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September 2019 (Revised February 2020)
Teaching Note

Commonwealth Bank of Australia: Unbanklike Experimentation

By: Ryan W. Buell and Leslie K. John

Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.

This Teaching Note explains the theory of the case and teaching plan for the case: Commonwealth Bank of Australia: Unbanklike Experimentation (619-018). In August 2017,... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Experimentation; Banks and Banking; Credit Cards; Customer Focus and Relationships; Competitive Strategy; Banking Industry; Australia

June 2012
Article

Pricing to Create Shared Value

By: Marco Bertini and John T. Gourville

Many companies are in competition with their customers to extract as much value as possible from every transaction. Pricing is their weapon of choice, and consumers fight back by rooting out and disseminating pricing policies that seem unfair. The problem is that... View Details

Keywords: Pricing; Marketing Strategy; Price; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Relationship Management; Value Creation; Fairness

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12 Sep 2023
Book

Successful, But Still Feel Empty? A Happiness Scholar and Oprah Have Advice for You

2022, they say, 16 percent of workers were “very satisfied” with their jobs, while almost half felt somewhat or very dissatisfied, according to “Job Satisfaction Survey: What Workers Want in 2022” from the blog Virtual Vocations. That’s... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

16 Jan 2006
Research & Ideas

What Customers Want from Your Products

Marketers have lost the forest for the trees, focusing too much on creating products for narrow demographic segments rather than satisfying needs. Customers want to "hire" a product to do a job, or, as legendary Harvard Business School marketing professor... View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott Cook & Taddy Hall; Consumer Products

26 Jun 2023
Research & Ideas

Want to Leave a Lasting Impression on Customers? Don't Forget the (Proverbial) Fireworks

horizontal and diagonal lines, curves, and waves, as well as adding some narrative arcs suggested by fiction writer Kurt Vonnegut. In a series of online studies, they asked participants to rate the different journey lines in several scenarios, including a customer’s... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Entertainment & Recreation

February 2020
Technical Note

Talent Management and the Future of Work

By: William R. Kerr and Gorick Ng

The nature of work is changing—and it is changing rapidly. Few days go by without industry giants such as Amazon and AT&T announcing plans to invest billions of dollars towards retraining nearly half of their respective workforces for jobs of the future. What changes... View Details

Keywords: Human Resource Management; Human Capital Development; Human Resource Practices; Talent; Talent Acquisition; Talent Development; Talent Development And Retention; Talent Management; Talent Retention; Labor Flows; Labor Management; Labor Market; Strategy Development; Strategy Management; Strategy Execution; Strategy And Execution; Strategic Change; Transformations; Organization; Organization Alignment; Organization Design; Organizational Adaptation; Organizational Effectiveness; Management Challenges; Management Of Business And Political Risk; Change Leadership; Future Of Work; Future; Skills Gap; Skills Development; Skills; Offshoring And Outsourcing; Investment; Capital Allocation; Work; Work Culture; Work Force Management; Work/life Balance; Work/family Balance; Work-family Boundary Management; Workers; Worker Productivity; Worker Performance; Work Engagement; Work Environment; Work Environments; Productivity; Organization Culture; Soft Skills; Technology Management; Technological Change; Technological Change: Choices And Consequences; Technology Diffusion; Disruptive Technology; Global Business; Global; Workplace; Workplace Context; Workplace Culture; Workplace Wellness; Collaboration; Competencies; Productivity Gains; Digital; Digital Transition; Competitive Dynamics; Competitiveness; Competitive Strategy; Data Analytics; Data; Data Management; Data Strategy; Data Protection; Aging Society; Diversity; Diversity Management; Millennials; Communication Complexity; Communication Technologies; International Business; Work Sharing; Global Competitiveness; Global Corporate Cultures; Intellectual Property; Intellectual Property Management; Intellectual Property Protection; Intellectual Capital And Property Issues; Globalization Of Supply Chain; Inequality; Recruiting; Hiring; Hiring Of Employees; Training; Job Cuts And Outsourcing; Job Performance; Job Search; Job Design; Job Satisfaction; Jobs; Employee Engagement; Employee Attitude; Employee Benefits; Employee Compensation; Employee Fairness; Employee Relationship Management; Employee Retention; Employee Selection; Employee Motivation; Employee Feedback; Employee Coordination; Employee Performance Management; Employee Socialization; Process Improvement; Application Performance Management; Stigma; Institutional Change; Candidates; Digital Enterprise; Cultural Adaptation; Cultural Change; Cultural Diversity; Cultural Context; Cultural Strategies; Cultural Psychology; Cultural Reform; Performance; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Management; Performance Evaluation; Performance Appraisal; Performance Feedback; Performance Measurement; Performance Metrics; Performance Measures; Performance Efficiency; Efficiency; Performance Analysis; Performance Appraisals; Performance Improvement; Automation; Artificial Intelligence; Technology Companies; Managerial Processes; Skilled Migration; Assessment; Human Resources; Management; Human Capital; Talent and Talent Management; Retention; Demographics; Labor; Strategy; Change; Change Management; Transformation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Working Conditions; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Disruption; Economy; Competition; Globalization; AI and Machine Learning; Digital Transformation

