Publications

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Professor Ramarajan is the Diane Doerge Wilson Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. Her research examines the management and consequences of identities in organizations.

She teaches the... View Details

Keywords: nonprofit industry

10 Oct 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Birds of a Feather ... Enforce Social Norms? Interactions Among Culture, Norms, and Strategy

Keywords: by Hongyi Li and Eric J. Van den Steen

February 1984 (Revised July 2007)
Supplement

Jeff Bradley (B)

Jeff Bradley made significant contributions by working well with the prevailing culture in one assignment, and influencing needed change in another--all from a relatively unfavorable position. Series (A-D) presents a rewritten version of an earlier single case by the... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Organizational Culture

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Article

The Business Case for Investing in Physician Well-Being

By: Tait D. Shanafelt, Joel Goh and Christine A. Sinsky

Importance: Widespread burnout among physicians has been recognized for more than two decades. Extensive evidence indicates that physician burnout has important personal and professional consequences.
Observations: A lack of awareness regarding... View Details

Keywords: Physicians; Well-being; ROI; Health; Welfare or Wellbeing; Ethics; Investment Return; Health Industry

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21 Apr 2021
News

New Research Finds The ‘Old Boys Club’ At Work Is Real—And Contributing To The Gender Pay Gap

Research Summary

Overview

By: Rohit Deshpande

Customer Centricity Rohit Deshpandé's research program focuses on Customer-Centricity. A stream of projects examines the interaction between corporate and national culture as they influence the development and implementation of global marketing strategies in high... View Details

09 Jan 2012
Research & Ideas

Location, Location, Location: The Strategy of Place

consequences of what they are doing." Such snap decisions can result in geo-mistakes that sap energy out of an organization and cause it to lose focus on what it was doing well in the first place. Geographic expansion should provide... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

June 2023 (Revised July 2023)
Case

Social Media Background Screening at Fama Technologies

By: Joseph Pacelli, Jillian Grennan and Alexis Lefort

Fama Technologies is an online screening company that uses AI to analyze job applicants' publicly available online content for signs of risk and culture fit. The case opens with Ben Mones, founder and CEO, looking to secure funding from venture firms. He is running... View Details

Keywords: Human Resources; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Organizational Culture; Talent and Talent Management; AI and Machine Learning; Social Media; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; United States

July 2007 (Revised September 2009)
Case

CEMEX (A): Building the Global Framework (1985-2004)

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Pamela Yatsko and Ryan Raffaelli

CEMEX grew through acquisitions from a Latin American to a global company under the leadership of a CEO who believed in the importance of a "one enterprise" culture and benchmarking against world standards. As the CEO ponders an acquisition that would double the... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Competency and Skills; Globalized Firms and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Integration; Latin America

January 2011
Case

Founder-CEO Succession at Acer

By: Noam T. Wasserman, Michael Shih-ta Chen and Keith Chi-ho Wong

Stan Shih, founder-CEO of Acer, Inc., had proactively chosen and transitioned the "perfect" successor as CEO, but was now faced with major problems. Over the last two years, his heir apparent, Leonard Liu, had made the changes he had been hired to make, including... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Management Style; Management Succession; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Conflict Management

January 1992
Case

Johnson & Johnson: Hospital Services

The main issue has to do with the lack of fit or incompatibility between the early environmental requirements for strategy and the cultural constraints on the organization. Describes the internal resistance to the proposed changes and top management's efforts to... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Management Systems; Environmental Sustainability; Conflict and Resolution

March 2009
Case

Barbara Norris: Leading Change in the General Surgery Unit

By: Boris Groysberg, Nitin Nohria and Deborah Bell

Barbara Norris struggles to address the many problems facing her as a recently promoted nurse manager in the General Surgery Unit (GSU) at Eastern Massachusetts University Hospital (EMU). She has inherited a unit with the lowest employee satisfaction scores and highest... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Leading Change; Service Delivery; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Groups and Teams; Motivation and Incentives; Satisfaction; Health Industry

30 Mar 2020
Research & Ideas

The New Rules for Remote Work: Pandemic Edition

employee with young kids at home, or someone taking care of elder relatives, or a worker needing to focus on their own physical and mental health as a result of the situation will not be able to do a 40-hour workweek.” Wikimedia, the nonprofit View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

October 1993 (Revised April 1994)
Case

Jack Welch: General Electric's Revolutionary

By: Joseph L. Bower and Jay Dial

Describes the work of Jack Welch as CEO of General Electric from 1981 to 1992, focusing particularly on his transformation of the company's portfolio through extensive dispositions and acquisitions and the company's culture through a mandated process called "work out."... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Transformation; Investment Portfolio; Leadership Style; Management; Organizational Culture; Personal Development and Career

September 2008 (Revised July 2011)
Case

Keeping Google 'Googley'

By: Boris Groysberg, David A. Thomas and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

This case, set in 2008, examines how Google has worked to avoid potential negative byproducts of rapid growth such as bureaucracy, slow decision-making, lack of visibility, and organizational inconsistency. When the case protagonist, Kim Scott, started with Google in... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Internet; Information Technology Industry

02 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Why Have Marketers Ignored America’s Man-of-Action Hero?

Douglas B. Holt says brand managers have little appreciation for how myths in American culture can be used to create "extraordinary" brand-building opportunities. In this e-mail interview, Holt discusses a recent working paper... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

Research Summary

A major area of Professor Torfason's research is the behavior of individual social network structures. He studies the violation of norms – specifically the use of excessive force in conflict situations – within the empirical context of a large online... View Details

17 Oct 2018
News

Tarun Khanna ’88 on Trust and Developing-World Businesses

October 1989
Case

Dennis Hightower and the Walt Disney Co. in Europe

Describes the initial entry challenges faced by Dennis Hightower after being assigned the task to revitalize and reposition Walt Disney Co. of Europe in preparation for 1992. Allows students to consider the challenges of cultural heterogeneity, Disney traditions, and... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States; Europe