Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(647)
- Faculty Publications (98)
- November 2015 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Cisco Systems: In Search of the Next CEO
By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah L. Abbott, Olivia Hull and J. Yo-Jud Cheng
It’s August 2014 and John Chambers is expected to announce his retirement after 17 years as CEO of global technology giant Cisco Systems. Under Chambers’s leadership, Cisco has grown from $2.2 billion in annual revenues and under 4,000 employees to revenues of $46... View Details
Keywords: Leadership; Succession Planning; CEO Succession; Managing Change; Person-organization Fit; Management Succession; Transition; Talent and Talent Management; Change Management; Retirement; Innovation Leadership; Recruitment; Corporate Governance; Experience and Expertise; Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States; San Jose; California
- October 2015 (Revised February 2020)
- Teaching Note
Trouble at Tessei
By: Ethan Bernstein and Ryan Buell
In 2005, Teruo Yabe is asked to revive Tessei, the 669-person JR-East subsidiary responsible for cleaning its Shinkansen ("bullet") trains. Operational mistakes, customer complaints, safety issues, and employee turnover are at or near all-time highs, even as the... View Details
Keywords: Service Management; Employee Engagement; Employee Motivation; Leadership And Managing People; Quality Improvement; Efficiency; Japan; Operational Transparency; Employee Coordination; Transparency; Leadership; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Employees; Quality; Transportation Industry; Japan
- September 2015 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
MOD Pizza: A Winning Recipe?
By: Boris Groysberg, John D. Vaughan and Matthew Preble
Scott and Ally Svenson, the founders of MOD Pizza, had to make a number of decisions in planning how to scale their small company. They wanted to grow MOD from 45 stores as of May 2015 to 200 stores by the end of 2016, and while the two believed that MOD could manage... View Details
- January 2015 (Revised March 2017)
- Case
New Urban Mechanics
By: Mitchell Weiss
Funding to scale Citizens Connect, Boston's 311 app, is both a blessing and a burden and tests two public entrepreneurs. In 2012, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts provides Boston's Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics with a grant to scale Citizens Connect across the... View Details
Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Civic Technology; Government Innovation; Civic Innovation; Cities; New Urban Mechanics; Thomas. M. Menino; Chris Osgood; Nigel Jacob; Connected Bits; SeeClickFix; Ben Berkowitz; Eric Carlson; Dave Mitchell; Government Technology; Open Innovation; Open Source Software; Citizens Connect; Commonwealth Connect; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Innovation and Management; Open Source Distribution; Public Administration Industry; Information Technology Industry; Boston
- January 2015 (Revised October 2015)
- Case
Trouble at Tessei
By: Ethan Bernstein and Ryan W. Buell
In 2005, Teruo Yabe is asked to revive Tessei, the 669-person JR-East subsidiary responsible for cleaning its Shinkansen ("bullet") trains. Operational mistakes, customer complaints, safety issues, and employee turnover are at or near all-time highs, even as the... View Details
Keywords: Service Management; Employee Engagement; Employee Motivation; Leadership And Managing People; Quality Improvement; Efficiency; Japan; Operational Transparency; Employee Coordination; Transparency; Leadership; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Employees; Quality; Transportation Industry; Japan
- September 2014 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Belk: Towards Exceptional Scheduling
By: Ethan Bernstein, Saravanan Kesavan, Bradley Staats and Luke Hassall
With 24,000 staff and over 300 stores, Belk Inc. sought to replace its entirely manual labor scheduling system with an automated software solution from Reflexis. Belk hoped the upgrade would simplify scheduling, reduce time employees spent in non-customer-facing roles,... View Details
Keywords: Retail; Scheduling; Local Autonomy; Automation; Metrics; Organizational Change; Human Resource Management; Process Improvement; Performance Measurement; Transparency; Southern United States; Retailing; Department Stores; System Outsourced Services; Employee Relationship Management; Selection and Staffing; Change Management; Governance Controls; Resource Allocation; Service Operations; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Evaluation; Performance Improvement; Applications and Software; Family Business; Retail Industry; Technology Industry; United States
- June 2014
- Case
Stock Options at Celia-Check
By: Brian Hall, Andrew Wasynczuk and Karen Huang
Describes issues facing three young founders of a high-tech start-up, including hiring an experienced CEO and negotiating with a potential VC investor. Focuses on the incentive and compensation aspects of negotiating with job candidates (e.g., what percentage of the... View Details
- September–October 2013
- Article
Discretion Within Constraint: Homophily and Structure in a Formal Organization
By: Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart and Michael Tushman
