; Recruiting

17 Nov 2003
Research & Ideas

The Business Case for Diabetes Disease Management

Conference on November 7. Beaulieu's research focuses on many aspects of healthcare—including contracting, quality competition in managed care, and human capital management and performance measurement. At... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Health

04 Oct 2022
What Do You Think?

Have Managers Underestimated the Need for Face-to-Face Contact?

GenZers’ need for “connection” be any less than that of preceding generations? Has the pandemic so affected their outlook and behavior that they in turn will affect the way work is performed and businesses are organized and led? Have View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

1991
Article

How Management Bonus Plans Affect Reported Earnings

By: Paul M. Healy

Keywords: Management; Compensation and Benefits; Business Earnings

Find at Harvard

January – February 2008
Article

Managing the Impact of Employee Turnover on Performance: The Role of Process Conformance

By: Zeynep Ton and Robert S. Huckman

We examine the impact of employee turnover on operating performance in settings that require high levels of knowledge exploitation. Using 48 months of turnover data from U.S. stores of a major retail chain, we find that, on average, employee turnover is associated with... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Governance Compliance; Retention; Standards; Service Operations; Business Processes; Retail Industry; United States

Find at Harvard

2021
Book

Management as a Calling: Leading Business, Serving Society

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Business leaders have tremendous power to influence our society, how it operates, whether it is fair, and the extent to which it impacts the environment. And yet, we do not recognize or call out the responsibility that comes with that power. This book is meant to... View Details

Keywords: Business Education; Power and Influence; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Leadership