Learning By Thinking - Publications - Faculty & Research

13 Nov 2000
Research & Ideas

Managing to Learn: How Companies Can Turn Knowledge into Action

In his book, Learning in Action: A Guide to Putting the Learning Organization to Work (Harvard Business School Press), HBS professor David Garvin argues that Nike left open a critical gap between encouraging... View Details

Keywords: by Laurie Joan Aron

05 Jun 2009
What Do You Think?

What Does Slower Economic Growth Really Mean?

Summing Up If not useful growth, what are we measuring? And why? This column does not thrive on general agreement. And this past month discussants came close to general agreement on the proposition that economic growth is not measured properly View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Financial Services; Construction; Real Estate

23 Jul 2001
Research & Ideas

Sam Walton: Great From the Start

learn that the store was a real dog." The rent for this "dog" was 5 percent of sales. This sounded fine to Walton; but after signing the lease, he discovered that this "was the highest rent anybody'd ever heard of in... View Details

Keywords: by Richard S. Tedlow; Retail

30 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

Asking Questions Can Get You a Better Job or a Second Date

questions. What holds them back?” One reason might be ego. People may be so focused on sharing what they know that they aren’t considering what they might learn from others. Or, they may think to ask a... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

17 Oct 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Self-Employment Dynamics and the Returns to Entrepreneurship

Keywords: by Eleanor W. Dillon and Christopher T. Stanton

12 May 2022
Book

Why Digital Is a State of Mind, Not Just a Skill Set

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

15 Sep 2011
Research & Ideas

High Ambition Leadership

aligned. It was what we call in the book "forging strategic identity." Sometimes, usually with startups, this is done at the beginning of the CEO's tenure. In other instances this way of thinking develops over time. This process is often... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

04 May 2015
Research & Ideas

Need to Solve a Problem? Take a Break From Collaborating

"Substantial recent research implies that clustering—the degree to which people with whom a person is connected are themselves connected to each other—can improve problem-solving performance by increasing coordination," the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Video Game; Web Services

18 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

It’s Not Nagging: Why Persistent, Redundant Communication Works

industries (computing, telecommunications, and health care) by shadowing them at their jobs. The team recorded every activity in the managers' workday, collecting a total of 256 hours' worth of observations. "As we analyzed data we... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

08 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

Decision Rights: Who Gives the Green Light?

for the pricing of bids made by its foreign subsidiaries. The company believed that its U.S.-based executives would be more effective in making pricing decisions because they had a broader purview of the company's needs. But the time... View Details

Keywords: by Peter Jacobs

Apr 04 2019
Testimonial

Designing a Career With Impact

05 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

Lessons in Decision-Making: Confident People Aren't Always Correct (Except When They Are)

the right people are confident, suggests recent research by Thomas Graeber, assistant professor at Harvard Business School. His work tested the effects of meta-cognition—essentially, whether more skilled people are also more confident... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

06 Jan 2020
Working Paper Summaries

From Know-It-Alls to Learn-It-Alls: Executive Development in the Era of Self-Refining Algorithms, Collaborative Filtering and Wearable Computing

Keywords: by Mihnea Moldoveanu and Das Narayandas; Education

13 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

When Good Incentives Lead to Bad Decisions

Among the culprits contributing to the recent financial crisis were bank loan officers who approved mortgage loans that were doomed to fail. Many of these frontline workers were motivated by bonuses and other incentives to approve... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Banking

25 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Could a Business Model Help Big Pharma Save Lives and Profit?

by harnessing a new business model. The bold approach worked. Gilead, one of the world’s leading antiviral makers, would sell its branded Hepatitis C medicines while offering local manufacturers voluntary licenses to produce generics,... View Details

Keywords: by Esther Schrader; Pharmaceutical; Health

22 May 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Componential Theory of Creativity

Keywords: by Teresa M. Amabile

12 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

COVID Tested Global Supply Chains. Here’s How They’ve Adapted

believed. While the share of US imports from China fell, they were replaced by imports from other locations. For instance, the share of imports from Vietnam and Mexico, the paper notes, increased 2 percentage points and close to .7... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

15 Aug 2011
Research & Ideas

A New Model for Business: The Museum

along with companies like Apple, Facebook, and Progressive Insurance, is a leading example of firms that are thinking about customers in a new way—much like how a museum curator orchestrates the experience of patrons. Weaver, an assistant... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

25 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

Feeling Stuck? Getting Past Impasse

may learn that someone—our boss, our boss's boss, or a key person—is leaving. He or she won't be here 4 weeks from now. The events that flow from a simple change such as this can be complex. Perhaps this event prompts a reorganization and... View Details