Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(825)
- Faculty Publications (82)
- January 29, 2018
- Article
How to Build Trust with Colleagues You Rarely See
By: Tsedal Neeley
Building trust is key to success for any organization. But that can be tricky when it comes to colleagues that you only interact with virtually. What does it take to build trust when you can’t meet in person? In this piece, the author suggests that professionals should... View Details
- December 2017 (Revised January 2018)
- Case
NatureSweet
By: Jose Alvarez, Forest Reinhardt and Natalie Kindred
This case describes the business model and workplace philosophy of NatureSweet, a privately owned, vertically integrated greenhouse grower and marketer of fresh tomatoes with sales across the United States and $329 million in 2016 revenues. CEO Bryant Ambelang treated... View Details
Keywords: NatureSweet; Tomatoes; Agriculture; Greenhouse; Ambelang; Cherry Tomatoes; Incentives; Worker Empowerment; Empowerment; Toyota Production System; Leadership; Branding; Produce; Manufacturing; Organizational Change; Agribusiness; Business Model; Employee Relationship Management; Working Conditions; Organizational Culture; Success; Problems and Challenges; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States; Mexico; North America
- August 2017
- Article
Teaching Versus Living: Managerial Decision Making in the Gray
By: Eugene F. Soltes
Preparing students for the consequential ethical decisions that they will face in their careers is among the most difficult tasks of management education. I describe some of these challenges based on my book Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar... View Details
- April 14, 2017
- Article
Companies Like United Need to Cultivate Good Judgment, and Free Their Employees to Use It
By: John A. Deighton
United Airlines has pledged to improve its training programs and empower its employees to put customers first in the wake of a video showing a passenger being dragged from a plane. Of all the U.S. air carriers, United should have known the power of social media and... View Details
- July–August 2016
- Article
How to Negotiate with a Liar
By: Leslie John
People, including negotiators, lie every day, so when you're trying to make a deal, it's important to defend against deception. The best strategy, says the author, is to focus not on detecting lies but on preventing them. She outlines five tactics that research has... View Details
- June 2016
- Article
Managing the High Intensity Workplace: An 'Always Available' Culture Breeds a Variety of Dysfunctional Behaviors
By: Erin M. Reid and Lakshmi Ramarajan
People today are under intense pressure to be “ideal workers”—totally committed to their jobs and always on call. But after interviewing hundreds of professionals in many fields, the authors have concluded that selfless dedication to work is often unnecessary and... View Details
- February 2016 (Revised September 2017)
- Case
Scaling Well by Doing Good: Motivating Talent at b.good
By: Francesca Gino, Paul Green Jr. and Bradley Staats
Boston-based fast-casual chain b.good was founded on the idea of healthy food, sourced locally, and prepared in-store. The founders had built a value-based business and worked hard to cultivate a sense of family—among employees, customers, and suppliers. In 2015, they... View Details
- December 2015 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Unigrains
By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred
Unigrains is a French agribusiness-focused private equity firm that has provided specialized financing to France's agribusiness sector for decades and, as a result, cultivated a strong reputation and relationships in that space. Now that the broader investment... View Details
- 2015
- Case
Advanced Leadership Pathways: John Dubinsky and the St. Louis Contractor Loan Fund
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone
In May 2015 prominent leaders in St. Louis were celebrating the launch of the Contractor Loan Fund (CLF), a $10 million revolving loan fund meant to help area minority and women-owned construction contractors grow their businesses. John Dubinsky, the leader behind the... View Details
- November 2015
- Article
Why Organizations Don't Learn: Our Traditional Obsessions—Success, Taking Action, Fitting In, and Relying on Experts—Undermine Continuous Improvement
By: F. Gino and B. Staats
For any enterprise to be competitive, continuous learning and improvement are key—but not always easy to achieve. After a decade of research, the authors have concluded that four biases stand in the way: we focus too heavily on success, are too quick to act, try too... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
The Wisdom of Crowds in Operations: Forecasting Using Prediction Markets
By: Achal Bassamboo, Ruomeng Cui and Antonio Moreno
Prediction is an important activity in various business processes, but it becomes difficult when historical information is not available, such as forecasting demand of a new product. One approach that can be applied in such situations is to crowdsource opinions from... View Details
