Publications

April 1993 (Revised May 2009)
Case

Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai, India: In Service for Sight, The

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Starting as a modest 20-bed hospital, Aravind had grown into a 1,400-bed hospital complex by 1992. It had by then screened 3.65 million patients and performed 335,000 cataract surgeries, nearly 70% of them free of cost for the poorest of India's blind population.... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Social Marketing; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Welfare; Expansion; Health Industry; India

May 2008
Article

Working in the Gray Zone

By: Michel Anteby

Supervisors often turn a blind eye when employees use company resources and time to work on personal projects. They realize that stamping out such behavior may do more harm than good. View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Effectiveness; Behavior

April 1975 (Revised December 1975)
Case

Sorensen Chevrolet File, The

Concerns the settlement of an automobile insurance claim. A woman, blinded in an accident, alleges that approximate cause of the accident was failure by Sorensen Chevrolet to connect the left headlight of her car. The student is asked for a strategy for settling the... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Negotiation; Insurance; Lawsuits and Litigation; Legal Liability; Insurance Industry; Auto Industry

September–October 2017
Article

GE's Global Growth Experiment: The Company Pushed Cross-Business Collaboration

By: Ranjay Gulati

Like many other companies, GE under Immelt had to figure out how to balance serving local needs with the economies of worldwide scale. Harvard Business School’s Ranjay Gulati looks at how it tackled the challenge. He identifies several important takeaways for other... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management

January 2006 (Revised July 2007)
Case

Juan Trippe and Pan American World Airways

By: Nitin Nohria, Anthony Mayo and Mark Rennella

A fascination with flight and a forceful personality helped to create a market for air travel and shape the modern airline industry. Masterfully wielding his power and influence, Juan Trippe built Pan American Airways by combining bold moves and blind ambition. Across... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Industry Growth; Business and Government Relations; Power and Influence; Air Transportation; Air Transportation Industry; Travel Industry

July 1991 (Revised March 1992)
Background Note

Integrity and Management

By: Joseph L. Badaracco

Describes the role that issues of personal integrity play in managers' decisions. Defines personal integrity, the factors that influence it, the situations in which it becomes particularly relevant to company decisions, and ways of overcoming the blind spots that can... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Moral Sensibility; Planning; Situation or Environment; Trust; Value

Article

How a Fast-Growing Startup Built Its Sales Team for Long-Term Success

By: Frank V. Cespedes and David Mattson

It’s common for leaders of sales teams to focus almost exclusively on short-term tactics and current operations while failing to think and act in a way that supports the longer-term needs of their businesses—and it’s hard to fault them. The biggest problem with a... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Salesforce Management; Management Practices and Processes

07 Oct 2008
First Look

First Look: October 7, 2008

question-dodgers as positively as speakers who actually answered the question they are asked but were not blind to all efforts to dodge: They both noticed—and punished—particularly egregious attempts (Study 1). More troublingly, listeners... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

May 4, 2020
Article

Your CEO Succession Plan Can't Wait

By: J. Yo-Jud Cheng, Boris Groysberg and Paul M. Healy

CEOs tend to be older, putting them at greater risk of COVID-related illness, and adding to the urgency, succession planning has long been a blind spot for most boards. From 2015 to 2016, the authors conducted a global survey to better understand the experiences,... View Details

Keywords: CEO Succession; Management Succession; Planning; Governing and Advisory Boards

October 1993 (Revised March 2023)
Case

Conflict on a Trading Floor (A)

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and Jerry Useem

A junior salesperson on FirstAmerica Bank's trading floor is assisting a top salesperson, Linda, on a deal to finance the construction of a new cruise ship for Poseidon Cruise Lines. While the terms of the deal are being worked out, he realizes Linda has taken... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Profit; Knowledge Use and Leverage

13 Aug 2007
Research & Ideas

The Dark Side of Trust

double-edged sword. In the short run, working with trusted suppliers reduces transaction costs and furthers the buyer's competitive standing. This is the effect that has been emphasized in previous work. But trust can also make you blind... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Service

07 Sep 2010
Research & Ideas

Mindful Leadership: When East Meets West

blind spots, accept shortcomings, and gain the confidence to address great challenges in their lives. Q: Do you think business schools should be paying more attention to this subject? A: Any business school committed to developing leaders... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

17 Nov 2008
Research & Ideas

Decoding the Artful Sidestep

the right question poorly," the authors note. "In this research we find that, at least in part, people value style over substance because the style blinds us to the lack of substance," says Rogers. The researchers' working... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

15 Oct 2008
Working Paper Summaries

The Artful Dodger: Answering the Wrong Question the Right Way

Keywords: by Todd Rogers & Michael I. Norton

May 8, 2020
Article

Which Covid-19 Data Can You Trust?

By: Satchit Balsari, Caroline Buckee and Tarun Khanna

The COVID-19 pandemic has produced a tidal wave of data, but how much of it is any good? And as a layperson, how can you sort the good from the bad? The authors suggest a few strategies for dividing the useful data from the misleading: Beware of data that’s too broad... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Health Pandemics; Analytics and Data Science

Article

Marginality and Problem-Solving Effectiveness in Broadcast Search

By: Lars Bo Jeppesen and Karim R. Lakhani

We examine who the winners are in science problem-solving contests characterized by open broadcast of problem information, self-selection of external solvers to discrete problems from the laboratories of large R&D intensive companies, and blind review of solution... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Open Source Distribution; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Markets; Independent Innovation and Invention; Problems and Challenges; Research and Development; Gender; Science

2022
Chapter

Redirecting Rawlsian Reasoning Toward the Greater Good

By: Joshua D. Greene, Karen Huang and Max Bazerman

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls employed the ‘veil of Ignorance’ as a moral reasoning device designed to promote impartial thinking. By imagining the choices of decision-makers who are blind to biasing information, one might see more clearly the organizing... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Judgments; Prejudice and Bias; Decision Making

November 2015
Article

Why Organizations Don't Learn: Our Traditional Obsessions—Success, Taking Action, Fitting In, and Relying on Experts—Undermine Continuous Improvement

By: F. Gino and B. Staats

For any enterprise to be competitive, continuous learning and improvement are key—but not always easy to achieve. After a decade of research, the authors have concluded that four biases stand in the way: we focus too heavily on success, are too quick to act, try too... View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Learning