by Harvard Management Update - Publications - Faculty & Research

12 Nov 2012
Research & Ideas

Pay Workers More So They Steal Less

Bigger paychecks for retail employees could generate significant payoffs for employers by reducing worker theft and raising the level of moral behavior in the workforce, a new study shows. Tatiana Sandino, an associate professor in... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Retail

24 Jul 2017
Research & Ideas

People Have an Irrational Need to Complete 'Sets' of Things

Credit: Martin Barraud Here’s a tip for persuading people to finish more tasks, buy more products, or donate more money: Simply present assignments, requests, or items as arbitrary sets, rather than as individual units. New research reveals that people are... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

03 May 2004
What Do You Think?

How Much Is Enough?

even by those who have managed to achieve this kind of balance in their lives. In fact, it requires the capacity to concentrate on one or more dimensions of success up to the point of "just... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

30 Sep 2019
Book

6 Steps to Building a Better Workplace for Black Employees

focus on managing injustice, rather than “managing blackness,” Courtney McCluney and Veronica Rabelo write in their chapter of the book. [Read an excerpt from Race, Work, & Leadership.] Companies can start View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

18 Mar 2019
Research & Ideas

Stuck in Commuter Hell? You Can Still Be Productive

satisfaction of employees with weak trait self-control dropped by .26 points on a one-to-seven point scale. These unhappier workers were also more likely to subsequently quit their jobs, whereas people with high trait self-control were... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

04 Aug 2011
Working Paper Summaries

A Dynamic Perspective on Ambidexterity: Structural Differentiation and Boundary Activities

Keywords: by Sebastian Raisch & Michael L. Tushman

03 Jul 2013
What Do You Think?

What Are the Limits of Transparency?

Resource," The Futurist, December, 1982, p. 37 (for the Cleveland quote). Vineet Nayar, Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down (Boston: Harvard Business Press,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

20 Dec 2010
Research & Ideas

Panama Canal: Troubled History, Astounding Turnaround

canal was squeezed by rising costs due to American mismanagement. Panama Canal employees in essence captured canal management and ran it for their own benefit: salaries escalated, along with costs and... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Transportation

21 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

People Trust Business, But Expect CEOs to Drive Social Change

Public trust in business remains relatively unshaken amid economic turbulence and a lingering pandemic, even as faith in the media and government falters, but leaders could do more to address social issues, a new global opinion survey shows. However, not everyone... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

28 Mar 2016
Research & Ideas

What's a Boss Worth?

We all have our boss horror stories. The underminer. The bad communicator. The credit hog. The snake. Then again, if we’re lucky, we’ve all had those amazing bosses as well—the supervisor who encourages all employees to take their work up to the next level; the View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Service

14 Jun 2010
Research & Ideas

The Hard Work of Measuring Social Impact

of Nonprofit Organizations in June, a joint executive education program presented by the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative, Harvard's Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, and the Harvard Kennedy School.... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

22 Jul 2002
Research & Ideas

Is Performance-Based Pricing the Right Price for You?

relationships are moving to performance-based pricing—they are paid based on achieving certain client advertising and/or marketing goals. The contractor who rebuilt the 1995 earthquake-damaged freeway in Los Angeles received enormous performance incentives View Details

Keywords: by Benson Shapiro; Manufacturing

15 Mar 2022
Research & Ideas

This Workplace Certification Made Already Safe Companies Even Safer

according to the working paper Do Management System Standards Indicate Superior Performance? Evidence from the OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Standard. To earn the voluntary certification, workplaces need to demonstrate that... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

11 Oct 2010
Research & Ideas

It Pays to Hire Women in Countries That Won’t

Call it corporate alchemy. New research finds that multinational companies can spin gender bias into gold by recruiting and hiring well-educated female managers in countries that traditionally discriminate... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

04 Mar 2024
What Do You Think?

Do People Want to Work Anymore?

(AdobeStock/Halfpoint) Sometimes we experience what Yogi Berra described as “déjà vu all over again.” It happened to me several weeks ago and left me wondering whether it’s déjà vu or whether things really have changed. Years ago, my colleague at View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

04 Mar 2013
Lessons from the Classroom

Lessons from Running GM’s OnStar

Among the most popular elective courses at Harvard Business School is Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise (BSSE). Developed by Professor Clayton M. Christensen, the course teaches future leaders... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Auto

25 Jan 2016
Research & Ideas

When Negotiating a Price, Never Bid with a Round Number

make a precise bid, the targets are more likely to accept it, and more likely to accept it at a cheaper price. And with cash bids, they’ll generate a more positive market reaction,” says Matti Keloharju, a visiting scholar at Harvard... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

10 Feb 2020
In Practice

6 Ways That Emerging Technology Is Disrupting Business Strategy

Even though the internet has been publicly available for almost three decades, executives at just about every company are wrestling with how to use digital technology to advance their business strategy. We asked professors from Harvard... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

16 Oct 2023
HBS Case

Advancing Black Talent: From the Flight Ramp to 'Family-Sustaining' Careers at Delta

there was nothing left for them,” as one talent manager pointed out. “Not everyone has [accepted] skills-first hiring,” Hill says. “[But] Delta’s leadership understands how the business and moral imperatives are intertwined and addressed... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Air Transportation

March 1994 (Revised May 1994)
Case

Lisa Benton (A)

By: Linda A. Hill

Lisa Benton is in her fourth month as an assistant product manager at Houseworld, a leading consumer products company. She has been on the job since graduating from the Harvard Business School, and she has been frustrated from the start by a lack of responsibility, by... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Jobs and Positions; Power and Influence; Relationships; Consumer Products Industry

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