Publications

September 2010 (Revised January 2012)
Case

Emergia: Driving Profitability on Help Desk Contracts

Emergia wants to keep its customer happy with its contact center service, but the margins on the help desk contract are dangerously low. Can Miguel Neira, the COO, increase margins while preserving the customer relationship? View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Customer Satisfaction; Profit; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Service Operations; Performance Capacity; Performance Evaluation; Mathematical Methods; Service Industry

06 Jun 2012
What Do You Think?

Is Something Wrong with the Way We Work?

triggered by a culture centered around long hours and a 24/7 focus on the needs of BCG's clients, fears that PTO would contribute to poor performance reviews, and a reluctance to discuss with colleagues personal matters that begged for... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Consulting

November 2012
Case

Teaming at GE Aviation

By: Rakesh Khurana, Jeffrey Polzer, Willy Shih and Eric Baldwin

Describes the challenges and successes encountered by GE's Aviation business in implementing a teaming work structure and culture in plants across its supply chain. GE Aviation leadership had seen dramatic gains in productivity, quality, and worker satisfaction in... View Details

Keywords: comedy writing; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries

27 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

Employee-Suggestion Programs That Work

literature—including Frankel's work—is that since not all problems identified by frontline staff are of equal importance, it is worth time and money to perform extensive prioritization. Suggestions that will produce the greatest... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Guttry

04 Jun 2008
News

Whistle While You Work

bought into that, too, until one day he had a transformational insight. “The conductor’s power depends on his ability to make other people powerful. I started paying attention to how I was enabling my musicians to be the best performers... View Details

Keywords: Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries

01 Sep 2004
News

Joe Toplyn (MBA 1979)

other and cracking wise, I learned something about writing comedy. I left college having done something I really enjoyed, but since I didn’t think anyone would ever pay me to write, I took a job in Israel working for a high-fashion... View Details

October 1998 (Revised December 1999)
Case

Lockheed Martin IMS: Making a Contribution and a Profit

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Courtney Purrington

Examines Lockheed Martin's attempt to move from its traditional reliance on defense/aerospace contracts into providing outsourced government services in the social sector. The protagonist reflects on the past 24 years of rapid growth in the company and the myriad... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Partners and Partnerships; Diversification; Performance Effectiveness; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Welfare; Private Ownership; Public Ownership; Privatization; Strategic Planning; United States

Find at Harvard

January 2023
Case

Year Up: Measuring and Scaling Impact

By: Natalia Rigol, Benjamin N. Roth, Brian Trelstad and Sarah Mehta

Year Up, a non-profit that provides training and practical work experience to low-income young people, has for years prioritized impact measurement. By 2022, it had built a robust body of evidence demonstrating that its program yields higher earnings for participants.... View Details

Keywords: Demographics; Education; Jobs and Positions; Measurement and Metrics; Performance; Research; Social Enterprise; Growth Management; Education Industry; United States; Massachusetts; Boston

02 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Casino Payoff: Hands-Off Management Works Best

across the United States. Host Controls The job performances of casino hosts are subject to various degrees of monitoring, even within the same MGM-Mirage organization. The enterprise comprises a number of... View Details

Keywords: by Dennis Fisher; Entertainment & Recreation

March 2005 (Revised November 2005)
Case

To Trade or Not to Trade: NAFTA and the Prospects for Free Trade in the Americas

By: Lakshmi Iyer

Discusses the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the United States, Canada, and Mexico, a decade after it came into force in 1994. Keeping in mind NAFTA's effect on jobs, exports, productivity, and economic growth, policy makers had to decide... View Details

Keywords: History; Agreements and Arrangements; Performance Productivity; Jobs and Positions; Economic Growth; Trade; Foreign Direct Investment; North and Central America