Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,202)
- Faculty Publications (88)
- Article
Optimality Bias in Moral Judgment
By: Julian De Freitas and Samuel G.B. Johnson
We often make decisions with incomplete knowledge of their consequences. Might people nonetheless expect others to make optimal choices, despite this ignorance? Here, we show that people are sensitive to moral optimality: that people hold moral agents accountable... View Details
- June 2018
- Case
Candor at Clever
By: Ethan Bernstein and Om Lala
Clever, a high-growth EdTech company based in San Francisco, had grown quickly in market share and headcount. As with many high-growth companies, however, early employees (many of whom had never managed people before) had been given the opportunity to manage teams, and... View Details
Keywords: Performance Feedback; Talent Development And Retention; Talent Management; Feedback; Difficult Conversations; Radical Candor; Scaling Start-ups; Scaling And Growth; Developing Effective Managers; Effective Managers; First-time Managers; Kim Scott; Clever; Bay Area; Silicon Valley; Interpersonal Communication; Talent and Talent Management; Human Resources; Leadership Development; Management Practices and Processes; Management Skills; Management Style; Organizations; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Conflict and Resolution; Technology Industry; Education Industry; San Francisco; United States
- Article
Consistent Belief in a Good True Self in Misanthropes and Three Interdependent Cultures
By: Julian De Freitas, Hagop Sarkissian, George E. Newman, Igor Grossman, Felipe De Brigard, Andres Luco and Joshua Knobe
People sometimes explain behavior by appealing to an essentialist concept of the self, often
referred to as the true self. Existing studies suggest that people tend to believe that the true self is
morally virtuous; that is deep inside, every person is motivated to... View Details
- April 2018
- Case
Happy UAE
By: Joshua Schwartzstein, Brian J. Hall, Tiffany Y. Chang, Karim Sameh and Alpana Thapar
This case centers on the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) national goal of raising the happiness of its residents and visitors through ambitious government initiatives. They combined this bold national goal with an accountability structure (incentive plan) built on Key... View Details
- January–February 2018
- Article
The Leader's Guide to Corporate Culture: How to Manage the Eight Critical Elements of Organizational Life
By: Boris Groysberg, Jeremiah Lee, Jesse Price and J. Yo-Jud Cheng
Executives are often confounded by culture, because much of it is anchored in unspoken behaviors, mindsets, and social patterns. But when properly managed, culture can help them achieve change and build organizations that will thrive in even the most trying times. In... View Details
- August 2017 (Revised September 2018)
- Case
Accounting Turbulence at Boeing
By: Jonas Heese, Suraj Srinivasan, David Lane and James Barnett
Unlike its rival Airbus, Boeing had used a practice called program accounting to record its commercial aircraft expenses since the 1980s. Program accounting allowed Boeing to expense estimated average costs instead of the actual production costs of an aircraft. This... View Details
- Article
Managing Climate Change: Lessons from the U.S. Navy
By: Forest Reinhardt and Michael W. Toffel
The U.S. Navy operates on the front lines of climate change. It manages tens of billions of dollars in assets on every continent and on every ocean, which take many years to design and build and then have decades of useful life. This means that it needs to understand... View Details
Keywords: Climate Change; Environment; Military; Disaster Relief; Refugees; Environmental Impact; Environmental Strategy; Sustainability; Energy; Energy Conservation; Energy Sources; Energy Generation; Globalization; Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Supply Chain; Operations; Logistics; Infrastructure; Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Service Industry
- March 2017 (Revised July 2019)
- Case
Interline Brands: Don't Stop Believing
By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Ricardo Andrade
Interline Brands, a leading distributor of residential housing maintenance and repair parts and equipment in the U.S., had just held its November 2014 board meeting. The meeting had been productive but not without some soul searching for both the company’s management... View Details
- October 2016 (Revised February 2019)
- Module Note
Strategy Execution Module 5: Building a Profit Plan
By: Robert Simons
This module reading describes how to build a profit plan to reflect the strategy of a business in economic terms. After introducing the profit wheel, cash wheel, and ROE wheel, the module illustrates how to use a profit plan to assess the viability of different... View Details
Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Execution; Profit Planning; Cash Flow Analysis; Asset Utilization; Return On Equity; Business Planning; Testing Strategy; Analyzing Strategic Alternative; Strategy; Asset Management; Cash Flow; Investment Return; Management Systems; Profit
