Publications

July 2018
Supplement

Designing Executive Compensation at Kongsberg Automotive (B)

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Quinn Pitcher

2019
Working Paper

The Creative Consulting Company

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Richard Nolan and David P. Norton

During the past 50 years, several consulting companies introduced important new ideas that extended management theory and improved management practice. This paper draws upon public sources and the authors’ personal experiences to describe how three management... View Details

Keywords: Management; Theory; Practice; Performance Improvement; Innovation and Management; Consulting Industry

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July–August 2018
Article

How CEOs Manage Time

By: Michael E. Porter and Nitin Nohria

In 2006 Harvard Business School’s Michael E. Porter and Nitin Nohria launched a study tracking how large companies’ CEOs spent their time, 24/7, for 13 weeks: where they were, with whom, what they did, and what they were focusing on. To date, Porter and Nohria have... View Details

Keywords: CEOs; Executives; Time Management; Attitudes; Managerial Roles; Leadership; Performance Effectiveness; Strategy; Decision Making; Organizational Culture

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2018
Book

Unlocked: Keys to Improve Your Thinking

By: Gerald Zaltman

What’s the best way to change your life? Change how you think, says marketing guru Gerald Zaltman. While most of us are accustomed to self-improvement via physical exercise or dieting, we often overlook our most powerful tool for effecting change: our own thoughts.... View Details

Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Performance Improvement

June 2018 (Revised October 2020)
Case

Global Brand Management of Anheuser Busch InBev's Budweiser

By: Jill Avery

Brian Perkins, chief architect of the $6 billion Budweiser brand, was excited about 2018, in which the company would launch Budweiser into several new markets in Africa and Latin America. He was feeling the pressure to finalize a global brand strategy that would define... View Details

June 2018 (Revised June 2018)
Teaching Note

Blake Sports Apparel and Switch Activewear: Bringing the Executive Team Together

By: Boris Groysberg, Tricia Gregg and Katherine Connolly Baden

Teaching Note for HBS No. 417-048. View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Groups and Teams; Performance Effectiveness; Problems and Challenges; Behavior; Communication; Cooperation; Decision Making; Leadership

2018
Chapter

The Strategic Imperative of Psychological Safety and Organizational Error Management

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Paul Verdin

Despite discussion in the management literature about agile organizations or learning organizations, many large organizations are top-down, slow to change, and fraught with obstacles to learning. We describe “strategy-as-learning” to contrast with the traditional... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Learning; Safety; Organizational Culture; Performance Consistency

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May 28, 2018
Article

How Companies Can Identify Racial and Gender Bias in Their Customer Service

By: Alexandra C. Feldberg and Tami Kim

Research shows that minority customers — blacks and Asians — regularly receive worse customer service than whites in ways that are not immediately obvious to onlookers (or even managers). These results prompt a couple of questions for executives and managers. One, does... View Details

Keywords: Internal Audit; Customers; Service Delivery; Prejudice and Bias; Race; Gender; Organizational Change and Adaptation

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May 2018
Teaching Note

Maggie Wilderotter: Evolution of an Executive

By: Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

Teaching Note for HBS No. 417-091. View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Personal Characteristics; Leadership Style; Networks; Gender; Power and Influence; Telecommunications Industry; United States

May 2018 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Jason Blum's Blumhouse Productions

By: Anita Elberse

In March 2017, Jason Blum, the founder and chief executive officer of film and television production company Blumhouse Productions, has another blockbuster on his hands with the movie Get Out, produced for just $4.5 million. Remarkable returns for its micro-budget... View Details

May 2018
Exercise

Data Visualization & Communication Exercise

By: Srikant M. Datar and Caitlin N. Bowler

This exercise uses the 1986 Challenger shuttle disaster to explore the relationship between data visualization, effective communication, and decision-making. Students review and analyze excerpts from the 13 charts engineers presented to NASA executives the night before... View Details

Keywords: Visualization; Data; Analytics and Data Science; Communication; Performance Effectiveness; Decision Making; Analysis

