Publications

March 2022
Case

Skills-First Hiring at IBM

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah Mehta

This case reviews IBM’s efforts to widen its hiring funnel and broaden its talent pool. View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Experience and Expertise; Talent and Talent Management; Human Resources; Employees; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Jobs and Positions; Job Design and Levels; Job Interviews; Society; Social Issues; Technology Industry; United States; New York (city, NY)

May 2005 (Revised April 2006)
Background Note

Note on Innovation Diffusion: Rogers' Five Factors

By: John T. Gourville

Reviews Everett Rogers' Five Factors of product adoption. These factors help explain why some products diffuse rapidly and some slowly or not at all. View Details

Keywords: Technology Adoption; Innovation and Invention

08 Mar 2004
Research & Ideas

Creating Value in Your Business Ecosystem

Wal-Mart's and Microsoft's dominance in modern business has been attributed to any number of factors, ranging from the vision and drive of their founders to the companies' aggressive competitive practices. But the performance of these two very different firms derives... View Details

Keywords: by Marco Iansiti & Roy Levien

01 Nov 1999
Research & Ideas

John H. Patterson and the Sales Strategy of the National Cash Register Company, 1884 to 1922

John H. Patterson created an intricate system of management to monitor and train company salesman. He gave them scripts to memorize and assigned them territory to cover. He held conventions and thematic sales contests, and pressured salesmen to rid their regions of... View Details

Keywords: by Walter A. Friedman

09 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

Unilever—A Case Study

the United States in 1888 and by the turn of the century had three manufacturing plants in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, and Vicksburg, Mississippi. 4 The subsequent growth of the business, which was by no means linear, will be View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products; Entertainment & Recreation; Food & Beverage; Manufacturing; Retail

March 1983
Article

Brilliant but Cruel: Perceptions of Negative Evaluators

By: T. M. Amabile

Using edited excerpts from actual negative and positive book reviews, this research examined the hypothesis that negative evaluators of intellectual products will be perceived as more intelligent than positive evaluators. The results strongly supported the hypothesis.... View Details

Keywords: Social Psychology; Situation or Environment; Performance Evaluation; Perception; Status and Position; Attitudes; Prejudice and Bias; Power and Influence

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October 1982 (Revised May 1992)
Case

Johnson & Johnson: The Tylenol Tragedy

By: Stephen A. Greyser

In October 1982, Johnson & Johnson was confronted with a major crisis when seven deaths were attributed to poisoned Tylenol. The case reviews the facts as known a week after the incident occurred, and raises a wide range of questions regarding consumer behavior,... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Competitive Strategy; Crisis Management; Health Care and Treatment; Pharmaceutical Industry

June 2005 (Revised March 2006)
Background Note

Delivering Strategic Human Resource Management

By: Boris Groysberg, Andrew N. McLean and Cate Reavis

This note reviews the history of the human resources (HR) function and the strategic human resources management (SHRM) movement, wherein HR managers' aspired to be strategic partners with line managers. Reviews practices for implementing a strategic-business-partner... View Details

Keywords: Human Resources

26 May 2003
Research & Ideas

When Silence Spells Trouble at Work

Silence is associated with many virtues: modesty, respect for others, prudence, decorum. Thanks to deeply ingrained rules of etiquette, people silence themselves to avoid embarrassment, confrontation, and other perceived dangers. There's an old saying that sums up the... View Details

Keywords: by Leslie A. Perlow

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Strategy and the Internet

If average profitability is under pressure in many industries influenced by the Internet, it becomes all the more important for individual companies to set themselves apart from the pack—to be more profitable than the average performer. The only way to do so is by... View Details

Keywords: by Michael E. Porter

27 Nov 2006
What Do You Think?

What’s to Be Done About Performance Reviews?

Summing Up The topic of performance reviews triggers a wide range of complex responses. The fact that most of their strongest critics elected to reply anonymously to this month's column suggests that there are also political overtones to... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

September 2014 (Revised June 2017)
Case

Google Inc. in 2014

By: Benjamin Edelman and Thomas R. Eisenmann

Describes Google's history, business model, governance structure, corporate culture, and processes for managing innovation. Reviews Google's recent strategic initiatives and the threats they pose to selected competitors. Asks what Google should do next. View Details

Keywords: Search Engines; Google; Online Advertising; Internet and the Web; Network Effects; Business Model; Competition; Digital Marketing; Information Technology Industry; Advertising Industry

02 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Not All M&As Are Alike—and That Matters

We know surprisingly little about mergers and acquisitions, despite the buckets of ink spilled on the topic. In fact, our collective wisdom could be summed up in a few short sentences: Acquirers usually pay too much. Friendly deals done using stock often perform well.... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph L. Bower

February 1999 (Revised April 1999)
Case

Bain & Company, Inc.: Making Partner

By: Ashish Nanda

In June 1998, Bain's compensation and policy committee meets to review candidates for elevation to partnership. The case presents the profiles of four candidates and ends with the promotion committee debating the merits of the candidates. View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Personal Development and Career; Employees

25 Jul 2005
Research & Ideas

Fool vs. Jerk: Whom Would You Hire?

When given the choice of whom to work with, people will pick one person over another for any number of reasons: the prestige of being associated with a star performer, for example, or the hope that spending time with a strategically placed superior will further their... View Details

Keywords: by Tiziana Casciaro & Miguel Sousa Lobo

September 2018
Article

Aggregation of Consumer Ratings: An Application to Yelp.com

By: Weijia Dai, Ginger Jin, Jungmin Lee and Michael Luca

Because consumer reviews leverage the wisdom of the crowd, the way in which they are aggregated is a central decision faced by platforms. We explore this "rating aggregation problem" and offer a structural approach to solving it, allowing for (1) reviewers to vary in... View Details

Keywords: User Generated Content; Crowdsourcing; Yelp; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information; Internet and the Web; Learning; Mathematical Methods; E-commerce

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Read Now

June 1995
Supplement

Northern Telecom and Tong Guang Electronics (A2): Getting to Know Each Other

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Pamela A. Yatsko

Reviews subsequent events. View Details

Keywords: Telecommunications Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Canada; China

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February 1998 (Revised July 1998)
Case

Rob Parson at Morgan Stanley (A)

Rob Parson was a star producer in Morgan Stanley's Capital Markets division. He had been recruited from a competitor the prior year and had generated substantial revenues since joining the firm. Unfortunately, Parson's reviews from the 360-degree performance evaluation... View Details

Keywords: Management; Personal Development and Career; Performance Evaluation; Financial Services Industry