- August 2016
- Article
Independent Directors' Dissent on Boards: Evidence from Listed Companies in China
By: Juan Ma and Tarun Khanna
In this paper, we examine the circumstances under which so-called "independent" directors voice their independent views on public boards in a sample of Chinese firms. First, we ask why independent directors dissent, i.e. how they justify such dissent to public... View Details
- March 2016
- Article
An Analysis of Firms' Self-reported Anticorruption Efforts
By: Paul M. Healy and George Serafeim
We use Transparency International's ratings of self-reported anticorruption efforts for 480 corporations to analyze factors underlying the ratings. Our tests examine whether these forms of disclosure reflect firms' real efforts to combat corruption or are cheap talk.... View Details
- January 2016
- Article
Making Do with Less: Working Harder During Recessions
By: Edward P. Lazear, Kathryn L. Shaw and Christopher Stanton
Why did productivity rise during recent recessions? One possibility is that average worker quality increased. A second is that each incumbent worker produced more. The second effect is termed "making do with less." Using data from 2006 to 2010 on individual worker... View Details
- 2015
- Article
Free at Last, Now What: The Soviet and Chinese Attempts to Offer a Roadmap for the Post-Colonial World
By: Jeremy Friedman
This article seeks to understand the motivations behind the People's Republic of China's attempt to present an alternative development model for the post-colonial world and challenge Soviet leadership in the international communist movement in mid-1960s. When the wave... View Details
- March 2015
- Article
Monetary Policy and Long-Term Real Rates
By: Samuel G. Hanson and Jeremy C. Stein
Changes in monetary policy have surprisingly strong effects on forward real rates in the distant future. A 100 basis point increase in the two-year nominal yield on a Federal Open Markets Committee announcement day is associated with a 42 basis point increase in the... View Details
- 2014
- Article
Rituals Alleviate Grieving for Loved Ones, Lovers, and Lotteries
By: Michael I. Norton and Francesca Gino
Three experiments explored the impact of mourning rituals after losses—of loved ones, lovers, and lotteries—on mitigating grief. Participants who were directed to reflect on past rituals or who were assigned to complete novel rituals after experiencing losses reported... View Details
- February 2013 (Revised April 2013)
- Case
Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone
Monique Leroux led a major transformation, overcoming resistance, at a large Canadian financial cooperative based in Quebec that competed with top Canadian banks. Leroux was elected in 2008 as Chairman, President, and CEO of Desjardins Group. In order to compete... View Details
- Article
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Financial Regulation for the Twenty-First Century
By: Leonard J. Kennedy, Patricia A. McCoy and Ethan S. Bernstein
After existing regulatory systems failed to prevent the recent financial crisis, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a sweeping reform designed to alleviate the crisis and prevent its recurrence. Out of this Act, the Consumer... View Details
Keywords: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Dodd-Frank; CFPB; Financial Crisis; Reform; New Agency; Market-based Approach; Evidence-based Analysis; Innovative Technologies And Transparency Policies; BEST Practices; Government and Politics; Government Administration; Finance; Financial History; Law; Markets; Organizations; Organizational Design; Business and Government Relations; Balance and Stability; Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; United States
- 2012
- Working Paper
The Determinants of National Competitiveness
By: Mercedes Delgado, Christian Ketels, Michael E. Porter and Scott Stern
We define foundational competitiveness as the expected level of output per working-age individual that is supported by the overall quality of a country as a place to do business. The focus on output per potential worker, a broader measure of national productivity than... View Details
- 2012
- Chapter
Schumpeterian Competition and Diseconomies of Scope: Illustrations from the Histories of Microsoft and IBM
By: Timothy F. Bresnahan, Shane Greenstein and Rebecca M. Henderson
We address a longstanding question about the causes of creative destruction. Dominant incumbent firms, long successful in an existing technology, are often much less successful in new technological eras. This is puzzling, since a cursory analysis would suggest that... View Details
- 2012
- Chapter
The Confederacy of Heterogeneous Software Organizations and Heterogeneous Developers: Field Experimental Evidence on Sorting and Worker Effort
By: Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani
Software development occurs in a patchwork or "confederacy" of different types of institutions (universities, small start-ups, multinational enterprises, government agencies, etc.) utilizing varied work approaches. Here we speculate on one possible explanation for this... View Details