Workweek - Publications - Faculty & Research

05 Oct 2020
Book

Want to Be Happier? Make More Free Time

goes on. We have started to acknowledge these truths, and we’re toying with interventions, at both the individual level and the policy level to overcome time poverty. Some places are trying four-day workweeks (the United States, as with... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

01 Oct 1999
News

Banking on Success

even a trip to Clinton, Iowa, was exciting to me. There was the lure of exploring a new place, going someplace I'd never been before. After those early years of 100-hour workweeks and countless trips to the Clintons of the world, travel -... View Details

Keywords: Deborah E. Blagg

Rose M. Knox

Knox built the largest gelatin distribution company in the U.S. After her husband’s death, Knox directed advertising to women, published recipes and financed constant research on gelatin usage. Through diversification efforts, Knox lessened the company’s dependence on... View Details

Keywords: Food & Tobacco

Web

Timeline - Race, Gender & Equity

first minimum wage and 40-hour week History Of The 40-Hour Workweek More leaders are scrapping the 40-hour workweek That time America almost had a 30-hour workweek Why Do We... View Details

01 Apr 2000
News

New Exhibit Highlights Turning Point for American Business

a long workweek it was and how extraordinarily controlling companies were in the early days before the labor movement." In subtle contrast, a striking 1933 portrait of a woman cotton warper at the Shelton Looms in Shelton, Connecticut, by... View Details

Keywords: Nancy O. Perry

08 Jul 2015
What Do You Think?

Do Americans Work Too Much and Think About Work Too Little?

long hours, most folks are being forced to do that with minimal compensation." Patrick Coomans placed some blame on "the weak job protection employees have in the US." Sid Mehta, who reminded us that Greece has the longest View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Financial Services

04 Jun 2008
News

Whistle While You Work

the hair down — things that business frowns upon. After the workweek ends on Friday, music is what you jack up on your car stereo as you head over to Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox humble those guys in pinstripes. Music and sports are... View Details

Keywords: Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries; Arts, Entertainment

03 Jun 2002
What Do You Think?

Are We Entering an Era of European Management Leadership?

is described in a new book by Will Hutton, titled The World We're In (Little, Brown, 2002), from which excerpts (emailed to me by a U.K. manager) were published in England's Guardian newspaper last month. First, work less but work smarter. It's well known that the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

08 May 2025
Blog Post

Startup Roots and Engineering Ambitions: Lizzie Matusov (MS/MBA 2022)

Who are you & what are you building? I am Lizzie Matusov, cofounder and CEO of Quotient. Quotient is an AI-powered developer tool that discovers, prioritizes, and resolves the friction slowing down engineering teams. Today, over 30% of an engineering team’s View Details

01 Sep 2009
News

From Bytes to Bites

keeping workweek hours to reasonable levels. While she’s put in long hours in recent months, Thomas has tried to maintain that balance in her own life, having recently completed a six-year board term for Meals On Wheels of San Francisco.... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Food Services and Drinking Places; Hospitality; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management

01 Oct 2002
News

Steven C. Watson

things.” Until he adjusted to the daily grind of preparing lesson plans and correcting tests and homework, Watson regularly found himself logging ninety-hour workweeks — after taking a 90 percent pay cut from the consulting job he held... View Details

01 Mar 2023
News

Happy Monday

employees felt about the program and how they were using it. “We’ve never seen our employees answer a survey so fast. Usually it takes some follow-up, but we had results within 15 minutes,” observes Carbonell. On a scale of 1 to 10, the four-day View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Apparel Manufacturing; Manufacturing

21 Mar 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, March 21

activity the CEOs undertake during one workweek and (ii) a machine learning algorithm that projects these data onto scalar CEO behavior indices. Low values of the index are associated with plant visits and one-on-one meetings with... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Sep 2005
News

Making History, Starting Over

British government to declare a state of emergency and place businesses on a three-day workweek to conserve electricity. It would take more than luck to grow a business in such conditions. By 1977, two of the founding partners had moved... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Finance

15 Nov 2024
News

Driving Change

Speaking to nearly 700 alumni at the Women’s Leadership Summit last week, HBS Professor Robin Ely addressed both current and emerging challenges facing women in leadership roles, while emphasizing the critical importance of continued progress. “Today, we face a fresh... View Details

01 Jun 2005
News

Bringing Hope to a Violent Land

workweek is filled with staff meetings, conferences, public events, negotiations with government officials about programs and their implementation, and donor-relations work with local embassies. She finds that all these various activities... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; UNICEF; nonprofit; Social Assistance; Health, Social Assistance

14 May 2012
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Smartphone Addiction

sleeping with their smartphones. Simply put, people were "on" a great deal. We defined on as the time people spent working plus all the additional time they were available, monitoring their work in case something came up. And, we discovered that those whose... View Details

Keywords: by Leslie A. Perlow

01 Dec 1998
News

Managing the Business of Life

a difference in the world," she says. "By that count, I definitely have it all.'" —Marguerite Rigoglioso How flexible is the worklplace? Forty-five percent of employees report having some say over their scheduled work hours. About 19 percent spend at least part of... View Details

22 May 2012
First Look

First Look: May 22

firms-triggered a global initiative that eventually spanned more than 900 BCG teams in 30 countries across five continents. These teams confronted their nonstop workweeks and changed the way they worked, becoming more efficient and... View Details