Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(463)
- Faculty Publications (58)
- 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
Keywords: Performance Feedback; Talent Development And Retention; Talent Management; Feedback; Difficult Conversations; Radical Candor; Scaling Start-ups; Scaling And Growth; Developing Effective Managers; Effective Managers; First-time Managers; Kim Scott; Clever; Bay Area; Silicon Valley; Interpersonal Communication; Talent and Talent Management; Human Resources; Leadership Development; Management Practices and Processes; Management Skills; Management Style; Organizations; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Conflict and Resolution; Technology Industry; Education Industry; San Francisco; United States
- January–February 2018
- Article
The Leader's Guide to Corporate Culture: How to Manage the Eight Critical Elements of Organizational Life
By: Boris Groysberg, Jeremiah Lee, Jesse Price and J. Yo-Jud Cheng
Executives are often confounded by culture, because much of it is anchored in unspoken behaviors, mindsets, and social patterns. But when properly managed, culture can help them achieve change and build organizations that will thrive in even the most trying times. In... View Details
- June 2017
- Case
AT&T Versus Verizon: A Financial Comparison
By: V.G. Narayanan and Joel L. Heilprin
This case asks students to prepare a report comparing the financial and operating performance of AT&T and Verizon. Taking the perspective of a communications industry analyst, they must also consider the differences between and implications of the companies' business... View Details
- June 2017
- Article
The Surprising Effectiveness of Hostile Mediators
By: Ting Zhang, Francesca Gino and Michael I. Norton
Contrary to the tendency of mediators to defuse negative emotions between adversaries by treating them kindly, we demonstrate the surprising effectiveness of hostile mediators in resolving conflict. Hostile mediators generate greater willingness to reach agreements... View Details
Keywords: Mediation; Conflict; Negotiation; Hostility; Negotiation Style; Emotions; Conflict and Resolution
- Article
The Economy of Fear: H.P. Lovecraft on Eugenics, Economics and the Great Depression
The early twentieth-century weird writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft is today best remembered for his genre defining style of academic noir pulp fiction. Yet in focusing on certain tropes of his work, such as the many memorable monsters he created to populate his... View Details
- September 2013 (Revised August 2015)
- Background Note
Leadership and Teaming
By: Ethan Bernstein
Small differences in the leadership of teams can have large consequences for the success of their efforts. Many initiatives fail not because of a fatal error in judgment or insufficient ideas, knowledge, motivation, or capabilities to deliver a solution. They fail... View Details
Keywords: Teams; Teaming; Leadership And Managing People; Leadership; Team Effectiveness; Team Performance; Team Design; Team Leadership; Teamwork; Team Process; Team Function; Team Launch; 60/30/10 Rule; Team Boundary; Distribution Of Leadership Authority; Self-Managed Teams; Virtual Teams; Unbounded Teams; Acts Of Leadership; Execution Teams; Decision Making Teams; Creativity Teams; Team Size; Task Design; Team Timeline; Team Roles; Team Representation; Diversity; Team Familiarity; Collective Intelligence; Team Stages Of Development; Team Coaching; Performance Pressure; X-Teams; Team Focus; Interaction; Management Teams; Managerial Roles; Management Systems; Management Style; Management Skills; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Efficiency; Performance Productivity; Groups and Teams; Networks; Social Psychology; Behavior; Conflict and Resolution; Creativity; Social and Collaborative Networks; Satisfaction; Prejudice and Bias; Power and Influence; Personal Characteristics; Familiarity; Cognition and Thinking; Attitudes; Projects; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership Development; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Knowledge Sharing; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Design; Interpersonal Communication; Accommodations Industry; Accounting Industry; Advertising Industry; Aerospace Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Air Transportation Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Auto Industry; Banking Industry; Battery Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Bicycle Industry; Biotechnology Industry; Chemical Industry; Communications Industry; Computer Industry; Construction Industry; Consulting Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Distribution Industry; Education Industry; Electronics Industry; Employment Industry; Energy Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Fashion Industry; Financial Services Industry; Fine Arts Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Forest Products Industry; Forestry Industry; Green Technology Industry; Health Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Information Industry; Information Technology Industry; Insurance Industry; Journalism and News Industry; Legal Services Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Mining Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Motorcycle Industry; Music Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Public Administration Industry; Public Relations Industry; Publishing Industry; Pulp and Paper Industry; Rail Industry; Real Estate Industry; Retail Industry; Rubber Industry; Semiconductor Industry; Service Industry; Shipping Industry; Sports Industry; Steel Industry; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Tourism Industry; Transportation Industry; Travel Industry; Utilities Industry; Video Game Industry; Web Services Industry; Asia; North and Central America; South America; Atlantic Ocean; Central Asia; Europe; Latin America; Middle East; Oceania; West Indies
