Publications

09 Sep 2024
HBS Case

McDonald’s and the Post #MeToo Rules of Sex in the Workplace

It was a brief dalliance, just a few weeks in length, over text and video only. The end of the affair was nonetheless just the beginning for Stephen Easterbrook, the McDonald’s CEO who went from being hailed as the company’s “savior” by doubling its share price in less... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman; Food & Beverage

11 Sep 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, September 11, 2018

and Sustain a Movement In 2018, New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof and his wife, former Times writer Sheryl WuDunn (HBS ’86) who worked in finance, were planning for their next book. The couple’s earlier books had given rise to social movements around View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

23 Jan 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, January 23, 2018

mothers were not employed. In the domestic sphere, sons raised by employed mothers spend more time caring for family members, and daughters spend less time on housework. Analyses provide evidence for two mechanisms: gender attitudes and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2023
Simulation

Artea Dashboard and Targeting Policy Evaluation

By: Ayelet Israeli and Eva Ascarza

Companies deploy A/B experiments to gain valuable insights about their customers in order to answer strategic business problems. In marketing, A/B tests are often used to evaluate marketing interventions intended to generate incremental outcomes for the firm. The Artea... View Details

July 2019
Teaching Note

Arlan Hamilton and Backstage Capital

By: Laura Huang

Teaching Note for HBS No. 419-029. Frustrated by an inability to convince existing venture capital firms to invest in companies led by women, people of color, and LGBT founders, Arlan Hamilton started her own firm, Backstage Capital, in 2015. Hamilton understood the... View Details

Keywords: Black Leadership; LGBTQ; People Of Color; Entrepreneurship; Mission and Purpose; Venture Capital; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Identity; Personal Characteristics; Prejudice and Bias; Social Issues; Diversity; Gender; Race

May 1994 (Revised August 1994)
Case

Motorola-Penang

By: Shoshana Zuboff and Janis Lee Gogan

S.K. Ko managed Motorola's Penang, Malaysia factory, producing telecommunications components and equipment. As a female manager of a multi-ethnic and labor-intensive plant in Asia, Ko faced a number of challenges. She had already promoted quality circles and quality... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants; Transformation; Decision Making; Ethnicity; Gender; Training; Leading Change; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Problems and Challenges; Technology Industry; Malaysia

July 2014
Teaching Note

Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership

By: Boris Groysberg and Deborah Bell

The case reviews Rebecca Halstead's career history, detailing how, through her personal attributes, skills, experiences, challenges, and organizational practices she developed into a successful leader and commander in the U.S. Army. The teaching note discusses... View Details

Keywords: Strategy And Leadership; Leadership And Managing People; Working Conditions; Groups and Teams; Competitive Strategy; Personal Development and Career; Organizational Culture; Personal Characteristics; Leadership Style; Gender; Power and Influence

13 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

6 Ways to Support COVID-Weary Employees

COVID-19 suggest that the gender of the leader plays a role in how these countries dealt with this particular crisis. Think of the hesitant response of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who did not take this problem very seriously... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

29 Oct 2000
Research & Ideas

The Entrepreneurial Venture: A Conversation

Today's frenzied world of dot-com mania might have been hard to predict 25 years ago, but the Class of 1975 has always had an eye for opportunity. For its time, the class had a sizable number of military officers familiar with strategic tactics and pioneering women who... View Details

Keywords: by Susan Young

20 Apr 2010
First Look

First Look: April 20

built brands that shaped perceptions of beauty and the business organizations needed to market them. They democratized access to beauty products, once the privilege of elites, but they also defined the gender and ethnic borders of beauty,... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2014
Working Paper

Multinational Firms, Labor Market Discrimination, and the Capture of Competitive Advantage by Exploiting the Social Divide

By: Jordan I. Siegel, Lynn Pyun and B.Y. Cheon

The organizational theory of the multinational firm holds that foreignness is a liability, and specifically that lack of embeddedness in host-country social networks is a source of competitive disadvantage; meanwhile the literature on labor market discrimination... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Human Capital; Selection and Staffing; Multinational Firms and Management; Competitive Advantage; Markets; Profit; Gender; South Korea

SSRN

Read Now

20 Apr 2016
Research & Ideas

When CEOs Become Activists

When North Carolina governor Pat McCrory recently signed into law the Public Facilities Privacy & Securities Act, in response to a Charlotte city ordinance that, among other things, would have prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation or View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Technology; Publishing

November 2008 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Maggie Lena Walker and the Independent Order of St. Luke

By: Anthony Mayo and Shandi Onise Smith

As America struggled to regain its balance in the aftermath of the American Civil War, Maggie Lena Walker did her best to actively effect change by finding solutions to the social and economic problems facing blacks and especially black women. Taking charge of the... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leading Change; Ethnicity; Race; Social Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career; Welfare; Business and Community Relations; Gender; Banks and Banking

15 Mar 2016
First Look

March 15, 2016

Aaron K., and Michael W. Toffel Abstract—Several CEOs are receiving significant media attention for taking public positions on controversial social and environmental issues largely unrelated to their core business, ranging from gay marriage to climate change to View Details

September 2020
Case

The Black New Venture Competition

By: Karen Mills, Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Martin Sinozich and Gabriella Elanbeck

Black entrepreneurs encounter many unique obstacles when raising capital to start and grow a business. During their second year at Harvard Business School (HBS), MBA students Kimberly Foster and Tyler Simpson decided to do something to make a difference for... View Details

09 Aug 2016
First Look

August 9, 2016

making: participants were more likely to hire job candidates and choose collaborators who reframed their distress as passion compared to those who did not. Expresser gender did not moderate these effects. Results suggest that in cases... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 Apr 2016
First Look

April 5, 2016

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50854 Knowing When to Ask: The Cost of Leaning-in By: Exley, Christine L., Muriel Niederle, and Lise Vesterlund Abstract—Gender differences in the propensity to negotiate are often used to explain the View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthlorne

26 Jul 2016
First Look

July 26, 2016

candidates and choose collaborators who reframed their distress as passion compared to those who did not. Expresser gender did not moderate these effects. Results suggest that in cases when distress expressions cannot or should not be... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2010 (Revised June 2011)
Case

SEWA Trade Facilitation Center: Changing the Spool

By: Mukti Khaire and Kathleen L. McGinn

The case is about the decision to convert a not-for-profit organization into a for-profit company. SEWA Trade Facilitation Center (STFC), which is part of a larger non-profit organization—the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA)—works to improve the livelihoods of... View Details

Keywords: Cooperative Ownership; For-Profit Firms; Gender; Business Model; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Nonprofit Organizations; Arts; Entrepreneurship; Economic Growth; Growth and Development Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; India