Alternatives - Publications - Faculty & Research

20 Jan 2022
Op-Ed

3 Steps to Help Companies Rebuild Trust During the Pandemic

found that the most effective apologies acknowledged responsibility, explained why the action happened, and offered to fix the damage. Be transparent with employees. Provide the context around why a decision was made, the alternatives... View Details

Keywords: by Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta

03 Dec 2020
Research & Ideas

Cut Payroll Costs with Transparency, Fairness, and Compassion

Which is why we have committed to you that no one at Aon is going to lose their job because of this COVID-19 outbreak.” Alternatives to salary cuts In addition to salary cuts, firms announced other initiatives to reduce payroll expenses... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott

03 Jan 2017
First Look

January 3, 2017

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=49779 BATNAs in Negotiation: Common Errors and Three Kinds of 'No' By: Sebenius, James K. Abstract—The Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (“BATNA”) concept in negotiation has proved... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

03 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Dealing with the ‘Irrational’ Negotiator

their actions, the strength of your BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement), and so on—there is a strong likelihood they will make better decisions. For example, if someone says "no" to an offer that you know is in... View Details

Keywords: by Deepak Malhotra & Max H. Bazerman

06 Oct 2010
Research & Ideas

John Kotter: Four Ways to Kill a Good Idea

can all be defused. Confusion Some idea-killing questions and concerns muddle the conversation with irrelevant facts, convoluted logic, or so many alternatives that it is impossible to have the clear and intelligent dialog that builds... View Details

Keywords: by John Kotter & Lorne A. Whitehead

02 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

Negotiating in Three Dimensions

value-creating contingencies and risk-sharing provisions to the contract? Can the contract cope not only with economic issues but also with the egos involved? These are but a few of the many common negotiating errors we see in practice. Q: Your 3-D View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

06 Dec 2017
What Do You Think?

Is It Time To Break Up Amazon, Apple, Facebook, or Google?

who will effectively threaten their apparent dominance, including in the US.” Alternatives to a marketwide breakup were suggested. Sacha offered that government power could be used to build competition by giving “chances to newcomers.”... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Technology; Web Services

25 Jan 2010
Research & Ideas

A Macroeconomic View of the Current Economy

there's in fact no alternative to foreigners buying our assets, either debt or equity. As I said, if you're earning $100,000 and you're spending $106,000, you're going to have to borrow or draw down your assets to make up the difference.... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

07 May 2020
Research & Ideas

The One Good Thing Caused by COVID-19: Innovation

compete with the (now improved) remote and digital alternatives that have emerged. The surging demand for risk mitigation also has implications for policymakers. Greater use of robotics, artificial intelligence, and automation will put... View Details

Keywords: by Hong Luo and Alberto Galasso

09 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

Why Entrepreneurs Should Go Work for Government

School who has created a new MBA course, Public Entrepreneurship. "The course allows students to consider the alternative that government can work—or they can help make it work." “We have many talented people in government, but... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

05 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

How Hormones Foretell Whether People Will Cheat

we didn't know, and what our research suggests, is that stress may also contribute to a social disease—namely, unethical behavior. Thus, the trick is to figure out ways to reduce stress. If we can substitute an alternative to cheating... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

07 Jul 2003
What Do You Think?

Can We Have Too Much Productivity Improvement?

faith that markets will once again bring labor back into equilibrium... the alternative of suppressing advances in efficiency is not within the realm of reason." Amy Savin commented, "I believe that increases in productivity are... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

22 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

The Hard Work of Failure Analysis

analyzing failure benefit in two ways. First, analyzing a failed drug sometimes reveals that the drug may have a viable alternate use. For example, Pfizer's Viagra was originally designed to be a treatment for angina, a painful heart... View Details

Keywords: by Amy Edmondson & Mark D. Cannon

01 May 2020
What Do You Think?

Does Remote Work Mix with Organizational Culture?

of remote work. On the other hand, remote work can provide an alternative to a toxic office culture resulting from management neglect. Armando Del Bosque commented, “Organizational culture helps us find what we love, love what we do and... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

15 Mar 2017
Lessons from the Classroom

More Than 900 Examples of How Climate Change Affects Business

This word cloud is composed of blog posts by more than 900 students describing how individual organizations are likely to be affected by climate change. Image by Patrick Clapp Last fall, first-year MBA students at Harvard Business School received a new assignment in... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Green Technology

04 Dec 2019
Book

Creating the Experimentation Organization

subtle tweaks to everything from varying shades of color to alternative placement of links and menu options for booking properties. It’s part of an innovative culture of experimentation that pervades every aspect of how the company... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

18 Feb 2019
Book

What’s Really Disrupting Business? It’s Not Technology

models to forge new sales channels, revenue streams, and customer segments. Could you give an example? Teixeira: Incumbents tend to respond to decoupling by gluing back the part of the value chain that was broken. The other alternative is... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Beauty & Cosmetics; Insurance; Service; Retail

April 4, 2009
Article

The Return of State-Owned Enterprises: Should We Be Afraid?

By: Aldo Musacchio and Francisco Flores-Macias

The global financial crisis of 2008-2009 has prompted many industrialized states worldwide to increase their stakes in private corporations. This wave of partial nationalizations has come amidst full-scale expropriations in developing countries such as Venezuela,... View Details

Keywords: History; Private Ownership; State Ownership; Financial Crisis; Business and Government Relations

Citation

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09 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Leadership Lessons of the Great Recession: Options for Economic Downturns

performance during a recovery” A search for leaders who have taken alternative approaches to managing their workforce during economic downturns led us to Honeywell CEO Dave Cote, and drives the narrative of our new case study, Honeywell... View Details

Keywords: by Sandra Sucher & Susan Winterberg; Aerospace; Electronics

13 Nov 2013
Research & Ideas

Should Men’s Products Fear a Woman’s Touch?

women, they flocked to Coke Zero. PepsiCo took a similar successful tack with Pepsi Max, the manly alternative to Diet Pepsi. And the Dr Pepper Snapple Group went all out with Dr Pepper Ten; the 10-calorie soda's unapologetic slogan is... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Consumer Products; Food & Beverage; Auto

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