Customization and Personalization - Publications - Faculty & Research

01 Jun 2023
News

Buy Big, Sell Small

If you live in a rural village or small city in India and run low on toothpaste, rice, or cooking oil, you’ll likely visit your local kirana, the equivalent of a US neighborhood variety store and a mainstay of the country’s $932 billion retail economy. The shops are... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; retail; supply chain management; entrepreneurship; leadership; innovation; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Retail Trade

23 Oct 2012
First Look

First Look: October 23

competition is restricted. Using 28 million vehicle emissions tests from more than 11,000 facilities, we show that increased competition is associated with greater inspection leniency, a service quality attribute that customers value but... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

24 Oct 2019
Blog Post

Harvard’s JD/MBA: Viroopa Volla (JD/MBA 2021) Answers Your Questions

of fun and speaks to the strength of joint degree relationships! Is the joint degree schedule really challenging? Can JD/MBAs still do extra things like the law clinics, law review? Although JD/MBAs straddle the two schools, there is... View Details

01 Jun 2024
News

Alumni Achievement Awards 2024

Photographed by Susan Young; Edited by Julia Hanna MORE ON THE RECIPIENTS Read more about the 2024 recipients, and learn about past recipients. ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS SITE MORE ON THE RECIPIENTS Read more about the 2024 recipients, and learn about past recipients.... View Details

01 Dec 2023
News

In My Humble Opinion: Plugged In

In a career spent investing in innovative startups at Intel, leading National Grid’s innovation and investment operations, and founding a nonpro t dedicated to advancing women and minorities to positions of top corporate leadership, Lisa Lambert (MBA 1997) always has... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg

April 2012
Article

How Many Direct Reports?

By: Gary L. Neilson and Julie Wulf

If senior executives are feeling ever more pressed for time, why would they add more to their plates? It might sound counterintuitive, but research by Booz & Company's Gary L. Neilson and me shows that over the past 20 years the CEO's average span of control, measured... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Governance Controls; Managerial Roles; Adaptation; Personal Development and Career; Cooperation; Management Teams

Citation

Find at Harvard

Read Now

17 Jan 2023
Book

Good Companies Commit Crimes, But Great Leaders Can Prevent Them

officials. Soltes turns his hand to corporate crime after making a media splash with his 2016 book, Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of a White-Collar Criminal. Based on personal visits, letters, and phone... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

01 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

Dying to Lead: How Reaching the Top Can Kill You Sooner

A warning to CEOs and other top executives in high-pressure positions: Job stress could shave years off your life, causing you to die younger than lower-level workers, new research suggests. After all, modern CEOs face taxing work... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald

Building Sustainable Cities

By 2050 the number of people living in cities will have nearly doubled, to 6 billion, and the problems created by this rampant urbanization are among the most important challenges of our time. Of all resource-management issues, the author argues, water, electricity,... View Details

19 Mar 2013
First Look

First Look: March 19

Technology Development (B) Kerr, William R., and Alexis BrownellHarvard Business School Case 813-123 Brent Grinna has one customer signed up for his alumni-networking mobile app View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2020
Case

Leading Change in Talent at L'Oréal

By: Lakshmi Ramarajan, Vincent Dessain and Emer Moloney

Jean-Claude Le Grand just stepped into a new role as Executive Vice-President for Human Resources at the global cosmetics company, L’Oréal. He is now responsible for the hiring, development, promotion, and retention of 83,000 employees worldwide. The highly successful... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Business Headquarters; Business Divisions; Business Organization; Change; Change Management; Transformation; Competency and Skills; Experience and Expertise; Talent and Talent Management; Demographics; Diversity; Gender; Nationality; Multinational Firms and Management; Human Resources; Employees; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Innovation and Management; Jobs and Positions; Employment; Human Capital; Leadership; Leadership Development; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Management Practices and Processes; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Organizations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Personal Development and Career; Planning; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges; Networks; Social Psychology; Attitudes; Power and Influence; Social and Collaborative Networks; Business Strategy; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; France; Paris

Citation

Educators

Purchase

12 Jun 2023
Blog Post

What Does PRIDE at HBS Mean to You?

continue fostering an environment of love, acceptance, and celebration of diversity within HBS and beyond. Oscar Yuan (MBA 2003) PRIDE at HBS was, for me, a respite and a... View Details

05 Mar 2012
Research & Ideas

Is JC Penney’s Makeover the Future of Retailing?

sales have lagged in an increasingly fierce retail environment, with stores such as Walmart vying for customer dollars on the lower end, Kohl's and Target jockeying for the middle market, View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Retail

The New Rules for Bringing Innovations to Market, Harvard Business Review, March 2004

It's tough to get consumers to adopt innovations--and it's getting tougher all the time. That's because more and more markets are taking on the characteristics of networks. The interconnections among today's companies are so plentiful that often a... View Details

04 Jan 2022
What Do You Think?

Firing McDonald’s Easterbrook: What Could the Board Have Done Differently?

cause or not. Each situation is different. It may depend on the nature of the CEO’s shortcomings and the terms of their contract. Was the problem merely poor company performance (rarely regarded as “cause”), poor judgment (a borderline... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

13 Jun 2019
Blog Post

Expanding My Worldview Through FIELD Global Immersion

the most successful business in one country may fail in another if it doesn’t develop customer empathy in the new market. Just ask Walmart about how their expansion into South Korea went (not well). Karaoke, local coffee shops, frequent... View Details

18 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

Who Really Determines CEO Salary Packages?

Effects on the Design of Executive Compensation Contracts. The answer could help to explain why CEO salaries tend to be very high across the board. “There’s always been this black box surrounding what happens in the boardroom,” says Gallani, an assistant professor in... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Consulting

18 Dec 2013
HBS Case

Lessons from the Lance Armstrong Cheating Scandal

career in jeopardy—he betrayed millions of people who believed in him, and risked the reputations and careers of teammates in order to win personal glory. "Once he decides... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Sports

26 Jan 2022
News

Making Peace with Anger

on where my kids went to school, was what drove a lot of these expectations and missed expectations, and, therefore, anger. And so as I kind of try and peel the onion on all... View Details

Profile

Joy Chen

impact within a startup, Udemy. For her, the motivation for an MBA was neither to pivot her career nor expand her skills per se, but to find inspiration. “I wanted to build new friendships with those who could inspire each other View Details

Publications