Publications

17 Feb 2022
Book

When Employees Feel a Sense of Purpose, Companies Succeed

many took as the key to their business success. More recently, the limitations of “strong” cultures have come into focus. As important as conformity is, leaders and companies have recognized that View Details

Keywords: by Ranjay Gulati

December 8, 2023
Article

What Makes a Company Great at Producing Leaders?

By: Sarah Abbott, Robin Abrahams and Boris Groysberg

GE is well known as an “academy company”—a talent incubator that exports effective leaders to other organizations and even industries. To better understand which companies are top talent incubators today, the authors worked with the Official Board, a firm that provides... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Talent and Talent Management; Training; Organizational Culture

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December 1999 (Revised May 2000)
Case

Morgan Stanley: Becoming a "One-Firm Firm"

By: M. Diane Burton, Thomas J. DeLong and Katherine Lawrence

John Mack, the newly appointed president of Morgan Stanley, feels strongly that the firm needs to change in order to compete in a changing investment banking environment. Mack and his senior team undertake initiatives in order to transform the culture and working style... View Details

Keywords: Human Resources; Goals and Objectives; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Competitive Strategy

April 2018 (Revised January 2019)
Case

WeWork

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Sarah Gulick and Matthew G. Preble

WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey was concerned about the culture of his rapidly expanding global venture. In particular, he wanted to ensure that WeWork continued to be a great place to work, both because he cared about WeWork's people and because a better work... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Employee Relationship Management; Working Conditions

Article

The Contingent Nature of Public Policy and the Growth of U.S. Commercial Banking

By: Christopher Marquis and Zhi Huang

That public policy affects organizational behaviors is well accepted, but less explored is how these effects may depend on other external environmental factors. We investigate how policy is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to understand the growth of... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Organizational Culture; Strategy; Commercial Banking; Growth and Development Strategy; United States

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2023
Article

Conduit Incentives: Eliciting Cooperation from Workers Outside of Managers' Control

By: Susanna Gallani

Can managers use monetary incentives to elicit cooperation from workers they cannot reward for their efforts? I study “conduit incentives,” an innovative incentive design, whereby managers influence bonus-ineligible workers’ effort by offering bonus-eligible employees... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior Modification; Peer Monitoring; Persistence Of Performance Improvements; Crowding Out; Implicit Incentives; Compensation; Healthcare; Social Pressure; Image Motivation; Incentives; Motivation; Performance; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Compensation and Benefits; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Organizational Culture; Health Industry; California

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03 Sep 2019
Cold Call Podcast

At Booking.com, Innovation Means Constant Failure

Keywords: Re: Stefan H. Thomke; Travel

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Code of Change

Two dramatically different approaches to organizational change are being employed in the world today, according to our observations, research, and experience. We call these Theory E and Theory O of change. Like all managerial action,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer & Nitin Nohria

Research Summary

Research Overview

Globalization and innovation are two key forces that will shape individual and business success in the 21st century. To thrive, individuals and organizations must collaborate effectively across cultural lines to solve pressing business problems and develop new products... View Details

November 2020 (Revised March 2022)
Teaching Note

Social Salary Setting at Spiber

By: Ashley Whillans and John Beshears

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 920-050. The case tells the story of Spiber, a Japanese technology start-up company. To reflect the company’s values, the leadership team implemented a new and unique salary-setting process: each employee had the authority to choose their... View Details

Keywords: Compensation; General Management; Employee Benefits; Incentives; Motivation; Compensation and Benefits; Fairness; Motivation and Incentives; Management; Happiness; Negotiation; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Japan

February 2017
Case

Eve Hall: The African American Investment Fund in Milwaukee

By: Steven Rogers and Alterrell Mills

The case highlights the role of minority chambers of commerce and the background of Eve Hall, a well-regarded multi-sector leader asked to revive Wisconsin's African-American chamber. This case study examines the lending options that a minority chamber of commerce... View Details

23 Jul 2012
Research & Ideas

The Power of Conversational Leadership

the company." Borne of those interviews, the book advocates an approach called "organizational conversation," which applies to all processes a company uses to circulate information across the organization, rather than just from the top down. "It's about creating a... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

April 1998 (Revised November 1999)
Case

Hambrecht & Quist

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Nicole Tempest

Hambrecht & Quist (H&Q), an investment bank headquartered in San Francisco, has a very unique culture relative to its Wall Street counterparts. Firm members and even competitors describe the culture as entrepreneurial, team-driven, non-bureaucratic, and... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Investment Banking; Growth and Development Strategy; Emerging Markets; Organizational Culture; Competitive Advantage; Banking Industry; San Francisco

June 2008 (Revised April 2013)
Case

Bernd Beetz: Creating the New Coty

By: Geoffrey Jones and David Kiron

Considers the creation of the world's largest fragrance company by Bernd Beetz, appointed chief executive of Coty Inc. in 2001. In 1990 the German consumer goods company Benkiser began acquiring fragrance and cosmetics brands with the intent of developing a beauty... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Entrepreneurship; Globalized Firms and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Germany; United States

August 2014
Case

Opening the Valve: From Software to Hardware (A)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats

Valve, one of the world's top video game software companies, has also become an iconic example of an organization with virtually no hierarchy. A 400-person organization, Valve's unique organizational form (described in detail in the case and accompanying employee... View Details

16 Feb 2010
Research & Ideas

The Outside-In Approach to Customer Service

their culture so that some of these ideas begin to permeate and shape the behaviors and actions of their employees. Level 4: At level 4, firms become agnostic about whether they produce all the inputs they provide to their customers and,... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Consumer Products

Research Summary

Trust

By: Sandra J. Sucher

In this research, I aim to provide a practical orientation to trust—how to build it, how it can be damaged, how it might be repaired—grounded in my experience as an executive and in the research on organizational trust and moral philosophy. As a case researcher, I... View Details

July 2022
Teaching Note

Arçelik (A), (B): From a Dealer Network to an Omnichannel Experience

By: Ayelet Israeli, Fares Khrais and Menna Hassan

Arçelik Turkey, the country’s market leader in household appliances, was at an omnichannel crossroads in January 2020. Arçelik was a B2B player utilizing a dealership network with an umbrella of brands and had one of the largest brick-and-mortar store networks in... View Details