Employee Behavior - Publications - Faculty & Research

08 Jun 2021
Research & Ideas

Tell Me What to Do: When Bad News Is a Big Relief

“might have a perverse incentive to allow underperforming employees to keep underperforming because it makes it easier to decide whom to lay off,” Hagerty says. Let the doctor decide The idea for the research came from Barasz’s personal... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

01 Mar 2019
News

3-Minute Briefing: Richard Edelman (MBA 1978)

Chicago in 1952. His biggest risk was putting me in charge of the New York office in 1981, when I was 27 years old. In five or six years, that office grew from 12 employees to 100. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Part of what keeps me... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services; Professional Services

30 Oct 2018
News

Paths of Victory

their vehicles, plan more efficient routes, reduce fuel expenses, receive maintenance notifications, and track the behaviors of drivers. When Cobli won in 2016, it had 12 employees and no revenue. Today it... View Details

Keywords: Alumni New Venture Contest; Support Activities for Transportation; Transportation; Machinery Manufacturing; Manufacturing; Administration of Human Resource Programs; Government

09 Apr 2025
News

The Working Parent Revolution

Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe on Spotify More Skydeck episodes Dan Morrell: Hi, this is Dan Morell, host of Skydeck. In 2023, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 67% of two-parent families with children, both parents worked, which was up from 59% in 2013.... View Details

November 2007
Case

Differences at Work: Ben (A)

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Rachel Gordon

During a casual conversation one of Ben's professional colleagues unexpectedly makes an anti-Semitic remark. What should Ben do? View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Behavior; Ethics; Religion; Employees; Diversity

Citation

Educators

Purchase

19 Mar 2006
Research & Ideas

Do I Dare Say Something?

recent working paper, Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson and Penn State professor James Detert explored the challenges employees face speaking up to internal authorities. Their research focused on View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

01 Sep 2017
News

Alumni on the Best Business Advice They’ve Ever Received

simple question: What was the best piece of business advice you’ve ever received? We’ve compiled their answers for a forthcoming special edition of our Skydeck podcast. Here are a few of our favorites. “Never forget that your employees... View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell; Skydeck; podcast; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management

06 Jan 2021
Research & Ideas

Unexpected Exercise Advice for the Super Busy: Ditch the Rigid Routine

reality is that some days you need to drive your kid to school.” So, what’s the alternative? Beshears teamed with researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University in 2015 to test different ways to help 2,508 Google View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

01 Feb 1998
News

Stephen Covey's Successful Habits

survive. Another force is unsatisfactory personal relationships. I asked a CEO of a major multinational why he had his 35,000 employees trained in the 7 Habits. He said, "My wife had told me I didn't listen to our daughter." After he... View Details

04 Sep 2019
News

In My Humble Opinion: Status Update

on KLM airline’s use of the Facebook Messenger platform for customer care, says Levine, and Walmart’s employee training program, which features Oculus Go’s virtual reality headsets. No stranger to the Facebook family, Levine came to the... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna

28 May 2019
News

Leading Questions

lieutenant in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) where she trained intelligence officers, saw space for a midsized solution in the expanding and unregulated sector. There were the inexpensive multiple-choice tests, which slotted employees... View Details

Keywords: April White

23 Jul 2018
Research & Ideas

The Open Office Revolution Has Gone Too Far

(like employee satisfaction). Those are fine for understanding individual perceptions, but aren’t so good at quantifying real behavioral responses and organizational performance outcomes from open offices.... View Details

Keywords: Re: Ethan S. Bernstein

03 May 2016
First Look

First Look, May 3, 2016

Overwhelming evidence and experience shows, however, that most companies are unable to transfer employee learning into changes in individual and organization behavior or improved financial performance. Put... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

13 Mar 2019
Research & Ideas

Ignore This Advice at Your Own Peril

Employees regularly turn to managers and other higher-level co-workers to seek advice about job-related issues and next steps for their careers. Yet people don’t always take the advice they receive; they may accept some suggestions and... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

01 Mar 2015
News

Communicating the Language of Business Across Borders

one was looking at that, even as global organizations were rapidly moving toward making English their lingua franca.” Since joining the HBS Organizational Behavior Unit nearly eight years ago, Neeley has pursued pathbreaking research on... View Details

11 Jun 2015
News

Leading the way in sustainable style

Marjorie Yang (MBA 1976), the chairman and CEO of garment-manufacturing giant The Esquel Group, doesn’t spend much time talking about apparel anymore. Instead, she’s focused on improving the livelihood of the company’s 47,000 employees... View Details

12 Nov 2021
Op-Ed

Can Our Parenting Struggles Make Us Better Leaders?

this as well, and eventually his list of do’s and don’ts came to comprise part of my inner compass, guiding my behavior to this day. As my research with innovative organizations has shown, allowing employees... View Details

Keywords: by Ranjay Gulati; Air Transportation

01 Mar 2018
News

Money (Actually) Can Buy Happiness

together to promote happiness? How can this research be used in the workplace? AW: Some employers offer employees a lot of choice when it comes to incentives: for instance, cash, luxury goods, experiences, or time off. They think, “Choice... View Details