Homophily in social relations results from both individual preferences and selective opportunities for interaction, but how these two mechanisms interact in large, contemporary organizations is not well understood. We argue that organizational structures and geography... View Details
- 2013
- Article
Inflated Applicants: Attribution Errors in Performance Evaluation by Professionals
By: S. A. Swift, D. Moore, Z. Sharek and F. Gino
When explaining others' behaviors, achievements, and failures, it is common for people to attribute too much influence to disposition and too little influence to structural and situational factors. We examine whether this tendency leads even experienced professionals... View Details
- July 2013
- Supplement
Interview with Bill Allen and Maria Pejter: A.P. Møller - Maersk Group
By: Boris Groysberg
In 2012, Bill Allen and Maria Pejter, of Maersk Group's Human Resources Department, sat down to consider some key aspects of Maersk's talent management strategy. In this video, Allen and Pejter discuss in some greater detail some of the challenges they faced as... View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
Bridging Science and Technology Through Academic-Industry Partnerships
By: Sen Chai and Willy C. Shih
Scientific research and its translation into commercialized technology is a driver of wealth creation and economic growth. Partnerships to foster the translational processes from public research organizations, such as universities and hospitals, to private firms are a... View Details
- Article
Employee Selection as a Control System
By: Dennis Campbell
Theories from the economics, management control, and organizational behavior literatures predict that when it is difficult to align incentives by contracting on output, aligning preferences via employee selection may provide a useful alternative. This study... View Details
- June 2012 (Revised May 2013)
- Case
A.P. Møller - Maersk Group: Evaluating Strategic Talent Management Initiatives
By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott
In 2012, Bill Allen and Maria Pejter, of Maersk Group's Human Resources Department, sat down to consider some key aspects of Maersk's talent management strategy. Headquartered in Copenhagen, Maersk was a global conglomerate with large shipping and oil & gas businesses.... View Details
- December 2011 (Revised April 2012)
- Case
Pierre Frankel in Moscow (A): Unfreezing Change
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Matthew Bird
A young and upcoming French executive in a global technology company is sent to Moscow as deputy managing director to turn around the Russia subsidiary. He must report to the subsidiary's managing director (a large reason for the organization's underperformance) and to... View Details
- July 2011
- Case
Shifting the Diversity Climate: The Sodexo Solution
By: David A. Thomas and Stephanie J. Creary
This case profiles the evolution of Sodexo's diversity initiative. Diversity became a key priority for Sodexo, North America in 2001 after a class-action lawsuit was filed and certified in Washington, D.C. against Sodexo Marriot Services, Inc., the food services... View Details
- March 2011 (Revised November 2011)
- Case
Harmonic Hearing Co.
By: Howard H. Stevenson and Craig H. Stephenson
Harmonic is a small, privately held manufacturer of hearing aids. Harriet Burns and Marc Davis, two employees at Harmonic, have an opportunity to purchase the company from the founder. As well-informed insiders who understand the industry, Burns and Davis believe the... View Details
Keywords: Debts; Quantitative Analysis; Financing; Entrepreneurial Finance; Development Stage Enterprises; Small ＆ Medium-sized Enterprises; Small Business; Business Growth and Maturation; Cash Flow; Mathematical Methods; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Borrowing and Debt; Equity; Manufacturing Industry
- 2010
- Working Paper
Employee Selection as a Control System
By: Dennis Campbell
Theories from the economics, management control, and organizational behavior literatures predict that when it is difficult to align incentives by contracting on output, aligning preferences via employee selection may provide a useful alternative. This study... View Details
- February 2010
- Article
Managing Know-How
By: Deishin Lee and Eric J. Van den Steen
We study how firms can use a knowledge management system to optimally leverage employee-generated know-how. In particular, we consider the following practical strategic questions for the manager of a knowledge-intensive firm: should her firm develop a formal knowledge... View Details
- Article
Strong Leadership and Teamwork Drive Culture and Performance Change: Ohio State University Medical Center 2000–2006
By: Leonard A. Schlesinger, Fred Sanfilippo, Neeli Bendapudi and Anthony Rucci
Several characteristics of academic health centers have the potential to create high levels of internal conflict and misalignment that can pose significant leadership challenges.
In September 2000, the positions of Ohio State University (OSU) senior vice... View Details
- Article
Can They Take It with Them? The Portability of Star Knowledge Workers' Performance: Myth or Reality
By: Boris Groysberg, Linda-Eling Lee and Ashish Nanda
This paper examines the portability of star security analysts' performance. Star analysts who switched employers experienced an immediate decline in performance that persisted for at least five years. This decline was most pronounced among star analysts who moved to... View Details