Levers Of Control - Publications - Faculty & Research

02 May 2012
What Do You Think?

Can the “Leadership Industry” Fulfill Its Promise?

ability to learn from "repeated failure" (Shadreck Saili), "a quest for integrity" (Adriano Pianesi), a combination of ego control and "ambition for the institution" (Bruno... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

02 Jan 2020
Op-Ed

Medicare for All or Public Option: Can Either Heal Health Care?

The United States has serious health care problems: More than 27 million uninsured people, costs that are growing faster than income, and a staggering $37 trillion of unfunded liabilities in the Medicare program. Perhaps most alarming:... View Details

Keywords: by Regina E. Herzlinger and James Wallace; Health; Public Administration

09 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

These Employers Pay Higher Salaries than Necessary

might be implied by average per capita GDP.) After controlling for workers’ job experience, English proficiency, and other factors, first-time employers still paid a premium of 10 percent over experienced... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Employment; Technology; Computer

02 Apr 2010
What Do You Think?

Why Are Fewer and Fewer U.S. Employees Satisfied With Their Jobs?

Joyce Dias puts it, "People give up what they enjoy doing most in order to submit to the unnatural process of doing something— anything in order to earn their living." Combine this with research that cites a high correlation... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

10 Jun 2015
Research & Ideas

The Transparency Revolution in Corporate Reporting

has become more concentrated in recent years, with most of it now controlled by just 1,000 companies. That allows economies of scale and scope and very high returns View Details

Keywords: Re: George Serafeim

26 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

Women Entrepreneurs Use Springboard for Funding

personalize healthcare and benefits, and Carol Nacy of Sequella, Inc., a biotech firm focused on controlling global infectious diseases, especially tuberculosis. Most of the... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

09 Apr 2020
Research & Ideas

How Social Entrepreneurs Can Increase Their Investment Impact

Both impact investing and traditional philanthropy are on the rise after the decade-long economic boom following the Great Recession. But when does an impact investment make a bigger difference than a grant? The question is far more complicated than simply evaluating... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

16 Jan 2019
Research & Ideas

What Football Firings Teach Managers About Staying Relevant

explanatory variables, controlling for player quality, total team salary, total number of players used by the team during the season (a proxy for team injuries over the course View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg, Evan M.S. Hecht, and Abhijit Naik; Sports

29 May 2006
Research & Ideas

Why CEOs Are Not Plug-and-Play

and the needs of his or her new employer.Not all managers are equally suited to all business situations. The strategic skills required to control costs in the face of fierce... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg, Andrew N. McLean & Nitin Nohria; Employment

23 Mar 2016
Research & Ideas

Researchers Prove C-Suite Gender Gap—but Can’t Explain It

factors like chauvinism. They mostly failed. But in failing to find a quantifiable explanation, they succeeded to challenge a commonly held notion that the corporate gender gap can be attributed to observable, measurable, controllable... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

02 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

Food Stamp Entrepreneurs: How Public Assistance Enables Business Bootstrapping

Participation. He compared data for households that fell just above the SCHIP income eligibility threshold with those that fell just below it, before and after the program took effect. This mimicked the effect of experimental treatment... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

23 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 23, 2008

Media.) Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-039.pdf From Social Control to Financial Economics: The Linked Ecologies of Economics and Business in Twentieth Century America Authors:Marion... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

02 Dec 2019
What Do You Think?

How Does a Company like Boeing Respond to Intense Competitive Pressure?

schedules, and even safety, something has to be done. When combined with a loss of “voice” at lower levels in the organization, it can be lethal. In the view of some observers, that’s what happened recently... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Air Transportation

30 Jan 2017
Research & Ideas

Vanguard, Trian And The Problem With 'Passive' Index Funds

M. Viceira, the George E. Bates Professor and senior associate dean for International Development at Harvard Business School. “That raises the question, who is exercising control in these corporations?” In traditional mutual funds,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

15 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

The Founding CEO’s Dilemma: Stay or Go?

Noam Wasserman is an assistant professor and MBA Class of 1961 Fellow in the entrepreneurial management unit at Harvard Business School. His paper "Founder-CEO Succession and the Paradox of... View Details

29 Jun 2009
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Leading Change

retrenchment; think growth. Key concepts include: Companies that survive the financial crisis by identifying and exploiting innovation will serve as economic growth engines in the future—and will be the industry leaders of tomorrow. This... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

17 Jan 2017
Research & Ideas

Can China Maintain Its Economic Power?

from under Mao’s control before it could make the moves that ultimately enabled it to catch up. Under Deng Xiaoping and then Jiang Zemin, government support for economic expansion really took off. Q: What are your thoughts on China’s... View Details

Keywords: by Deborah Blagg

30 Apr 2001
What Do You Think?

Dot.Com Shakeout: Chess or Roulette?

small amounts of money for control of the most promising dot.coms subject to this fire sale? On another level, the question might be raised whether or not this game resembles... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

01 Jul 2019
What Do You Think?

Are Super Stretch Goals Only for the Very Young?

further growth, and essentially the loss of control of the company by the board, which was even required to remake its composition. At Volkswagen, eerily similar things... View Details