- July 2015 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
Horst Dassler, Adidas, and the Commercialization of Sport
By: Geoffrey Jones, Michael Norris and Sophi Kim
The case focuses on the career of Horst Dassler, the son of the founder of the German-based sports shoe manufacturer Adidas. The origins of the firm were in the interwar years, and it rose to public prominence after it provided spikes for Jesse Owens, the famous... View Details
Keywords: Corruption; Economic History; Business History; Entertainment; Business; Strategy; Media; Digital Technology; Blockbuster; Superstar; Film; Television; Music; Publishing; Performing Arts; Nightlife; Crime and Corruption; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; History; Sports; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Fashion Industry; Sports Industry; Germany; South America; Europe; Asia; North and Central America
- June 16, 2014
- Article
Working With Your In-Laws Isn't Always a Terrible Idea
By: Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer
This article delves into the complex dynamics involving in-laws within family-owned enterprises. In-laws often face a challenging dual role as they must conform to the same professional standards as non-family employees while concurrently grappling with perceptions of... View Details
- December 2013 (Revised April 2014)
- Case
Seeding Growth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
By: Ray Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Djordjija Petkoski
By 2013, the agricultural sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had long suffered from war, political instability, and dilapidated infrastructure. A country with 75 million inhabitants and the second lowest GDP per capita in the world in 2011, the DRC's... View Details
Keywords: National Agricultural Investment Plan (PNIA); Developing Agriculture; World Bank; Poverty Reduction; Special Economic Zones (SEZs); Small-scale Farmers; Agricultural Business Parks; Agriculture Reform; Agribusiness; Economic Growth; Infrastructure; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Africa; Congo, Democratic Republic of the
- September 2013
- Teaching Note
Gary Hirshberg and Stonyfield Farm
By: Nancy F. Koehn and Nora N. Khan
Gary Hirshberg and Stonyfield Farm is the story of one entrepreneur's vision and journey to create a market-leading, environmentally responsible business founded on the principles of product quality, organizational alignment and sustainability. A former... View Details
- July 24, 2013
- Article
Family Business: How to Spot a Patriarch Problem
By: Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer
In this article, the authors discuss the concept of a "problem patriarch" in family businesses, using the example of Carl, a successful leader who undermined the talent he hired. Carl started a struggling $10 million automotive parts distributor and turned it into a $2... View Details
- April 2012 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Dovernet
By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred
This case illustrates the implications of using stringent performance measurement systems to create performance pressure, motivate employee achievement, and sharpen a firm's competitiveness. It opens by describing the downsides of the ruthlessly competitive culture at... View Details
- March 2012 (Revised October 2012)
- Case
Gary Hirshberg and Stonyfield Farm
By: Nancy F. Koehn, Nora N. Khan and Elizabeth W. Legris
Gary Hirshberg and Stonyfield Farm is the story of one entrepreneur's vision and journey to create a market-leading, environmentally responsible business founded on the principles of product quality, organizational alignment, and sustainability. A former environmental... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurs; Values; Development Stage Enterprises; Innovation; Management By Objective; Experimentation; Emerging Technologies; Mission and Purpose; Management Style; Values and Beliefs; Social Issues; Organizational Culture; Environmental Sustainability; Business Growth and Maturation; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention; Food and Beverage Industry; New Hampshire
- 2012
- Chapter
Social Entrepreneurs, Socialization Processes, and Social Change: The Case of Sekem
By: Tomislav Rimac, Johanna Mair and Julie Battilana
How can application of a positive lens to understanding social change and organizations enrich and elaborate theory and practice? This is the core question that inspired this book. It is a question that brought together a diverse and talented group of researchers... View Details
- 2013
- Working Paper
Span of Control and Span of Attention
By: Oriana Bandiera, Andrea Prat, Raffaella Sadun and Julie Wulf
Using novel data on CEO time use, we document the relationship between the size and composition of the executive team and the attention of the CEO. We combine information about CEO span of control for a sample of 65 companies with detailed data on how CEOs allocate... View Details