Publications

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May 2006 (Revised May 2009)
Case

De Beers: Addressing the New Competitiveness Challenges

By: Michael E. Porter, Sonia D. Marciano and Alyson Warhurst

Traces the development of De Beers and the diamond industry from its inception in the mid-1800s to the year 2000. Discusses De Beer's history and strategy as the industry leader and its role in industry development. Enables deep examination of the interdependence of... View Details

Keywords: History; Strategy; Geographic Location; Conflict Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Community Relations; Developing Countries and Economies; Mining Industry

March 2006 (Revised January 2011)
Case

CEMEX: Rewarding the Egyptian Retailers

CEMEX has pursued an aggressive decommoditization strategy focused on its relationship with small Egyptian retailers. In particular, the strategic role and effectiveness of the Rewards Program, a tournament that rewarded the sales performance of the retailers, was... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Performance Improvement; Sales; Motivation and Incentives; Construction Industry; Egypt

Article

Relational Pluralism Within and Between Organizations

By: Andrew Shipilov, Ranjay Gulati, Martin Kilduff, Stan Li and Wenpin Tsai

Relational pluralism exists when actors maintain multiple kinds of relationships with one another and develop multiple identities as a result. The outcomes of relational pluralism can include greater flexibility in building network ties, more stable exchange... View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Identity; Relationships

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October 2003 (Revised January 2004)
Exercise

Electric Maze Exercise, The

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar

This team-based exercise uses an educational tool called "The Electric Maze," developed by Interel Corp., to teach insights about the social and psychological challenges facing employees who must engage in collaborative learning. The tool is a grid-patterned rug with... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Leadership; Learning; Groups and Teams; Risk and Uncertainty

Keywords: Food Service

2015
Working Paper

Toxic Workers

By: Michael Housman and Dylan Minor

While there has been a strong focus in past research on discovering and developing top performers in the workplace, less attention has been paid to the question of how to manage those workers on the opposite side of the spectrum: those who are harmful to organizational... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Human Resource Management; Misconduct; Worker Productivity; Superstar; Ethics; Performance Productivity; Personal Characteristics; Employees

SSRN

08 Aug 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Entrepreneurship and Business History: Renewing the Research Agenda

Keywords: by Geoffrey G. Jones & R. Daniel Wadhwani

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

2000
Other Unpublished Work

Do Executive Stock Options Encourage Risk-Taking?

By: Randolph B. Cohen, Brian J. Hall and Luis M. Viceira

Executive stock options create incentives for executives to manage firms in ways that maximize firm market value. Since options increase in value with the volatility of the underlying stock, executive stock options provide managers with incentives to take actions that... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Motivation and Incentives; Stock Options; Executive Compensation

2009
Working Paper

Walking Through Jelly: Language Proficiency, Emotions, and Disrupted Collaboration in Global Work

By: Tsedal Beyene, Pamela J. Hinds and Catherine Durnell Cramton

In an ethnographic study comprised of interviews and concurrent observations of 145 globally distributed members of nine project teams of an organization, we found that uneven proficiency in English, the lingua franca, disrupted collaboration for both native and... View Details

Keywords: Spoken Communication; Interpersonal Communication; Globalized Firms and Management; Groups and Teams; Behavior; Emotions; Social and Collaborative Networks

February 2023
Article

Homophily and Acrophily as Drivers of Political Segregation

By: Amit Goldenberg, Joseph M. Abruzzo, Zi Huang, Jonas Schone, David Bailey, Robb Willer, Eran Halperin and James J. Gross

Political segregation is an important social problem, increasing polarization and impeding effective governance. Previous work has viewed the central driver of segregation to be political homophily, the tendency to associate with others who have similar views. Here we... View Details

Keywords: Political Affiliation; Extremism; Values and Beliefs; Identity; Groups and Teams; Emotions; Civil Society or Community

December 2005 (Revised January 2007)
Case

Ben & Jerry's: Preserving Mission & Brand within Unilever

By: James E. Austin and James Quinn

In the months after Ben & Jerry's was acquired by Unilever, Ben & Jerry's head social mission faces challenges and opportunities unique in the company's history, including: how to manage employee morale; whether to include synthetic ingredients to meet consumer... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Problems and Challenges; Mergers and Acquisitions; Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; Management Teams; Governing and Advisory Boards; Value Creation; Corporate Governance; Employee Relationship Management; Food and Beverage Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Retail Industry; United States

20 Mar 2007
First Look

First Look: March 20, 2007

will focus on creating infrastructure that will increase the bank's ability to communicate effectively in an environment of macroeconomic uncertainty. Purchase this case: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=107050 ... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

November 1990 (Revised June 2004)
Case

McDonald's and the Environment

McDonald's decides to withdraw its polystyrene plastic packaging for sandwiches and hamburgers after years of defending itself against environmental critics. The decision occurs in the midst of a six-month Joint Task Force study, with the nonprofit Environmental... View Details

Keywords: Announcements; Change Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

2022
Working Paper

Feeling Seen: Leader Eye Gaze Promotes Psychological Safety, Participation, and Voice

By: Nicole Abi-Esber, Alison Wood Brooks and Ethan Burris

Psychological safety is a hallmark of effective team functioning. Although prior work shows that characteristics of the leader influence employee judgments of psychological safety (and subsequent decisions to speak up), we know very little about “the specific behaviors... View Details

Keywords: Eye Gaze; Psychological Safety; Voice; Participation; Nonverbal Behavior; Verbal Behavior; Ostracism; Conversation; Groups; Groups and Teams; Social Psychology; Safety; Leadership; Behavior

Teresa Amabile is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor, Emerita, at Harvard Business School. Originally educated and employed as a chemist, Teresa received her Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University. Her current research investigates how people approach and... View Details

05 Jan 2017
Blog Post

Crossing the River: The HBS/HKS Joint Degree Program

rigor it deserved. The more time I spent in the social sector, the more I recognized that robust applications of strategy, financial analysis, and enterprise management were underrepresented in the field. After surveying potential... View Details

January 2022 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Steem Versus Hive: Testing Blockchain Governance

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

This case examines a pivotal governance conflict that occurred in 2020 when Justin Sun, founder of the TRON blockchain, acquired Steemit Inc., the company behind a popular social media platform operating on the Steem blockchain. Steem, launched in 2016 by Daniel... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; Mergers and Acquisitions; Values and Beliefs; Corporate Governance; Organizational Culture; Social and Collaborative Networks; Technology Industry

2024
Article

Psychological Safety as an Enduring Resource amid Constraints

By: Hassina Bahadurzada, Amy C. Edmondson and Michaela J. Kerrissey

While psychological safety is recognized as valuable in healthcare, its relationship to resource constraints is not well understood. We investigate whether psychological safety mitigates the negative impact of resource constraints on employees. Leveraging longitudinal... View Details

Keywords: Burnout; Psychological Safety; Healthcare Administration; Health Care and Treatment; Employees; Retention; Well-being; Health Industry