Publications

March 2018 (Revised February 2023)
Teaching Note

McKinsey & Company: Early Career Choices

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury

Teaching Note for HBS No. 618-034. View Details

Keywords: Management Skills; Human Capital; Personal Development and Career; Decision Choices and Conditions; Outcome or Result; Consulting Industry

June 2012
Case

Buro Happold (Abridged)

By: Robert G. Eccles and Ryan Johnson

In 1996, Ted Happold, the founder of the engineering services firm Buro Happold, passed away, and Padraic Kelly became the firm's new managing director (MD). One of his first initiatives was "Aim for Growth," which was intended to help the firm grow beyond its current... View Details

Keywords: Learning And Development; Managing Growth; Organizational Design; Diversification; Client Management; Leadership Skills; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Leadership Development; Management Skills; Training; Programs; Customer Relationship Management

June 2005 (Revised March 2006)
Background Note

Delivering Strategic Human Resource Management

By: Boris Groysberg, Andrew N. McLean and Cate Reavis

This note reviews the history of the human resources (HR) function and the strategic human resources management (SHRM) movement, wherein HR managers' aspired to be strategic partners with line managers. Reviews practices for implementing a strategic-business-partner... View Details

Keywords: Human Resources

12 May 2022
Book

Why Digital Is a State of Mind, Not Just a Skill Set

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

14 May 2009
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Managing Teams

Sharpening Your Skills dives into the HBS Working Knowledge archives to bring together articles on ways to improve your business skills. Questions To Be Answered How does a team leader win the confidence of the group? What's the best... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty

June 2024
Teaching Note

Beamery: Using Skills and AI to Modernize HR

By: Boris Groysberg, David Lane, Susan Pinckney and Alexis Lefort

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 424-004. Unicorn human relationships startup Beamery evaluates it growth versus depth strategy as its strategic partners and customers could become future competitors in a quickly changing AI based human resources and talent management... View Details

2013
Article

An Incident Management System for Japan?

By: Arnold M. Howitt, Haruo Hayashi, Hiromi Akiyama, David W. Giles and Dutch Leonard

Substantial political will and bureaucratic skill are needed to implement a national incident management framework in Japan, but change could be on the way. View Details

2014
Report

Bridge the Gap: Rebuilding America's Middle Skills

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Jennifer Burrowes, Manjari Raman, Dan Restuccia and Alexis Young

The market for middle-skills jobs—those that require more education and training than a high school diploma but less than a four-year college degree—is consistently failing to clear. That failure is inflicting a grievous cost on the competitiveness of American firms... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Human Capital; Education; Competency and Skills; Macroeconomics; United States

Teaching Interest

Managing Social Enterprise (MSE)

This course examines how to create, develop and scale high-performing social enterprises - be they nonprofit, for-profit, or hybrid organizations. Unlike the business world where most stakeholders agree on the definition of success and are driven by market forces,... View Details

2021
White Paper

Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Manjari Raman, Eva Sage-Gavin and Kristen Hines

Companies are increasingly desperate for workers. As they continue to struggle to find people with the skills they need, their competitiveness and growth prospects are put at risk.

At the same time, an enormous and growing group of people are unemployed or... View Details

Keywords: Hiring; Talent; Skills Gap; Selection and Staffing; Diversity; Talent and Talent Management; Competency and Skills

05 Feb 2024
Research & Ideas

The Middle Manager of the Future: More Coaching, Less Commanding

between 2007 and 2021. He also gathered and analyzed 1 million newspaper job postings, 6 million manager resumes and job reviews, and 430,000 Indeed.com job reviews. The data shows: Managerial job postings that required collaborative... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

Teaching Interest

Technology and Operations Management

By: Himabindu Lakkaraju

This course enables students to develop the skills and concepts needed to ensure the ongoing contribution of a firm's operations to its competitive position. Topics include digital marketplaces, technology, and data science.

View Details

Teaching Interest

Technology and Operations Management

This course enables students to develop the skills and concepts needed to ensure the ongoing contribution of a firm's operations to its competitive position. It helps them to understand the complex processes underlying the development and manufacture of products as... View Details

Teaching Interest

The Entrepreneurial Manager (TEM)

This course addresses the issues faced by managers who wish to turn opportunity into viable organizations that create value, and empowers students to develop their own approaches, guidelines, and skills for being entrepreneurial managers.

The course teaches... View Details

Teaching Interest

The Entrepreneurial Manager (TEM)

By: Archie L. Jones

This course addresses the issues faced by managers who wish to turn opportunity into viable organizations that create value, and empowers students to develop their own approaches, guidelines and skills for being entrepreneurial managers.

This course teaches... View Details

January 2025 (Revised February 2025)
Technical Note

Skills-First Talent Management Onboarding, Development, and Performance Management

By: Boris Groysberg, James Barnett, Robin Abrahams and Katherine Connolly Baden

The second in a series of notes on how organizations manage skills-first talent-management chains, covering onboarding, development, and performance management. Onboarding included the practices, programs, and policies used by an organization to facilitate new employee... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Employee Relationship Management; Management Systems; Performance; Personal Development and Career

May 3, 2023
Article

What Top-Performing Sales Managers Do Differently

By: Mike Schultz and Frank V. Cespedes

Sales managers hire reps, influence their training, provide (we hope) feedback and so reinforce good selling behaviors, and are key in the execution of growth and change initiatives. In a study of more than 1,000 sales managers and sellers across industries, we found... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Sales; Performance Effectiveness

Teaching Interest

Technology and Operations Management

By: Christina R. Wing

This course enables students to develop the skills and concepts needed to ensure the ongoing contribution of a firm's operations to its competitive position. It helps them to understand the complex processes underlying the development and manufacture of products as... View Details

2017
Working Paper

Economic Uncertainty and Earnings Management

By: Luke C.D. Stein and Charles C.Y. Wang

In the presence of managerial short-termism and asymmetric information about skill and effort provision, firms may opportunistically shift earnings from uncertain to more certain times. We document empirically that when financial markets are less certain about a firm's... View Details

Keywords: Discretionary Accruals; Uncertainty; Implied Volatility; Earnings Response Coefficient; Risk and Uncertainty; Earnings Management; Financial Markets

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