Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,589)
- Faculty Publications (115)
- August 12, 2021
- Article
The Endless Digital Workday
By: Arjun Narayan, Rohan Narayana Murty, Rajath B. Das and Scott Duke Kominers
The shift to remote work ended the traditional 9–5 workday: employees work in bursts, at night, between caregiving tasks, and whenever they can find time between the endless distractions of messages, calls, and emails. New research, however, shows that for many teams,... View Details
- Article
Work Group Rituals Enhance the Meaning of Work
By: Tami Kim, Ovul Sezer, Juliana Schroeder, Jane L. Risen, Francesca Gino and Michael I. Norton
The many benefits of finding meaning in work suggest the importance of identifying activities that increase job meaningfulness. The current paper identifies one such activity: engaging in rituals with workgroups. Five studies (N = 1,099) provide evidence that... View Details
Keywords: Groups; Meaningfulness; Task Meaning; Ritual; Teams; Organizational Citizenship; Groups and Teams; Behavior; Familiarity
- Article
New Sales Realities
Business leaders need to understand that it’s the fit of People, Process, Pricing, and Partners that drives sales effectiveness. As firms confront new buying processes, required sales competencies affect hiring, training, and development (People). Without a coherent... View Details
- January 2021
- Case
The FIRE Savings Calculator
By: Michael Parzen and Paul Hamilton
This case follows Carol Muñoz, a member of the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) lifestyle movement. At the age of 45, Carol is considering retiring and living off the $1 million she has accumulated. Using Monte Carlo simulation, Carol forecasts the... View Details
- 2021
- Book
We the Possibility: Harnessing Public Entrepreneurship to Solve Our Most Urgent Problems
By: Mitchell Weiss
The huge public challenges we face are daunting. At the same time, many of us have come to accept the notion that government can't do new things or solve tough challenges—it's too big and slow and bureaucratic. Not so. Entrepreneurial savvy in government is growing,... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Effects of Temporal Distance on Intra-Firm Communication: Evidence from Daylight Savings Time
By: Jasmina Chauvin, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tommy Pan Fang
Cross-border communication costs have plummeted and enabled the global distribution of work, but frictions attributable to distance persist. We estimate the causal effects of temporal distance, i.e., time zone separation between employees, on intra-firm communication,... View Details
- Article
Does Your Company Need a Chief Medical Officer?
By: Tsedal Neeley
With the Covid-19 pandemic still raging but businesses trying to remain operational, organizations now have a life or death role to play in protecting the health of employees, customers, and the public. That means they need a new executive in the C-suite: a chief... View Details
- 2020
- Chapter
Building Emergency Savings Through Employer-Sponsored Rainy-Day Savings Accounts
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, J. Mark Iwry, David C. John, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
Roughly half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. When financial shocks occur during their working life, many of these households tap into their retirement savings accounts. We explore the practical considerations and challenges associated with helping households... View Details
- May 8, 2020
- Article
Lead Your Team Into a Post-Pandemic World
By: Hubert Joly
The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has tested leaders, especially as it relates to how they lead their workers. As the crisis goes on, many that the author has spoken with have begun to frame it around three distinct phases: The Shelter-in-Place Phase, the Re-opening... View Details
- 2020
- Book
Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments
By: Stefan Thomke
Don’t fly blind. See how the power of experiments works for you. When it comes to improving customer experiences, trying out new business models, or developing new products, even the most experienced managers often get it wrong. They discover that intuition,... View Details
- November 15, 2019
- Editorial
Getting Your Team to Do More Than Meet Deadlines
By: Laura M. Giurge, Charlotte Blank, Laurel Newman and A.V. Whillans
When it comes to our to-do lists, many of us prioritize checking off tasks that are easiest to complete or are due first, regardless of importance—a phenomenon that scholars describe as the “mere urgency” effect. This tendency becomes stronger the busier we are. But... View Details
- October 14, 2019
- Article
The Truth About Open Offices: There Are Reasons Why They Don't Produce the Desired Interactions
By: Ethan Bernstein and Ben Waber
It’s never been easier for workers to collaborate—or so it seems. Open, flexible, activity-based spaces are displacing cubicles, making people more visible. Messaging is displacing phone calls, making people more accessible. Enterprise social media such as Slack and... View Details
- October 2019 (Revised February 2025)
- Case
A Conversation with Ellen J. Kullman, Chair & CEO of DuPont, 2009-2015
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
Ellen J. Kullman, the retired Chairman and CEO of DuPont, describes how she guided the storied science and technology company through a contentious proxy battle with activist investor Trian Partners, which acquired DuPont shares in 2013 and sought to break up the... View Details
- September 2019 (Revised August 2021)
- Case
It's All About Family: Esas Group
By: Christina R. Wing and Alpana Thapar
This case describes how Ali Sabancı and his sister Emine Sabancı Kamışlı, shareholders of Esas Group, one of Turkey’s largest family-owned investment firms, worked to grow and professionalize the business. While their father Şevket Sabancı, played an instrumental role... View Details
- 2019
- Book
Race, Work, and Leadership: New Perspectives on the Black Experience
By: Laura Morgan Roberts, Anthony J. Mayo and David A. Thomas
Race, Work, and Leadership is a rare and important compilation of essays that examines how race matters in people’s experience of work and leadership. What does it mean to be black in corporate America today? How are racial dynamics in organizations changing?... View Details
- August 2019 (Revised September 2019)
- Case
Dirk Nowitzki: Changing the Game
By: Boris Groysberg, Sascha L. Schmidt and Evan M.S. Hecht
NBA Superstar Dirk Nowitzki was unsure whether the 2018–2019 season would be his last as an NBA player. He had not faced such uncertainty since 1998, when he had navigated a difficult decision regarding the timing of his move to the NBA. He also did not know what he... View Details
- July–August 2019
- Article
The Soul of a Startup
By: Ranjay Gulati
There’s an essential, intangible something in start-ups—an energy, a soul. It inspires enthusiasm and fosters a sense of deep connection and mutual purpose. While this spirit persists, engagement is high and businesses keep their edge.
But all too often,... View Details
But all too often,... View Details
- July 2019
- Article
Using Behavioral Science to Inform the Design of Sugary Drink Portion Limit Policies: Reply to Wilson and Stolarz-Fantino (2018)
By: Leslie John, Grant E. Donnelly and Christina A. Roberto
In their commentary, Wilson & Stolarz-Fantino argue that specific design features of our research mean that it cannot have policy implications and that researchers “need to consider profit maximization in menu design or studies are likely to suggest ill-informed... View Details
- May 2019
- Background Note
Developing Yourself as a Leader: A Framework for Millennial High Potentials & Emerging Leaders: How to PACE Your Self-Development
By: Ethan Bernstein and Kirstin Lynde
Millennials are redefining what it means to develop future leaders. In business organizations, leadership development—defined as “the expansion of a person's capacity to be effective in leadership roles and processes“—has traditionally been the work of corporate... View Details
- January–February 2019
- Article
Corporate Purpose and Financial Performance
By: Claudine Gartenberg, Andrea Prat and George Serafeim
We construct a measure of corporate purpose within a sample of U.S. companies based on approximately 500,000 survey responses of worker perceptions about their employers. We find that this measure of purpose is not related to financial performance. However, high... View Details