May 2018 (Revised July 2018)
Case

EY China (A): Strengthening Presence in a Critical Market

By: Ashish Nanda, Das Narayandas and Lisa Rohrer

Soon after being named regional managing partner for Ernst & Young (EY) China in September 2009, Albert Ng reflects on the enormity of challenges facing EY China. Despite EY Global's commitment to the China practice, EY China’s growth agenda has been reversed, post... View Details

Keywords: Professional Services; International Management; Big Four; Strategy And Execution; Emerging Market; Strategy; Leadership; Global Range; Growth and Development Strategy; Emerging Markets; Accounting Industry; China

May 2018 (Revised July 2018)
Supplement

EY China (B): An Emerging Giant

By: Ashish Nanda, Das Narayandas and Lisa Rohrer

The case outlines how regional managing partner (RMP) Albert Ng steered Ernst & Young (EY) China through a period of significant growth from 2009, when it was the smallest of the Big Four firms in China, to 2017, by when it had become the second largest firm. Partners... View Details

Keywords: Professional Services; International Management; Big Four; Strategy And Execution; Emerging Market; Strategy; Growth Management; Leadership; Global Range; Emerging Markets; Competitive Strategy; Accounting Industry; China

May 2018 (Revised January 2019)
Case

AirFox (A): Embracing the Blockchain and an ICO

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Edward B. Berk and Nate Schwalb

In summer 2017, Victor Santos, CEO of AirFox, considered whether to pivot his startup towards a new product built with blockchain—a quickly growing technology at the time. AirFox was an early stage startup that sold Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) to small telecom... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; Cryptocurrency; Initial Coin Offering; ICO; Business Startups; Finance; Currency; Strategy; Decision Making; United States

Editorial

Elon Musk's Unusual Compensation Plan Isn't Really About Compensation at All

By: George Serafeim

Earlier this year, Tesla shareholders approved likely the largest compensation package ever awarded to a CEO—for a CEO who clearly doesn’t need the money. Elon Musk is already incredibly rich and also doesn’t seem particularly motivated by further wealth. So why do it?... View Details

Keywords: Tesla; Elon Musk; Innovation; Investor Communication; Investor Relations; Short-termism; Long-termism; Disruption; Executive Compensation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Communication Intention and Meaning; Mission and Purpose

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May–June 2018
Article

The Surprising Power of Questions

By: Alison Wood Brooks and Leslie K. John

Much of an executive’s workday is spent asking others for information—requesting status updates from a team leader, for example, or questioning a counterpart in a tense negotiation. Yet unlike professionals such as litigators, journalists, and doctors, who are taught... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Communication Strategy; Information; Knowledge Sharing; Performance Effectiveness

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April 2018 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Tesla's CEO Compensation Plan

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Sarah Mehta

Tesla’s board of directors proposed an unusual compensation plan for the company’s CEO Elon Musk. The plan payouts were entirely contingent on achieving very ambitious market value, sales, and EBIT targets over the next ten years. If all the targets were achieved,... View Details

Keywords: CEO Compensation; Compensation Committee; Corporate Governance; Executive Compensation; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business and Shareholder Relations; Auto Industry; United States

April 2018 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Maersk: Betting on Blockchain

By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson

In March 2018, international shipping giant Maersk is getting ready to debut a trade digitization platform. Maersk hopes the platform will help streamline global trade since shipping goods internationally is an extraordinarily complicated and inefficient process.... View Details

Keywords: Maersk; IBM; Blockchain; Shipping; Shipping Line; Trade; Bitcoin; Digitization; Container Shipping; Joint Ventures; Ship Transportation; Transportation Networks; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Applications and Software; Shipping Industry; Technology Industry

2018
Working Paper

Executive Education in the Digital Matrix: The Disruption of the Supply Landscape

By: Mihnea Moldoveanu and Das Narayandas

Even as the demand for managerial skills continues to grow, executive education worldwide has entered a period of disruption caused by the digitalization of content, connectivity, and communication. The current offerings of many executive education program providers... View Details

Keywords: Executive Education; Internet and the Web; Disruption; Competency and Skills; Leadership Development