Publications

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November 2005 (Revised May 2007)
Case

Leading Change at Simmons (A)

By: Tiziana E. Casciaro, Amy C. Edmondson, Stacy McManus and Kate Roloff

Explores the challenge of managing large-scale organizational change at Simmons, an old and established company that manufactures and distributes mattresses. The new CEO, Charlie Eitel, hired to turn the organization's performance around, considers whether to implement... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Motivation and Incentives; Leading Change; Employee Relationship Management; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

June 2001
Teaching Note

Retail Operations TN

By: Ananth Raman

Describes the teaching objectives and content of the Retail Operations Module in the Coordinating and Managing Supply Chains elective course at HBS. First describes the motivation for developing a module on retail operations in a supply chain course and then addresses... View Details

Keywords: Curriculum and Courses; Operations; Supply Chain Management; Motivation and Incentives; Retail Industry

19 Jan 2023
Blog Post

11 Ways to Reengage Employees in the New Year

The new year is here and it’s time to “circle back,” reset, and reengage with your teams for 2023. To help you kick off the year on the right foot, here are eleven ways to keep employees motivated and engaged in the year ahead: 1. Support... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

2019
Working Paper

Relative Performance Transparency: Effects on Sustainable Choices

By: Ryan W. Buell, Shwetha Mariadassou and Yanchong Zheng

We study how transparency into the levels and changes of relative sustainability performance affects consumer choices. Our work considers two forms of transparency: process transparency, in which customers receive information about the company's sustainability... View Details

Keywords: Relative Performance Tranparency; Process Transparency; Customer Transparency; Levels; Changes; Reflectiveness; Self-serving Attribution Biases; Sustainability; Consumer Choice

SSRN

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Research Summary

Overview

Ovul Sezer focuses on the study of self-presentation and examines how people intuitively attempt to manage impressions of others. Her work examines both the actors and their motives underlying their self-presentation attempts, and consequences of such behavior. View Details

Video

Matt Segneri

July 2010 (Revised December 2010)
Case

Formosa Plastics Group: Business Continuity Forever

Wang Yung-ching, legendary Taiwanese businessman and philanthropist, passed away in 2008. He left behind an estate worth US $5.5 billion, but did not leave a will. The case discusses the potential motivation for Wang, and uses it to study succession planning for family... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Governance Controls; Management Succession; Family Ownership; Planning; Motivation and Incentives; Chemical Industry; Taiwan

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Porter’s Perspective: Competing in the Global Economy

Competitive advantage. Corporate strategy. The competitive advantage of nations. All over the world these terms quickly bring to mind the groundbreaking work of HBS professor Michael Porter, whose two decades of research on these and related topics have resulted in... View Details

Keywords: Re: Michael E. Porter

February 1989 (Revised August 1989)
Case

Portman Hotel Co.

A brand new hotel has opened with a new service strategy: import to America Asian-style service using a butler-like employee group called the personal valets. To achieve this high level of service, the hotel has paid great attention to its human resource policies,... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Service Delivery; Employees; Accommodations Industry; Asia; North America

10 Jan 2022
News

The Secret Ingredient of Thriving Companies? Human Magic.

Article

Friends or Foes? Examining Platform Owners' Entry into Complementors' Spaces

By: Feng Zhu

As platform owners continue to expand their ecosystems, many of them have started to provide consumers with their own complementary applications. These moves position the platform owners as direct competitors to their complementors. This paper surveys empirical studies... View Details

Keywords: Platform; Complementors; Digital Platforms; Market Entry and Exit; Competition

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22 Sep 2021
Blog Post

Student Spotlight: Jesse Lou (MBA 2022) – Working to Change the Food System

Jesse Lou (MBA 2022) reflects on his decision to come to HBS, what motivates him to make a difference in the world by using technology to build a more sustainable food system, and how he has utilized resources at HBS to make this happen.... View Details

Mitchell Tang

Mitchell Tang graduated in 2016 from the University of Pennsylvania, where he completed dual-degrees in computational biology and economics as part of the Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management (LSM). While at Penn, Mitchell was involved in research at the... View Details

November 1997 (Revised October 2001)
Background Note

A Note on Government Sources of Financing for Small Businesses

By: Paul A. Gompers and Catherine M. Conneely

Discusses issues related to government sources of financing for small business in the United States. In addition to presenting motivations for government financing programs, the note gives a detailed presentation of major federal programs to assist small business. View Details

Keywords: Corporate Finance; Business and Government Relations

September 2006
Article

Decomposing Trust and Trustworthiness

By: Nava Ashraf, Iris Bohnet and Nikita Piankov

What motivates people to trust and be trustworthy? Is trust solely "calculative," based on the expectation of trustworthiness, and trustworthiness only reciprocity? Employing a within-subject design, we run investment and dictator game experiments in Russia, South... View Details

Keywords: Trust; Change