Publications

August 1992 (Revised December 1994)
Case

Sexual Harassment, Free Speech or ...?

By: Lynn S. Paine

Presents two brief vignettes about female employees who object to gender discrimination in their work environment. In one case, the manager of a convenience store removes "adult" magazines from the store's shelves because she sees them as damaging to women. In the... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Working Conditions; Law; Behavior; Managerial Roles; Crime and Corruption; Groups and Teams; Organizational Culture; Problems and Challenges; Gender

November 2013
Case

GlaxoSmithKline in China (A)

By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez

Four GlaxoSmithKline employees were accused of bribing Chinese health care workers to prescribe the company's drugs. The accusations brought to light the questionable incentive structures of the Chinese health care system and the pressure on companies to adhere to... View Details

November 2009
Article

What Would Peter Say?

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Heeding the wisdom of Peter Drucker might have helped us avoid - and will help us solve - numerous challenges, from restoring trust in business to tackling climate change. He issued early warnings about excessive executive pay, the auto industry's failure to adapt and... View Details

Keywords: Judgments; Employee Relationship Management; Leadership; Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations

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09 Apr 2024
Book

Why Work Rituals Bring Teams Together and Create More Meaning

them to change our emotional states in many different ways.” With a 2023 Gallup survey showing that US employees are less satisfied with their jobs and less likely to feel that someone at work cares about them than four years ago, Norton... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Article

Managing a Polarized Workforce: How to Foster Debate and Promote Trust

By: Julia A. Minson and Francesca Gino

One of the toughest challenges leaders face is managing diverse perspectives—and given heightened tensions over politics and movements such as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, that’s more difficult today than ever before. At the same time, productive disagreement and... View Details

Keywords: Polarization; Employees; Perspective; Interpersonal Communication; Organizational Culture; Trust

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November 1993 (Revised March 1997)
Case

Romeo Engine Plant

By: Amy P. Hutton and Robert S. Kaplan

A newly reopened automobile engine plant has been organized along total quality and teamwork principles. Employees now is to solve problems and ensure quality, rather than watch parts being produced. New operating and financial systems have been installed to promote... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Motivation and Incentives; Management Practices and Processes; Groups and Teams; Performance Efficiency; Performance Improvement; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry

01 Dec 2015
Research & Ideas

What to Do When Your Organization Has Dueling Missions

so-called mission drift by focusing on profits to the detriment of their social mission. Battilana’s previous work suggests that hiring employees who embrace the social mission... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

August 2010 (Revised November 2011)
Case

MindTree: A Community of Communities

By: David A. Garvin and Rachna Tahilyani

MindTree is a mid-sized Indian IT services company known for its knowledge management practices, its collaborative communities, and its strong culture and values. The CEO has set a goal of becoming a $1 billion company by 2014; to reach that goal, employees must create... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Employee Relationship Management; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge Management; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information Technology Industry; India

December 2021
Case

Whistleblowing at Veolia: A Technology Solution

By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese, Christian Godwin and James Weber

In 2019, Bruno Masson, the vice chairman of Veolia’s Ethics Committee, was preparing for a meeting on a rollout plan for a new whistleblowing system to more countries. Veolia, a global supplier of water, waste, and energy services, had recently gone through several... View Details

Keywords: Whistleblowing; Corporate Misconduct; Corporate Governance; Ethics; Crime and Corruption; Values and Beliefs; Trust; Employee Relationship Management; Utilities Industry

30 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Temptation at Work

Keywords: by Alessandro Bucciol, Daniel Houser & Marco Piovesan

10 Jun 2015
Research & Ideas

The Transparency Revolution in Corporate Reporting

Not long ago, only 30 companies around the world reported data about their social and sustainability (that is, nonfinancial) endeavors. Today, more than 7,000 organizations do so. While that transparency is undoubtedly a good thing, the... View Details

Keywords: Re: George Serafeim

2013
Book

Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending

By: Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton

If you think money can't buy happiness, you're not spending it right. Two rising stars in behavioral science explain how money can buy happiness—if you follow five core principles of smarter spending. Happy Money offers a tour of new research on the science of... View Details

Keywords: Happiness; Spending; Personal Finance

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2007
Working Paper

Interpersonal Authority in a Theory of the Firm

By: Eric J. Van den Steen

This paper develops a theory of the firm in which a firm's centralized asset ownership and low-powered incentives give a manager 'interpersonal authority' over employees (in a world with differing priors). The paper derives such interpersonal authority as... View Details

Keywords: Governance Controls; Employee Relationship Management; Managerial Roles; Motivation and Incentives; Boundaries; Theory

SSRN

2011
Working Paper

Discretion Within the Constraints of Opportunity: Gender Homophily and Structure in a Formal Organization

By: Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart and Michael L. Tushman

Homophily in social relations is widely documented. We know that homophily results from both individual preferences and uneven opportunities for interaction, but how these two mechanisms interact in formal organizations is not well understood. We argue that... View Details

Keywords: Interactive Communication; Analytics and Data Science; Organizational Structure; Partners and Partnerships; Behavior; Internet and the Web; Theory; Information Technology Industry

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March 2019
Technical Note

Control or Flexibility? Structured Empowerment Offers Both—Lessons from Retail & Service Chains (Abridged)

By: Tatiana Sandino

This note explains how several retail and service organizations use a practice described here as “structured empowerment” to balance control and flexibility as they grow. I define structured empowerment as a practice that grants employees both (a) the power to make... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Standards; Employees; Service Delivery; Decision Making; Power and Influence; Retail Industry; Service Industry

12 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

The Unexpected Link Between Cadavers and Careers

dental assistant would be more likely to sign up for cadaver donation with his spouse than a married female firefighter would with hers. The findings indicate that donation program directors may want to target possible donors by sending educational information to View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Education; Health

April 2019
Case

Barber Cardiosystems

By: Ranjay Gulati and Paul S. Myers

Barber Cardiosystems, based in Melbourne, Australia, designs and manufactures therapeutic devices used for treatment of coronary conditions. Over four decades, it has grown to be among the top 200 medical device companies in the world. It competes against much larger... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Strategic Alignment; Cost Management; Performance Productivity; Organizational Culture; Motivation and Incentives; Organizational Design; Strategy; Leadership; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Australia

December 2002 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Tesco Plc.

By: David E. Bell

Tesco, a supermarket chain, has been transformed from a third-rate retailer to a global leader in the past ten years. This case describes how that was accomplished. Interviews with Tesco employees explain the company's approach to understanding customers, motivating... View Details

Keywords: History; Motivation and Incentives; Leadership; Internet and the Web; Supply Chain Management; Global Strategy; Globalization; Customer Focus and Relationships; Business Strategy; Retail Industry