by John Macomber - Publications - Faculty & Research

22 Jul 2002
Research & Ideas

How Business Strategy Tamed the “Invisible Hand”

uncovered significant differences in performance associated with their respective strategies for competing in that industry.10 This format of combining industry notes with company cases, which had been initiated at Harvard Business School View Details

Keywords: by Pankaj Ghemawat

01 Oct 2001
What Do You Think?

Will Information Technology Really Turn Organizations Upside Down This Time?

inhabited by academics and consultants ...personal advancement may be better served by being provocative than by being right." Others question the importance of the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

24 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

Financial Meltdowns Are More Predictable Than We Thought

Research. The paper was coauthored by Andrei Shleifer, the John L. Loeb Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and Jakob Ahm Sørensen, a doctoral fellow at the Copenhagen Business School. Avoiding the... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Financial Services

09 Jan 2006
What Do You Think?

Should More Transparency Extend to Education for Management?

as a successful recruiting tool; disclosing the grades required to get there is not necessary." On the other hand, many respondents believed that transparency in management should extend in some form to the educational process. In advocating grade disclosure,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Education

09 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

Education, Technology, and Business: What’s the Catch?

the Internet. By 2001, the E-Rate program had wired 87 percent of all K-12 classrooms in the U.S. If we believe that educational performance is a result of investment, it hasn't paid off.—Kosmas Kalliarekos, The Parthenon Group View Details

Keywords: by Carla Tishler; Education

March 2007 (Revised March 2007)
Case

Burt's Bees: Leaving the Hive

Rapid growth is pushing Burt's Bees' natural personal care products into mass distribution channels, with products and brand elements that are less quirky, more commercial than they used to be. Indeed, CEO John Replogle believes that by focusing on efficacious,... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Consumer Behavior; Asset Pricing; Entrepreneurship; Distribution Channels; Product Development; Brands and Branding; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; United States

Citation

Educators

Purchase

In 2008, a collapse in housing prices triggered a global financial crisis. John Macomber, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, believes history may be about to repeat itself — this time caused by our failure to acknowledge and confront the perils... View Details

05 Jun 2014
Research & Ideas

Fixing the ‘I Hate Work’ Blues

The New York Times ran a troubling story, "Why You Hate Work," in last week's "Sunday Review." The article indicated that employees work too hard and find little meaning from their work. The anecdotes we all hear about this topic are reinforced... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

13 Jun 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Global Investments Are Still a Good Bet

Wang and John Zhou, Global Portfolio Diversification for Long-Horizon Investors has become one of the top downloaded papers on the online Social Science Research Network, sparking intense interest in the value of diversification in global... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

03 Aug 2016
Research & Ideas

Ominous Background Music Is Bad for Sharks

conversation about ways we can improve public perception of these ecologically important animals,” says Andrew Nosal, a visiting researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The Power of the Theme from “Jaws” Why do filmmakers tend to associate sharks with scary... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Media & Broadcasting

23 Jun 2020
Book

Beginning America Over Again with a New Electoral System

Created by the people for the people, the American political system is instead "a private industry dominated by a textbook duopoly—the Democrats and the Republicans—and plagued and perverted View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

07 Sep 2016
What Do You Think?

How Can the Threat of Networks Be Reduced?

SUMMING UP Are Computers and Tech-Driven Networks In Their Twilight Years? Issues raised by the ascendancy of network technology are many and varied, judging from responses to this month’s column based on Joshua Cooper Ramo’s book, The... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

02 Apr 2010
What Do You Think?

Why Are Fewer and Fewer U.S. Employees Satisfied With Their Jobs?

focus on employees and more on business and profitability." Phil Clark posited that knowledge work that deals with intangible results and hard-to-pinpoint accomplishments "just isn't as satisfying" as work used to be. John... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

05 Mar 2008
What Do You Think?

Where Will Management Innovation Take Us?

not clear. Many suggested that the kind of management innovation described by Gary Hamel in his new book, The Future of Management, will more likely occur as a result of forces outside the organization. Tony Gattis described the... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

13 Feb 2013
Research & Ideas

5 Weight Loss Tips From Behavioral Economists

Later: Decreasing Impatience over Time in Online Grocery Orders" by Todd Rogers, Katherine L. Milkman, and Max H. Bazerman. TIP #2 - Put your money where your mouth is. Leslie John, now an assistant professor at HBS, led an experiment at... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

14 Nov 2007
Research & Ideas

Growing CEOs from the Inside

them a lame duck. At worst, they may want to avoid leaving. So a board member might ask, "Don't you think we should discuss succession? You might get hit by a truck." And the CEO will say, "I have a successor in mind, and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Employment

23 Feb 2021
Research & Ideas

COVID-19 Shines New Light on Working Conditions in Supply Chains

invent their own standards?” he says. “It's because federal and state safety regulators haven’t set up clear rules and guidance.” We recently talked to Toffel, the Senator John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management, about how the... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Apparel & Accessories

September 2001 (Revised August 2005)
Case

Deaconess-Glover Hospital (C)

For nearly three months, John Carter, a vascular surgeon by training, had been studying a variety of clinical processes at Deaconess-Glover Hospital in Needham, Mass. Carter was looking for an opportunity to test the applicability of Toyota Production System... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Health Care and Treatment; Business Processes; Health Industry