Publications

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July 2002 (Revised November 2002)
Case

Crucial Conversations

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Vineeta Vijayraghavan

Todd McKenna, a third-year associate at an investment banking firm, confronts his boss. His boss had told him he would be the top paid associate at the firm, and McKenna finds out that this isn't true. He approaches his boss to find out why he was lied to. View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Investment Banking; Executive Compensation; Employee Relationship Management; Rank and Position; Banking Industry

October 2001
Supplement

BMW AG: The Digital Auto Project-An Interview With Chris Bangle, Head of Global Design

By: Stefan H. Thomke

Chris Bangle describes how BMW is trying to reduce its development time by half with the aid of computer-aided technologies. To leverage these technologies in the very competitive automotive industry, he talks about how BMW is faced with the challenges of changing its... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Management Practices and Processes; Time Management; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Problems and Challenges; Competition; Information Technology; Auto Industry

June 2010
Article

Change for Change's Sake

By: Freek Vermeulen, Phanish Puranam and Ranjay Gulati

No one disputes that firms have to make organizational changes when the business environment demands them. But the idea that a firm might want change for its own sake often provokes skepticism. Why inflict all that pain if you don't have to? That is a dangerous... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Innovation and Invention; Leading Change; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Creativity; Power and Influence; Adaptation

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18 Jul 2024
Research & Ideas

New Hires Lose Psychological Safety After Year One. How to Fix It.

“Delivering patient care is one of those situations where timely speaking up can be a matter of life and death, or frequently a matter of high- or low-quality care.” “Psychological safety describes a belief that the work environment is safe for View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health

January 2008 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Comcast New England: A Journey of Organizational Transformation

By: Michael Beer and Anita Arun

This case describes how Kevin Casey, Comcast's New England Region general manager, transformed a low commitment and performance organization. When he took charge of this Comcast region he inherited an organization that was bureaucratic, had low customer satisfaction,... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Interpersonal Communication; Customer Satisfaction; Employee Relationship Management; Management Teams; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Performance Improvement; Telecommunications Industry; New England

June 2018
Case

Candor at Clever

By: Ethan Bernstein and Om Lala

Clever, a high-growth EdTech company based in San Francisco, had grown quickly in market share and headcount. As with many high-growth companies, however, early employees (many of whom had never managed people before) had been given the opportunity to manage teams, and... View Details

22 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Articles, Papers of the Decade

collection look at how to improve decision making, encouraging employees to speak up, and the difficulty of coordinating communication in a complex organization. Enjoy! Most Popular Articles 2000-2010 Creating a Positive Professional... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

13 Mar 2018
First Look

March 13, 2018

little is known about the interpersonal consequences of the advice-seeking process. In this paper, we investigate the interpersonal consequences when an advisor believes his or her advice will be ignored. We... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 1999
Article

Changes in the Work Environment for Creativity during Downsizing

By: T. M. Amabile and Regina Conti

This study examined the work environment for creativity at a large high-technology firm before, during, and after a major downsizing. Creativity and most creativity-supporting aspects of the perceived work environment declined significantly during the downsizing but... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Situation or Environment; Creativity; Resignation and Termination; Employees; Business or Company Management; Motivation and Incentives; Management Practices and Processes; Crisis Management; Groups and Teams; Communication; Announcements; Interpersonal Communication

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October 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Century Bank: Closing Time?

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Bill Kwon

Barry Sloane, second-generation Chairman, President, and CEO of his family’s bank, Century Bank, weighed whether to sell to Eastern Bank. As a small regional bank, Century faced a number of challenging trends, such as digitization and market share decline in the coming... View Details

15 Nov 2006
Research & Ideas

Lessons Not Learned About Innovation

innovation teams under too much bureaucracy, treating the innovators as more valued corporate citizens than those who work in the current business, and hiring leaders who don't have the relationship and communications skills necessary to... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

18 Jun 2013
First Look

First Look: June 18

influence-seeking risk managers (1) establish and maintain interpersonal connections with decision makers and how they (2) adopt, deploy, and reconfigure tools-practices that we define collectively as toolmaking. Using prior literature... View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

02 May 2012
What Do You Think?

Can the “Leadership Industry” Fulfill Its Promise?

"the sense" of the many comments in responses to this month's column. Leadership involves, among other things, "competence and interpersonal skill" (David Wittenberg), "visionary" and... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

18 Dec 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 18, 2018

Mitigating Malicious Envy: Why Successful Individuals Should Reveal Their Failures By: Brooks, Alison Wood, Karen Huang, Nicole Abi-Esber, Ryan W. Buell, Laura Huang, and Brian Hall Abstract—People often feel malicious envy, a destructive View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

July 2020
Teaching Plan

Girls Who Code

By: Brian Trelstad and Amy Klopfenstein

This teaching plan serves as a supplement to HBS Case No. 320-055, “Girls Who Code.” Founded 2012 by former lawyer Reshma Saujani, Girls Who Code (GWC) offered coding education programs to middle- and high school-aged girls. The organization also sought to alter... View Details