Publications

2021
Working Paper

Venture Capital's 'Me Too' Moment

By: Sophie Calder-Wang, Paul A. Gompers and Patrick Sweeney

In this paper, we document the historically low rate of hiring of women in the venture capital sector. We find that the high-profile Ellen Pao v. Kleiner Perkins gender discrimination trial had dramatic treatment effects. In difference-in-differences regressions, we... View Details

Keywords: Gender Discrimination; Founders; Venture Capital; Selection and Staffing; Gender; Lawsuits and Litigation

Find at Harvard

March 2021
Supplement

Applied: Using Behavioral Science to Debias Hiring (B)

By: Ashley Whillans and Jeff Polzer

At the end of 2018, Applied faced questions of stakeholder management and scale. Glazebrook wanted clients to get rid of CVs altogether. To do this, they would have to help hiring managers and recruiters easily build task-based assessments of the skills that their... View Details

Keywords: Hiring; Bias; Behavioral Science; Selection and Staffing; Prejudice and Bias; Information Technology; Competency and Skills

August 2015 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Clover Food Lab: Building Out the Team

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Christopher Payton and Ali Huberlie

Keywords: Hiring; Firing; Foodservice Industry; Business Startups; Selection and Staffing; Resignation and Termination; Food; Food and Beverage Industry; Boston

Educators

22 Jul 2015
News

Supporting a Return to Work for Women Execs

For women executives, having both career and family can mean making hard choices. When it comes to caring for family, more women typically choose to take on this responsibility than men, and, in doing so, accept that it might not be possible to keep their career... View Details

Keywords: Constantine von Hoffman; Goldman Sachs; Reuters; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

17 Dec 2001
Research & Ideas

Enterprising Women

meant making quick, difficult staffing decisions when some of her colleagues weren't able to grow with the company. "It took a long time to get funding," she continued, recalling that she was eight months pregnant when she made... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

July 2020
Supplement

PeopleAnswers (B): The Infor Acquisition

By: Daniel P. Gross

In the fall of 2009, founder and CEO Gab Goncalves has turned PeopleAnswers, Inc. from a fledgling startup to a steadily growing company of nearly 50 employees and $10 million recurring revenue. PeopleAnswers provides people analytics software which its clients use to... View Details

Keywords: People Analytics; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Growth and Development; Human Resources; Selection and Staffing; Mergers and Acquisitions

05 Mar 2020
News

To Reduce Gender Bias, Anonymize Job Applications

November 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Dewberry Capital

By: William J. Poorvu

In 2003, key executives of Dewberry Capital, a fast-growing, Atlanta-based real estate company, are evaluating their growth strategy and the resultant organizational issues. John Dewberry, the entrepreneurial founder of the firm, has developed a portfolio of... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Selection and Staffing; Business Growth and Maturation; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Real Estate Industry; Atlanta

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March 1993
Supplement

Praxair: Creating a Board (B)

By: Jay W. Lorsch

Discusses the final formation of Praxair's board. Lists the members chosen with their backgrounds. Also describes the selection process of board members, and the structure and process of board meetings. View Details

Keywords: Conferences; Governing and Advisory Boards; Selection and Staffing; Management Practices and Processes

Find at Harvard

December 1997 (Revised January 1998)
Exercise

COO and Country Manager Job Selection Exercise

By: Hugo Uyterhoeven

From seven candidates, students must choose two who are most qualified for the COO position at an entrepreneurial Danish multinational organization, and two who are the best choices for country manager in Vietnam for the company. View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Experience and Expertise; Multinational Firms and Management

13 Jun 2016
News

JetBlue Chairman on How to Handle Betrayal

say how did I participate in this? I think that gives you insight and sort of the first ability to start approaching it in a way that allows you to heal.” If the betrayals are fixable, Peterson says they must be addressed quickly, so as not to “fester.” For businesses,... View Details

June 2014 (Revised March 2017)
Teaching Note

Chorus and Telecom: Building the Boards

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott

In 2011, Telecom, the largest telecom provider in New Zealand, was being divided into two publicly traded companies. In connection with this split, Sarah Naudé and Matt Stanley worked with the chairman of Telecom New Zealand, Wayne Boyd, to create two new boards of... View Details

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Women's Empowerment; Governance; Leadership; Selection and Staffing; Organizational Structure; Decision Making; Human Resources; Diversity; Telecommunications Industry; New Zealand

2024
Working Paper

Private Equity and Digital Transformation

By: Brian K. Baik, Wilbur Chen and Suraj Srinivasan

We study the role which private equity (PE) plays in digital transformation. We find that PE investment is associated with greater investments into portfolio firm’s digital technologies, as measured by IT expenditures and the hiring demand for AI skills. This... View Details

Keywords: Digital Transformation; Private Equity; Selection and Staffing; Investment Portfolio; Value Creation

2019
Working Paper

Who Should Select New Employees, Headquarters or the Unit Manager? Consequences of Centralizing Hiring at a Retail Chain

By: Carolyn Deller and Tatiana Sandino

We examine how changing the allocation of hiring decision rights in a multiunit organization affects employee-firm match quality, contingent on a unit’s circumstances. Our research site, a US retail chain, switched from a decentralized hiring model (hiring by business... View Details

Keywords: Control; Selection; Decentralization; Company Values; Retail Chains; Decision Making; Economics; Geography; Employees; Selection and Staffing; Organizational Design; Situation or Environment; Retail Industry

SSRN

January 16, 2023
Article

40 Ideas to Shake Up Your Hiring Process

By: Joseph Fuller, Nithya Vaduganathan, Allison Bailey and Manjari Raman

Many companies today are struggling to hire and retain talent, but more often than not the problem is self-inflicted: They’re simply not using a broad enough array of tools, sometimes because they don’t even know the tools exist. In this article, the authors list 40... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Retention; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing