Publications

SSRN

Read Now

09 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

The Challenge of the Multi-site Nonprofit

Why is it more difficult for nonprofit organizations than, say, retail chains, to run efficient multi-site operations? A recent Harvard Business Review story concluded that nonprofits waste $100 billion a year through inefficient... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

January 2023
Case

Gerald Weiss (2023)

By: Brian J. Hall, Carleen Madigan, Andrew Wasynczuk and Caroline Witten

Gerald Weiss left Wall Street for the promise of a CFO position at a well-established corporation. He was given a 10-year options package with a guaranteed floor of $12 million and unlimited upside. To ensure the entire package would be worth at least $12 million after... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Resignation and Termination; Executive Compensation; Organizational Culture; Agreements and Arrangements; Stock Options; Conflict and Resolution; New York (city, NY)

Article

Managing a Polarized Workforce: How to Foster Debate and Promote Trust

By: Julia A. Minson and Francesca Gino

One of the toughest challenges leaders face is managing diverse perspectives—and given heightened tensions over politics and movements such as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, that’s more difficult today than ever before. At the same time, productive disagreement and... View Details

Keywords: Polarization; Employees; Perspective; Interpersonal Communication; Organizational Culture; Trust

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

30 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Germany’s Pioneering Corporate Managers

by such great managers as August Thyssen, Alfred Krupp, and Werner Siemens. Professor Jeffrey Fear's book Organizing Control: August Thyssen and the Construction of German Corporate Management overturns some of our preconceptions of... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

04 Aug 2003
What Do You Think?

Are We Facing an Attitude Shortage?

value-based employee development." Khadija Khan, while agreeing that "...it is hard to identify attitude problems in a short interview process," proposed a response: "One innovative approach that we use is to organize... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

February 2013
Article

Exceptional Boards: Environmental Experience and Positive Deviance from Institutional Norms

By: Judith Walls and Andrew J. Hoffman

This paper explores the phenomenon of positive organizational deviance from institutional norms by establishing practices that protect or enhance the natural environment. Seeking to explain why some organizations practice positive environmental deviance while others do... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Networks; Organizational Culture; Governing and Advisory Boards; Environmental Management

Find at Harvard

21 Jun 2004
Research & Ideas

Racial Diversity Pays Off

performance benefits from that group," said Ely. "I was interested in this 'certainty' and I wanted to put it to an empirical test." She defined cultural diversity as group differences in identity, particularly concerning... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

August 2008 (Revised June 2013)
Background Note

Note on the Nonprofit Coherence Framework

By: Allen S. Grossman and Stacey Childress

This note presents the Nonprofit Coherence Framework. It helps nonprofit leaders identify the key elements that support an organizational strategy focused on attaining high performance, bring those elements into a coherent relationship with the strategy and each other,... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Performance Improvement; Nonprofit Organizations; Corporate Strategy

05 Jul 2023
HBS Case

What Kind of Leader Are You? How Three Action Orientations Can Help You Meet the Moment

Organizations rarely reinvent themselves in a perfectly straight line. More often than not, reinvention is like riding a roller-coaster, with the highest of highs and lowest of lows. This is true even at the best organizations, despite... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

December 2022
Case

Ed Catmull: Lessons from Leading Pixar Animation Studios

By: Francesca Gino, Linda Hill, Gary Pisano and Ruth Page

This stand-alone multimedia case follows Ed Catmull, cofounder of Pixar, after he was vice president at Lucasfilm. Catmull was honored with five Academy Awards®, including an Oscar of Lifetime Achievement for his technical contributions and leadership in computer... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Organizational Culture; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

Rakesh Khurana is the Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development at the Harvard Business School. He is also Professor of Sociology at Harvard University, co-Master of Cabot House at Harvard College, and the Danoff Dean of Harvard College.

Professor... View Details

Keywords: executive search

20 Dec 2018
News

Using Fintech to Disrupt Eastern Bank from Within

07 Mar 2018
News

No Music, No Life: The Legacy Of Tower Records

August 2010 (Revised November 2011)
Case

MindTree: A Community of Communities

By: David A. Garvin and Rachna Tahilyani

MindTree is a mid-sized Indian IT services company known for its knowledge management practices, its collaborative communities, and its strong culture and values. The CEO has set a goal of becoming a $1 billion company by 2014; to reach that goal, employees must create... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Employee Relationship Management; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge Management; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information Technology Industry; India

April 30, 2020
Article

Leading Your Team Past the Peak of a Crisis

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

In the middle of a crisis, everything looks like a failure. But it’s possible to come out the other end with a strong company—and often with a plan for growth. Companies with a people-first culture can succeed by paying attention to three things: establishing clear... View Details

Keywords: Crisis Management; Organizational Culture; Corporate Accountability; Collaborative Innovation and Invention

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

December 2010 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House

By: A. Eugene Kohn, Arthur I Segel and Andrew Pierson Terris

Steve Williams, General Counsel of Unilever PIc, has two key decisions to make prior to commencing construction on the redevelopment of Unilever House - the company's London corporate headquarters. The purpose of the redevelopment is to reinvigorate the corporate... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Leasing; Sales; Restructuring; Leading Change; Financing and Loans; Decisions; Business Headquarters; Design; Projects; London

December 2011 (Revised January 2012)
Supplement

Pierre Frankel in Moscow (B): Plowing Ahead

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Matthew Bird

After several months into his turnaround of a global technology company's Russia subsidiary, a young and upcoming French executive reflected on how to institutionalize the subsidiary's transformation by further driving cultural change and breaking down internal silos.... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Business Subsidiaries; Leadership; Manufacturing Industry; Russia