Publications

July – August 2011
Article

Deliberate Learning to Improve Performance in Dynamic Service Settings: Evidence from Hospital Intensive Care Units

By: I. M. Nembhard and A. L. Tucker

Dynamic service settings-characterized by workers who interact with customers to deliver services in a rapidly changing, uncertain, and complex environment (e.g., hospitals)-play an important role in the economy. Organizational learning studies in these settings have... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Customer Focus and Relationships; Learning; Health Care and Treatment; Service Delivery; Performance Improvement; Quality; Groups and Teams; Cooperation; Health Industry

20 Nov 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Entrepreneurship and Business Groups: An Evolutionary Perspective on the Growth of the Koç Group in Turkey

Keywords: by Asli M. Coplan & Geoffrey Jones

September 2023
Article

The Dynamics of Team Learning: Harmony and Rhythm in Teamwork Arrangements for Innovation

By: Jean-François Harvey, Johnathan R. Cromwell, Kevin J. Johnson and Amy C. Edmondson

Innovation teams must navigate inherent tensions between different learning activities to produce high levels of performance. Yet, we know little about how teams combine these activities—notably reflexive, experimental, vicarious, and contextual learning—most... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Learning; Performance Effectiveness; Collaborative Innovation and Invention

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12 Dec 2019
Research & Ideas

How to Turn Down the Boil on Group Conflict

Inaccurate Group Meta-Perceptions Drive Negative Out-Group Attributions in Competitive Contexts, was published in November 2019 in the journal Nature Human Behavior. We want to compromise In a series of experiments, Lees and Cikara found... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

May 2014
Article

Group Membership Alters the Threshold for Mind Perception: The Role of Social Identity, Collective Identification, and Intergroup Threat

By: Leor M. Hackel, Christine E. Looser and Jay J. Van Bavel

Human faces are used as cues to the presence of social agents, and the ability to detect minds and mental states in others occupies a central role in social interaction. In the current research, we present evidence that the human propensity for mind perception is bound... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Identity; Personal Characteristics; Cognition and Thinking

April 2017
Case

Global Leadership in a Dynamic and Evolving Region: Molinas @ The Coca-Cola Company (A)

By: Tsedal Neeley and Esel Çekin

Galya Frayman Molinas, President of Coca-Cola's Turkish business and a 20-year company veteran, is unexpectedly asked to take the helm of a newly expanded territory with operations across eight additional countries in Central Asia: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia,... View Details

Keywords: Functions; Structure; Centralization; Decentralization; Diversity; Country Of Origin Effects; Global Contextual Intelligence; Leading Change; Crisis Management; Organizational Structure; Experience and Expertise; Situation or Environment; Central Asia; Turkey

April 2008
Teaching Note

Campbell and Bailyn's Boston Office: Managing The Reorganization (Brief Case)

Teaching Note for (2182) View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Fixed Costs; Group Dynamics; Human Resource Management; Compensation; Matrix Organization; Leading Teams; Leadership; Change Management; Organizational Design; Groups and Teams; Compensation and Benefits; Sales

27 Nov 2000
Research & Ideas

The Dynamics of Standing Still: Firestone Tire & Rubber and the Radial Revolution

Goodyear introduced its first belted-bias tire in 1967, Firestone's Research and Development group responded with a matching product in a matter of months and provided a second generation belted bias tire within a year.8 Belted bias tires... View Details

Keywords: by Donald N. Sull; Manufacturing; Transportation

November 2016 (Revised December 2017)
Case

Blake Sports Apparel and Switch Activewear: Bringing the Executive Team Together

By: Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly Baden

Cameron (Cam) Barker, founder and CEO of Blake Sports Apparel and Switch Activewear, manufacturers and distributers of sports apparel and accessories, was facing a challenge with his executive team. Their inability to work together on seemingly simple issues was a... View Details

Keywords: Team Dynamics; Team Management; Team Effectiveness; Team Performance; Executive Leadership; Groups and Teams; Leadership; Performance Effectiveness; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United Kingdom

January 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Into the Raging Sea: Final Voyage of the SS El Faro

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Mel Martin

Captain Michael Davidson of the container ship SS El Faro was determined to make his planned shipping trip on time—but a hurricane was approaching his intended path. To succeed, Davidson and his fellow officers must plot a course to avoid the storm in the face of... View Details

Keywords: Power Dynamics; Management; Leadership Style; Crisis Management; Failure; Groups and Teams; Rank and Position; Decision Choices and Conditions; Shipping Industry; United States

20 Sep 2019
HBS Seminar

Morgan Frank (Postdoc Assoc affiliated with the Human Dynamics research group at the Media Laboratory, the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), and the Initiative for the Digital Economy (IDE) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Also, IDSS, IDE, BWH

June 2017
Article

When Novel Rituals Lead to Intergroup Bias: Evidence from Economic Games and Neurophysiology

By: Nicholas M. Hobson, Francesca Gino, Michael I. Norton and Michael Inzlicht

Long-established rituals in pre-existing cultural groups have been linked to the cultural evolution of large-scale group cooperation. Here we test the prediction that novel rituals—arbitrary hand and body gestures enacted in a stereotypical and repeated fashion—can... View Details

Keywords: Ritual; Intergroup Dynamics; Intergroup Bias; Neural Reward Processing; Open Data; Open Materials; Preregistered; Groups and Teams; Behavior; Prejudice and Bias; Cooperation

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September 2022
Case

Blake Sports: Evolution of the CEO and the Executive Team

By: Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly Baden

Cameron (Cam) Barker, CEO and Founder of Blake Sports Apparel, sat in his office at his company’s headquarters in Birmingham, England, feeling stunned and disappointed. Only a few minutes prior, he had wrapped up a meeting with CFO James Ryan, a highly-respected star... View Details

Keywords: Leadership And Managing People; Leadership Skills; Team Dynamics; Team Effectiveness; Team Leadership; Team Management; Leadership Style; Leadership; Management; Management Skills; Management Style; Talent and Talent Management; Groups and Teams; United Kingdom

Research Summary

Overview

By: Brian L. Trelstad

The focus of my research is on the systems of social innovation. How small groups of individuals come up with new products and services targeting important problems; how they finance these initial efforts, and convert prototypes into viable organizational strategies;... View Details

October 2001
Background Note

A Note on Team Process

By: Linda A. Hill and Maria Farkas

When tasks are highly complex, demand a diversity of skills, or require a commitment from the involved parties, teams are usually the most effective way to approach them. But a group of people working together does not automatically equally a team, and groups are often... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Decision Making; Management; Business Processes; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Efficiency; Groups and Teams; Conflict and Resolution

August 1976 (Revised December 1986)
Background Note

Note on Process Observation

By: John J. Gabarro

Explains some of the dynamics of what actually happens in an effective or ineffective group. Also mentioned are a number of interventions which can be taken on by any group member to help change an ineffective group to one which operates more effectively. View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes

2001
Article

From Guilford to Creative Synergy: Opening the Black Box of Team Level Creativity

By: T. R. Kurtzberg and T. M. Amabile

Previous research, from Guilford's founding tradition to more modern research on individual creativity and general group processes, falls short of adequately describing team-level creativity. Alhough researchers have addressed brainstorming in groups with mixed... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Groups and Teams; Theory; Research; Organizational Culture