Publications

January 31, 2022
Article

Who Pays Tolls at Work and Who Cruises on an Open Highway?

By: Siri Chilazi, D. Kolb, Kathleen L. McGinn and Jessica L. Porter

As organizations continue to navigate a changed world amidst the Covid-19 pandemic and the reverberations of the Black Lives Matter movement, many of the issues that affect underrepresented groups in organizations, including women of all different races and... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Opportunities; Equality and Inequality; Social Issues

Register to Read

2011
Case

How Fast and Flexible Do You Want Your Information, Really?

By: Thomas H. Davenport and Jim Snabe

Almost all executives want more and faster information, and almost all companies are racing to provide it. What many of them are overlooking is that the real aim should not be faster information but faster decision making, and those aren't the same things. Executives... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Information; Service Delivery; Decision Making; Crisis Management

November 2024
Case

Demond Martin and WellWithAll

By: Hise Gibson, Archie L. Jones and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

This case study chronicles the transformative entrepreneurial path of Demond Martin, co-founder and CEO of WellWithAll, a health and wellness startup. Motivated by a pivotal life experience and deep concern for racial health inequities, Martin transitions from a... View Details

November 2020 (Revised February 2021)
Case

Wes Hall and the BlackNorth Initiative

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Marilyn Morgan Westner and Reza Satchu

Wes Hall founded Kingsdale Advisors and built it into one of Canada’s leading shareholder services and advisory firms. Influenced by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and a series of social injustices—specifically the death of George Floyd in police custody—Hall... View Details

Keywords: Racism; Cultural Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Diversity; Race; Social Issues; Ethics; Canada; North America

February 2020
Case

Bill Riddick and the Durham S.O.S. Charrette

By: Francesca Gino and Jeffrey Huizinga

Bill Riddick employs the charrette process to help black and white community leaders overcome differences and desegregate local schools in Durham, North Carolina. View Details

Keywords: Charrette; Schools; Desegregation; Education; Social Issues; Race; Leading Change; History; Durham; North Carolina

May 2022
Case

Timnit Gebru: 'SILENCED No More' on AI Bias and The Harms of Large Language Models

By: Tsedal Neeley and Stefani Ruper

Dr. Timnit Gebru—a leading artificial intelligence (AI) computer scientist and co-lead of Google’s Ethical AI team—was messaging with one of her colleagues when she saw the words: “Did you resign?? Megan sent an email saying that she accepted your resignation.” Heart... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Employment; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Technological Innovation

March 2019 (Revised July 2020)
Case

MoviePass: The 'Get Big Fast' Strategy

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel W. Fisher

In August 2017, MoviePass dramatically lowered its subscription price from $50 per month to just $10 for up to one movie per day. The idea was to rapidly scale the business to the point where they could generate incremental revenue streams from related businesses... View Details

Keywords: Market Entry; Growth Strategy; Profit Vs. Growth; Subscription Business; Cash Burn; Data Analytics; Get-big-fast; Buyer Power; Strategy Implementation; Movie Industry; Racing; Entrepreneurship; Market Entry and Exit; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Value Creation; Disruption; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; United States

27 Jul 2020
Book

Reflection: The Pause That Brings Peace and Productivity

first of the three fundamental approaches to reflection has traditionally been called contemplation, or downshifting from time to time. At work, many people tend to focus on output, and their minds act like View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

2022
Case

Marathon Petroleum and Southwest Detroit: The Intersection of Community and Environment

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Environmental racism describes the unequal burden of environmental hazards placed on disadvantaged communities through systems, policies, and practices. In such a situation, these people disproportionately live close to sources of toxic waste-what are referred to as... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Regulation; Pollutants; Pollution; Equality and Inequality; Social Issues; Poverty; Race; Health Disorders; Ethics

02 Jul 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Religion, Politician Identity, and Development Outcomes: Evidence from India

Keywords: by Sonia Bhalotra, Guilhem Cassan, Irma Clots-Figueras & Lakshmi Iyer

24 Nov 2020
Video

Managing Diversity: A Conversation Between Roger Ferguson, CEO of TIAA, and Hubert Joly, HBS Senior Lecturer

19 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

Racist Umpires and Monetary Ministers

pitcher throws the ball. How much would you expect the race of the umpire and the pitcher to determine the outcome of the call? That's the question Christopher A. Parsons, Harvard Business School visiting... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Sports; Information; Publishing

March 2022
Case

In Data We Trust: Be Mobile Africa and Furthering Financial Inclusion Across the African Continent

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Pierre Marchesseault

To Cédric Jeannot, leveraging technology to promote financial inclusion was personal. After no established financial institution would accept his technology platform to lower transaction costs for free, Jeannot launched FinTech company Be Mobile Africa in May 2020.... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Fintech; Emerging Market; Fundraising; Financial Inclusion; Strategy; Expansion; Management; Entrepreneurship; Personal Finance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; Africa; Togo; Nigeria; Ghana

31 Oct 2023
Research & Ideas

Beyond the 'Business Case' in DEI: 6 Steps Toward Meaningful Change

you can still profit while marginalizing groups of workers.” “It's about the fact that there are barriers to inclusion and there has been a history of exclusion and continuing View Details

Keywords: by Katherine Hutt Scott and Barbara DeLollis

January 2023
Article

Racial Diversity and Racial Policy Preferences: The Great Migration and Civil Rights

By: Alvaro Calderon, Vasiliki Fouka and Marco Tabellini

Between 1940 and 1970, more than 4 million African Americans moved from the South to the North of the United States, during the Second Great Migration. This same period witnessed the struggle and eventual success of the civil rights movement in ending institutionalized... View Details

Keywords: Civil Rights; Great Migration; History; Race; Rights; Prejudice and Bias; Government Legislation

Find at Harvard

June 2019
Case

The National Museum of African American History and Culture and Lonnie Bunch

By: Steven Rogers and Derrick Jackson

Lonnie Bunch creates the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) with only half the federal support given to the first 17 Smithsonian historical or zoological institutions. Bunch, to borrow from the African American experience of creating “a... View Details

Keywords: Museums; Fundraising; Arts; Buildings and Facilities; Ethnicity; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Strategy; Marketing; Success; Leadership; Entrepreneurship