28 Jan 2019
Research & Ideas

Forget Cash. Here Are Better Ways to Motivate Employees

on how best to reward their workers in ways that will bring them greater job satisfaction and motivate them to work harder. When recruiting, emphasize benefits Talking up a job’s perks, such as flexible work schedules and skill training,... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

October 2019
Case

Street Symphony: Making Human Connections Through Music

By: Rohit Deshpandé

To Vijay Gupta, music was sacred. A highly accomplished and renowned violinist with The Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gupta believed the act of making and performing music was a deeply spiritual practice — one that had the power to heal audiences and musicians... View Details

Keywords: Arts; Cultural Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Social Issues; Business and Community Relations; Music Entertainment; Human Needs; Music Industry; Los Angeles; California; United States

2008
Book

Ownership Quotient: Putting the Service Profit Chain to Work for Unbeatable Competitive Advantage

By: James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser Jr. and Joe Wheeler

Hundreds of large organizations worldwide have used the groundbreaking Service Profit Chain to improve business performance. Now The Ownership Quotient reveals the next generation of the chain: customer and employee "owners" of your business. Employee-owners exhibit... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Customer Ownership; Employee Ownership; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation

03 Oct 2023
Research Event

Build the Life You Want: Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey Share Happiness Tips

first macro-nutrient in your happiness, which we talk about in the book because it's so important. By the way, she defined the scientific definition of happiness just now. Enjoyment plus satisfaction plus meaning or purpose. And and if... View Details

Keywords: by HBS Staff

10 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

Technology and COVID Upended Tipping Norms. Will Consumers Keep Paying?

if they tipped at all, throwing it into a jar on the counter.” Formerly, tipping was limited to waitstaff at sit-down restaurants, says Avery, an expert in customer relationship management. And, “In the US, tips were somewhere in the... View Details

Keywords: by Anna Lamb, Harvard Gazette

23 Jun 2023
HBS Case

This Company Lets Employees Take Charge—Even with Life and Death Decisions

patients as they see fit. A new Harvard Business School case study explores Buurtzorg’s decentralized model in depth, with lessons for institutions struggling with morale and productivity. Buurtzorg’s approach has yielded patient View Details

Keywords: by Annelena Lobb; Health

2011
Article

Group Size and Incentives to Contribute: A Natural Experiment at Chinese Wikipedia

By: Michael Zhang and Feng Zhu

In this paper, we examine the causal relationship between group size and incentives to contribute in the setting of Chinese Wikipedia, the Chinese language version of an online encyclopedia that relies entirely on voluntary contributions. The group at Chinese Wikipedia... View Details

Keywords: Rights; Motivation and Incentives; Internet and the Web; Valuation; Groups and Teams; Knowledge Sharing; Behavior; Satisfaction; Size; Government and Politics; Economics; Information Technology Industry; Hong Kong; Taiwan; Singapore

June 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Buurtzorg

By: Ethan Bernstein, Tatiana Sandino, Joost Minnaar and Annelena Lobb

As co-founders of home nursing company Buurtzorg, Jos de Blok and Gonnie Kronenberg prized both self-management and organizational learning. Buurtzorg’s 10,000 nurses across 950 neighborhood nursing teams in the Netherlands were empowered to manage themselves, both in... View Details

April 2024
Article

Speaking up and Taking Action: Psychological Safety and Joint Problem-solving Orientation in Safety Improvement

By: Hassina Bahadurzada, Michaela J. Kerrissey and Amy C. Edmondson

Healthcare organizations face stubborn challenges in ensuring patient safety and mitigating clinician turnover. This paper aims to advance theory and research on patient safety by elucidating how the role of psychological safety in patient safety can be enhanced with... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare Operations; Psychological Safety; Teams; Retention; Safety; Customer Satisfaction; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Health Industry

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06 Sep 2022
Research & Ideas

Does Hybrid Work Actually Work? Insights from 30,000 Emails

eight days during the study period. Hybrid workers spent nine to 14 days at the office, and the mostly in-office cohort worked more than 15 days in the office. Employees completed surveys that assessed their sense of satisfaction with... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

July 2008 (Revised July 2020)
Case

Managing a Global Team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc. (A)

By: Tsedal Neeley and Thomas J. DeLong

Greg James, a global manager at Sun Microsystems, Inc., sets out to meet with his entire 43-member customer implementation team spread across India, France, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States of America to resolve a dire customer system outage as required... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Global Range; Management; Customer Satisfaction; Service Delivery; Crisis Management; Conflict and Resolution; Technology Industry; India; United Arab Emirates; France; United States

January 2020
Article

One of a Kind: The Strong and Complex Preference for Unique Treatment from Romantic Partners

By: Lalin Anik and Ryan Hauser

Individuals prefer romantic partners who universally treat others well (i.e., partners who exhibit trait-level generosity) and also prefer partners who treat them uniquely. Previous work supports both preferences, yet the literature has largely ignored what happens... View Details

Keywords: Relationships; Behavior; Satisfaction