- July–August 2013
- Article
The Costs of Racial 'Color Blindness'
By: Michael I. Norton and Evan P. Apfelbaum
The article looks at research on people's attitudes and behaviors with respect to noticing and referring to a person's race. It explains the 2013 study, in which participants played a "Guess Who?" style game of asking yes-or-no questions about a group of faces... View Details
- September – October 2011
- Article
Managing the Multiple Dimensions of Risk-Part II: The Office of Risk Management
By: Anette Mikes and Robert S. Kaplan
In the second article of our two-part series, we explore the concept of an Office of Risk Management along with a case study of an innovative risk management function at JP Morgan Private Bank. We also look at the "softer" components of risk management, including a... View Details
- May 2011
- Article
Effective Managers Say the Same Thing Twice (or More)
By: Tsedal Neeley and Paul Leonardi
How do effective managers get employees to act promptly? New research suggests that it's by making their requests at least twice. Though you may think redundancy is unnecessary and even a waste of time, a new study indicates that it helps your message cut through... View Details
- September 2010 (Revised December 2022)
- Case
Recruiting Andrew Yard (A)
By: Brian J. Hall, Nicole S. Bennett and Sara del Nido
This case describes a compensation negotiation between a global HR director and a candidate for a high-level executive position. The situation becomes awkward when the candidate feels insulted because he is given a monetary incentive to join the company more quickly... View Details
- Article
Selling to Many Countries Within the U.S.
By: Frank V. Cespedes and Michael Wong
In pursuing growth, many companies have plans to sell to emerging markets like the so-called B-R-I-C nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China), but they overlook significant ethnic markets within the United States. For example, the combined African-American and Hispanic... View Details
- 2010
- Chapter
A Contingency Theory of Leadership
By: Jay W. Lorsch
The idea of a contingency theory of leadership is not novel. In the 1960s several scholars conducted research and proposed such an approach arguing that the style of leadership that would be most effective depended upon the situation (Fiedler, Tannenbaum and Schmidt,... View Details
- August 2009
- Supplement
The TSMC Way: Meeting Customer Needs at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (CW)
By: Willy C. Shih
When L.C. Tu receives an emergency order, he is confronted with a range of production scheduling choices, each of which has unique costs and trade-offs. The case was designed to help students understand job-shop style production and the impact of disruptions and... View Details
- Article
Can the Virtuous Mouse and the Wealthy Elephant Live Happily Ever After?
What happens when small iconic socially oriented businesses are acquired by large corporations? Such mergers create significant opportunities for creating both business value and substantially expanded social value, but they also pose unusually difficult challenges... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Can the Virtuous Mouse and the Wealthy Elephant Live Happily Ever After?
By: James E. Austin and Herman B. Leonard
What happens when small iconic socially-oriented businesses are acquired by large corporations? Such mergers create significant opportunities for creating both business value and substantially expanded social value, but also pose unusually difficult challenges because... View Details
- August 2008
- Case
Sloan & Harrison: Non-Equity Partner Discontent
By: Boris Groysberg and Eliot Sherman
The law firm, Sloan & Harrison, was dealing with some discontent among its junior non-equity partners. These partners were concerned with the transparency of the advancement process, their ability to position themselves as both leaders within the firm and rainmakers,... View Details
- January 2008
- Article
Where Will We Find Tomorrow's Leaders?
By: Linda A. Hill
Unless we challenge long-held assumptions about how business leaders are supposed to act and where they're supposed to come from, many people who could become effective global leaders will remain invisible, warns Harvard Business School professor Hill. Instead of... View Details
- Sep 2007 - 2007
- Conference Presentation
Antecedents of Boundary Spanning in Cross-functional NPD Teams
By: James R. Dillon, Shikhar Sarin and Amy C. Edmondson
Boundary spanning has been shown in prior research to enhance innovativeness and performance of product development teams. In this study, we examine team conditions that foster boundary spanning behavior. We analyze survey data from 207 members of 54 cross-functional... View Details
- July 2007 (Revised January 2008)
- Case
Turnaround at the Veterans Health Administration (A)
By: Amy C. Edmondson, Brian R. Golden and Gary J. Young
Investigates the challenges that Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer confronted in seeking to create organizational change at the largest integrated health care system in North America, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). Kizer was appointed as the Under Secretary of Health, to... View Details
- August 2006
- Background Note
Analyzing Work Groups
By: Linda A. Hill and Michel Anteby
Work groups are the building blocks of organizations. They are found in all areas of an organization, from research and development to customer service, and at all levels, from the executive suite to the factory floor. Some are incredibly successful, while others are... View Details