Publications

2015
Book

Leading Sustainable Change: An Organizational Perspective

By: Rebecca Henderson, Ranjay Gulati and Michael Tushman

The business case for acting sustainably is becoming increasingly compelling—reducing our global footprint to sustainable levels is the defining issue of our times, and it is one that can only be addressed with the active participation of the private sector. However,... View Details

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Web

Research - Race, Gender & Equity

Sanaz Mobasseri, William A. Kahn and Robin J. Ely This paper uses systems psychodynamic concepts to develop theory about the persistence of racial inequality in U.S. organizations and to inform an approach for disrupting it. We treat... View Details

September 2023 (Revised October 2023)
Case

Ghassan Nuqul and the Nuqul Group: Preserving a Father's Legacy

By: Christina R. Wing, Lauren Cohen and Alpana Thapar

The Nuqul Group was established in 1952 by Elia Nuqul, a Palestinian refugee who fled his hometown in 1948 with his family to Jordan. He overcame many hardships in his initial years there, but subsequently started a trading business that grew to become one of Jordan’s... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Family Ownership; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Management Succession; Jordan

24 Jan 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: January 24, 2017

including aging populations and medical technology. But an underlying and misunderstood source of health care’s escalating costs has been the inability of health care provider organizations (such as large academic medical centers) to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2023
Case

Reimagining Hindustan Unilever (A)

By: Sunil Gupta and Rachna Tahilyani

In the fall of 2019, the CEO and MD of Hindustan Unilever (HUL), India’s largest fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) firm, is wondering what to do about their experiments to digitize distribution. Despite three years of intense efforts, their apps to empower retailers... View Details

Keywords: Experimentation; Digital Transformation; Digital Strategy; Leading Change; Distribution; Decisions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Consumer Behavior; E-commerce; Competition; Performance; Business Strategy; Marketing; Transformation; Consumer Products Industry; Asia; India

2015
Working Paper

A Normative Theory of Dynamic Capabilities: Connecting Strategy, Know-How, and Competition

By: Gary P. Pisano

The field of strategy has mounted an enormous effort to understand, define, predict, and measure how organizational capabilities shape competitive advantage. While the notion that capabilities influence strategy dates back to the work of Andrews (1971), attempts to... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Organizations

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Global Business Course | HBS Online

indicators on business decisions Discover the short- and long-term impact of interest rates, inflation, trade, and investment Learn distinctive approaches and frameworks that help you think about the world and organize information Who... View Details

May 2021 (Revised August 2021)
Case

Airbnb During the Pandemic: Stakeholder Capitalism Faces a Critical Test

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Allison Ciechanover

As the COVID pandemic spread in early 2020, global travel ground to a halt. For Airbnb, the San Francisco-based platform for renting accommodations, the impact was both swift and severe as revenues plummeted more than 70% over the prior year. Responding to the sudden... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Leadership; Digital Platforms; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Value Creation; Decision Making; Goals and Objectives; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Travel Industry; Tourism Industry; Service Industry; United States

Web

Organizational Behavior Awards & Honors - Faculty & Research

Data, Algorithms and AI (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022) with Paul Leonardi. Ryan L. Raffaelli : Runner-up for the 2024 Best Entrepreneurship Paper Award from the Academy of Management, Organization and Management Theory Division,... View Details

18 Apr 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, April 18, 2018

forthcoming Academy of Management Journal Ideological Misfit? Political Affiliation and Employee Departure in the Private-Equity Industry By: Bermiss, Y. Sekou, and Rory McDonald Abstract—Though organizations are increasingly active... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

28 May 2019
Research & Ideas

Investor Lawsuits Against Auditors Are Falling, and That's Bad News for Capital Markets

reputation. Investors trust that they will provide effective monitoring, and auditors exist because of that trust. But the audit firms are large organizations and the work is complex. Mistakes happen and cause us to lose that trust. The... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Financial Services; Accounting

11 Mar 2001
Research & Ideas

Merchants to Multinationals: British Trading Companies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Australian wool handling and shipping merchant Dalgety, which had been organized as interlocking colonial and London partnerships, incorporated in Britain in order to access the capital required to compete in that trade. Dalgety did not... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones

Web

Published CSV Cases - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

Kramer, Jorge Ramirez-Vallejo, and Kerry Herman Leading fertilizer producer Yara International demonstrates the concept of creating shared value through the Southern Agricultural Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) initiative, which brought together multiple View Details

June 2008
Case

Starbucks Coffee Company in the 21st Century

By: Nancy F. Koehn, Marya Lisl Hill-Popper Besharov and Katherine Miller

The case explores the opportunities and challenges confronting Starbucks in the early 21st century. For more than 15 years, Starbucks has grown swiftly and successfully, helping create a large, dynamic market for specialty coffee, building one of the world's most... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Economy; Growth Management; Brands and Branding; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Competition

Research Summary

Business Leaders and Corporate Responsibility

By: Thomas R. Piper

Thomas R. Piper is trying to establish an appropriate sense of ethics and corporate responsibility for future business leaders. Earlier research provided compelling evidence that many future leaders seriously doubt that their interpersonal ethics can be brought into... View Details

January 2021
Article

Veil-of-Ignorance Reasoning Mitigates Self-Serving Bias in Resource Allocation During the COVID-19 Crisis

By: Karen Huang, Regan Bernhard, Netta Barak-Corren, Max Bazerman and Joshua D. Greene

The COVID-19 crisis has forced healthcare professionals to make tragic decisions concerning which patients to save. Furthermore, the COVID-19 crisis has foregrounded the influence of self-serving bias in debates on how to allocate scarce resources. A utilitarian... View Details

Keywords: Self-serving Bias; Procedural Justice; Bioethics; COVID-19; Fairness; Health Pandemics; Resource Allocation; Decision Making

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June 2015 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Greece's Debt: Sustainable?

By: George Serafeim

The case "Greece's Debt: Sustainable?" describes the Greek economic crisis, bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the debt restructuring that followed. Because of a lack of trust in Greece's ability to repay its debt, two... View Details

Keywords: Debt Crisis; Accounting; Debt Sustainability; Austerity; Solvency Opinions; Borrowing and Debt; Restructuring; Valuation; Accrual Accounting; Fair Value Accounting; Economy; Greece

2015
Book

What Great Service Leaders Know and Do: Creating Breakthroughs in Service Firms

By: James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser and Leonard A. Schlesinger

Based on decades of collective field experiences, the authors present anecdotal evidence in support of eight things that great service leaders know and do. Great service leaders know that (1) leading a breakthrough service is different, and they take steps to ensure... View Details

Keywords: Management; Leadership; Service Operations; Service Delivery

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