Publications

Article

Why Leadership Training Fails—and What to Do about It

By: Michael Beer, Magnus Finnström and Derek Schrader

U.S. corporations spend enormous amounts of money—some $456 billion globally in 2015 alone—on employee training and education, but they aren't getting a good return on their investment. People soon revert to old ways of doing things, and company performance doesn't... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership Development; Organizational Design; Employees; Business Processes; United States

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August 1999 (Revised February 2000)
Case

Cisco Systems, Inc.: Acquisition Integration for Manufacturing (A)

By: Steven C. Wheelwright, Charles A. Holloway, Nicole Tempest and Christian G. Kasper

Describes the procedures and processes used by Cisco Systems in its acquisition of high-technology firms. Its goal is to retain key engineering talent and to leverage existing product development efforts, but to quickly merge acquired companies its own systems and... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Leveraged Buyouts; Acquisition; Integration; Mergers and Acquisitions; Production; Activity Based Costing and Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Management; Technological Innovation; Talent and Talent Management; Human Resources; Manufacturing Industry; Technology Industry; England

01 Feb 2018
News

Harvard Business School Professor Emeritus Hugo Uyterhoeven Dies at 86

2021
Working Paper

Multi-location Workers in Multinational Firms? Tradeoffs in Contextual Specialization of Employees and Organizational Outcomes

By: Hise O. Gibson, Ryan W. Buell and Prithwiraj Choudhury

We study how “contextual specialization,” the act of focusing workers’ organizational tasks within a particular locational context, and “contextual non-specialization,” the practice of diversifying workers’ organizational tasks among multiple locational contexts,... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Performance; Experience and Expertise; Selection and Staffing; Strength and Weakness; Personal Development and Career

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February 2025
Case

Hyperscaling Dreams: Ualá's Path from Startup to Fintech Champion

By: Juan Alcácer and Manuel Franck

Ualá, a fintech startup founded in Argentina in 2017 by Pierpaolo Barbieri, aimed to increase financial inclusion in Latin America through a digital platform linked to a prepaid card. After rapid success in Argentina, it expanded into Mexico and Colombia, acquiring... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Leadership; Venture Capital; Talent and Talent Management; Strategy; Credit; Business Startups; Profit; Growth and Development Strategy; Banking Industry; Argentina; Mexico; Colombia; Latin America

September 2006 (Revised November 2006)
Case

Cathy Benko: WINning at Deloitte (A)

By: Kathleen L. McGinn, Deborah M. Kolb and Cailin B. Hammer

Jim Quigley, CEO of Deloitte and Touche's consulting practice, asks senior partner Cathy Benko to lead Deloitte & Touche's much publicized Initiative for the Retention and Advancement of Women (WIN). Benko, already the Lead Client Service Partner on one of Deloitte's... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Leadership Development; Talent and Talent Management; Personal Development and Career; Gender; Consulting Industry; United States

1988
Chapter

Creative Human Resources in the R&D Laboratory: How Environment and Personality Impact Innovation

By: T. M. Amabile and S. S. Gryskiewicz

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Creativity; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Research and Development; Innovation and Invention; Personal Characteristics

May–June 2019
Article

Your Workforce Is More Adaptable Than You Think

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Manjari Raman, Judith K. Wallenstein and Alice de Chalendar

In 2018 the Project on Managing the Future of Work at HBS teamed up with the BCG Henderson Institute to survey 6,500 business leaders and 11,000 workers about the various forces reshaping the nature of work. The responses revealed a surprising gap: While the executives... View Details

Keywords: Management; Employees; Attitudes; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation

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17 Apr 2025
Blog Post

From Tech to Coaching: Empowering Women and Minority Leaders with Yue Zhao (MBA 2013)

starting at Thumbtack, a Series A startup. My time at McKinsey and Cisco pre-MBA had given me a strong foundation in solving complex problems, but HBS helped me develop additional critical skills—finance,... View Details

Summer 2019
Article

The Plight of the Graying Tech Worker

By: William R. Kerr

If you’re in tech and over 40, your experience is probably underappreciated. A global talent pool complicates matters. View Details

Keywords: Employees; Age; Personal Development and Career; Immigration; Policy; Technology Industry; Computer Industry

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Article

Unconscious Bias Training That Works

By: Francesca Gino and Katherine Coffman

To become more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, many companies have turned to unconscious bias (UB) training. By raising awareness of the mental shortcuts that lead to snap judgments—often based on race and gender—about people’s talents or character, it strives to... View Details

Keywords: Implicit Bias; Social Integration; Empathy; Prejudice and Bias; Employees; Training; Attitudes; Behavior; Organizational Change and Adaptation

June 2024
Case

Metub: Scaling Influence beyond Vietnam

By: Paul A. Gompers and Shu Lin

Founded in 2014, Metub was a leading video and talent network in Vietnam. It managed over 3,000 channels on YouTube and more than 3,000 content creators. To expand creators’ income opportunities across multiple platforms, Metub had diversified beyond its original... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property; Business or Company Management; Brands and Branding; Competition; Diversification; Expansion; Recruitment; Entrepreneurship; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Viet Nam; Southeast Asia

March 10, 2025
Article

How Gen AI Could Change the Value of Expertise

By: Joseph Fuller, Matt Sigelman and Michael Fenlon

In the near future, gen AI is likely to affect some 50 million jobs, automating away elements of some jobs and augmenting workers’ abilities in others. The extent of those changes will compel companies to reshape their organizational structures and rethink their talent... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Organizational Structure; Talent and Talent Management; Personal Development and Career

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01 Feb 1997
News

Shaping the Future of Business: Entrepreneurial Evolution at HBS

Daniel Bricklin [MBA '79] in an HBS classroom), to the extraterrestrial commerce of Orbital Sciences, to the development commitment of African Communications Group, HBS entrepreneurs, be they low-profile or household names, have... View Details

Keywords: Nancy O. Perry and Susan Young; profiles by Garry Emmons

July 2018 (Revised November 2018)
Case

The Robin Hood Army

By: Susanna Gallani

In 2014, Neel Ghose and a handful of friends spent one evening distributing excess food they had collected from local restaurants to the less fortunate people living under the Hauz Khas flyover in South Delhi. Four years later, this initiative had developed into The... View Details

Keywords: Volunteer-based Organization; Food Redistribution; Nonprofit Organizations; Food; Human Needs; Expansion; Global Range; Growth and Development