Learning By Thinking - Publications - Faculty & Research

22 Sep 2003
Research & Ideas

When Protestors Knock at Your Door

may serve as a clever way to differentiate a brand or product and capture market share. Q: What can managers learn from past experiences of targeted companies? Spar: I think the broadest lesson is not to... View Details

Keywords: by Cynthia Churchwell

04 Jun 2020
Book

It’s Not About You: Why Leaders Need to Look Outward

empower the people they're leading Frei: First, you have to learn how to unleash the potential of one person. And that's what we describe in the chapter we call “Love,” because we think it’s the utmost... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

22 Jan 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

Why You Are Unhappy at Work

feeling. What can be done to improve the office environment? Research by Harvard Business School professors suggests these problems are not only common—but solvable. Here are some of our most insightful stories about unmotivated employees... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

28 Oct 2015
Research & Ideas

A Dedication to Creation: India's Ad Man Ranjan Kapur

in the advertising business. It worked for everyone. We all acquired a slight accent at that time.” A: India got its independence in 1947, and even in the 1960s the country was still very heavily influenced by the British Raj. I View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Advertising

28 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

How Racial Bias Taints Customer Service: Evidence from 6,000 Hotels

experience. Among the questions to ask: How have customers perceived their treatment? Have they received above-and-beyond service and how do they think their experiences compare to those of other customers? Evaluate existing data. Do... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

16 Oct 2023
HBS Case

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

Delta employees—which was considered a bold action by a high-profile CEO, Hill says. That summer he went on a “listening and learning tour,” holding in-house sessions with Delta’s Black workers and meetings... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Air Transportation

26 Jul 2004
Research & Ideas

A Better Way to Negotiate: Backward

negotiations be secret or open, separate or collective? How can you avoid being harmed by the sequencing tactics of others? Here's some advice: Study Patterns Of Influence And Deference Would-be coalition builders View Details

Keywords: by James K. Sebenius

30 May 2018
Research & Ideas

Should Retailers Match Their Own Prices Online and in Stores?

self-match? The research team found self-matching can work to a company’s advantage in three ways: Retailers can raise online prices. While prices online tend to be cheaper, a retailer that self-matches can raise the online price of a product to offset the loss the... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Retail

16 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

The Most Successful Startups Have Hands-On Founders

better-performing companies. Learning from the network If this intensive style doesn’t come naturally to a founder-manager, the good news is it can be learned, Koning says. “What’s encouraging about this paper is that we found that... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

08 Oct 2008
Research & Ideas

Book Excerpt: A Sense of Urgency

The problem with using crises to reduce complacency and create urgency is that the tactic is a potential diamond sitting on a rock surrounded by quicksand and very nasty beasts. Any naiveté about the downside risks can cause disaster. Big... View Details

Keywords: by John P. Kotter

15 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

IT Job Wages Are No Longer 'Exceptional'

Over the past few decades, information technology jobs worked their way into the popular imagination as among the most stable, fast-rising, and lucrative ways to make a living, bolstered in the 1990s by the dot-com boom. What astronauts... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Information Technology

19 Jan 2023
Research & Ideas

What Makes Employees Trust (vs. Second-Guess) AI?

choices, resulting in more efficient organizations. “It’s about how we think about talent and resource allocation,” Paik says. You Might Also Like: When Bias Creeps into AI, Managers Can Stop It by Asking... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

14 Jun 2023
Research & Ideas

Four Steps to Building the Psychological Safety That High-Performing Teams Need

leads to better outcomes, Edmondson says, whether it’s a hospital that names and then reduces errors or a company that streamlines processes by innovating together to find better ways to manufacture vaccines. Ensure that all people feel... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

02 May 2022
What Do You Think?

Can the Case Method Survive Another Hundred Years?

source of criticism from those preferring research based on large data bases of quantitative information and advanced analytic techniques. "It can be a living hell for some distinguished CEOs returning to the School thinking that they can... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Education

21 Feb 2018
Research & Ideas

When a Competitor Abandons the Market, Should You Advance or Retreat?

training, I thought these positive market forces might counterbalance or dominate any potential learning or herding behavior. But it turns out that, on average, the perception of increased failure risk is stronger than the draw of less... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Pharmaceutical; Health

01 Jun 2023
HBS Case

A Nike Executive Hid His Criminal Past to Turn His Life Around. What If He Didn't Have To?

street-to-prison cycle that had ravaged his youth. He had passed a high school equivalency test and had earned a college degree, and by that point could envision a bright future as a budding accountant at Arthur Andersen, the firm he... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Apparel & Accessories

18 Jan 2016
Research & Ideas

Hazard Warning: The Unacceptable Cost of Toxic Workers

is the morally correct path. “To say the rules should never be broken isn’t completely forthright and honest, so this is basically a sophisticated way to capture that,” Minor says. Another factor could be more Machiavellian applicants trying to “game the system” View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland

02 Jul 2018
Research & Ideas

Corporate Tax Cuts Don't Increase Middle Class Incomes

Halfpoint In the worlds of economic theory and conservative political orthodoxy, corporate tax cuts, such as the 2017 tax reform in the United States, should create benefits beyond businesses. As the thinking goes, middle class workers... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland

27 Apr 2016
Research & Ideas

How the FBI Reinvented Itself After 9/11

It is hard to imagine a more difficult and tragic trial by fire for a new leader. On September 4, 2001, Robert Mueller started his new job as the sixth director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A mere week later, on September 11,... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

August 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Case

C3.ai—Driven to Succeed

By: Robert Simons and George Gonzalez

CEO Tom Siebel navigates his artificial intelligence (ai) startup through a series of pivots, market expansions, and even an elephant attack to become a leading platform ad service provider. The case describes his unusual management approach emphasizing employee... View Details

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