Performance Productivity - Publications - Faculty & Research

October 2023
Case

CornerUp: Digitizing the Corner Store

By: Álvaro Rodríguez Arregui, Stacy Straaberg and Diego Zainos De La Sota Riva

In July 2023, Jason Diaz, co-founder and CEO of CornerUp, assessed the progress of his business-to-business e-procurement software application (app) startup, founded in January 2022. CornerUp began as a fast-moving consumer packaged goods (FMCG) distributor in New York... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Small Business; Transition; Decisions; Social Entrepreneurship; Geographic Location; Disruptive Innovation; Market Participation; Digital Platforms; Trust; Business Strategy; Expansion; Information Infrastructure; Internet and the Web; Technology Adoption; Value Creation; Technology Industry; United States

Citation

Educators

March 2018 (Revised March 2018)
Teaching Note

OpenInvest

By: Boris Vallee and Caitlin Reimers Brumme

Founded by a team of hedge fund and NGO alumni, OpenInvest launched its platform in 2015 to enable retail investors to tailor their portfolio to their personal values in an automated way, for instance by screening out weapon manufacturers stocks or overweighting LGBTQ... View Details

Keywords: Socially Responsible Investing; Investing For Impact; Robo-advisors; Investment; Values and Beliefs; Customization and Personalization; Technology; Financial Services Industry

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01 Nov 2021
What Do You Think?

How Long Does It Take to Improve an Organization’s Culture?

University (completed before the outset of the pandemic) concluded that a strong corporate culture fosters better execution, reduction in agency cost, and therefore, higher productivity and creativity. Of the many executives surveyed, 92... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

26 Jun 2023
Research & Ideas

Want to Leave a Lasting Impression on Customers? Don't Forget the (Proverbial) Fireworks

as well as a hiring decision based on a candidate’s performance during a university job interview. In a final study, the researchers allowed participants to generate their own journey lines by watching a trailer for a movie not yet in... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Entertainment & Recreation

19 Jan 2011
First Look

First Look: Jan. 18

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9390.html Why You Aren't Buying Venezuelan Chocolate Author:Rohit Deshpandé Publication:Harvard Business Review 88, no. 12 (December 2010) Abstract The article discusses the "provenance paradox," wherein consumers are... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

22 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

Want Hybrid Work to Succeed? Trust, Don’t Track, Employees

diverge from the typical nine-to-five. Contrary to some expectations—but consistent with years of research—that flexibility has actually spurred worker productivity to improve. In polls that Neeley has taken at companies in a variety of... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

July 2010
Article

Is a Higher Calling Enough? Incentives Effects in the Church

By: Christopher Parsons, J. Hartzell and D. Yermack

We study the compensation and productivity of more than 2,000 Methodist ministers in a 43‐year panel data set. The church appears to use pay‐for‐performance incentives for its clergy, as their compensation follows a sharing rule by which pastors receive approximately... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Organizations; Religion; Performance Evaluation; Compensation and Benefits

Citation

Find at Harvard

February 1999 (Revised June 2000)
Case

Cimetrics Technology (A-1)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Jose Royo

Jim Lee, president of Cimetrics (a young, fast growing, software start-up) is reevaluating his small company's geographically dispersed product development model. To take advantage of talented low-cost labor in Russia, the company has relied on two software engineering... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Applications and Software; Business or Company Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Labor and Management Relations; Product Development; Performance Evaluation; Information Technology Industry; Russia; Canada; United States

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Spring 2012
Article

Sustainability at Dow Chemical

By: Robert G. Eccles, Kathleen M. Perkins and Mark Weick

Dow Chemical Company, which was founded in 1894, is now the second-largest chemical company in the world. From the outset, the company has been committed to high-technology research and commercial innovation in chemistry, advanced materials, and agro-sciences. But if... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Corporate Strategy; Chemicals; Environmental Sustainability; Innovation and Invention; Chemical Industry

Citation

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05 Dec 2022
What Do You Think?

How Would Jack Welch’s Leadership Style Fare in Today’s World?

one with a PhD. and unbridled curiosity. With Jack Welch, one experienced an idea a minute. Some hit home, some didn’t. He and his team tried a lot of things—many of them were ideas developed elsewhere—and presumably kept most of what worked. After all, Welch was a... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Industrial Products; Industrial Products; Industrial Products; Industrial Products

Web

Organizational Behavior - Faculty & Research

When individuals engage in fulfilling activities outside of work, they perform better on the job, but simply encouraging work-life balance doesn’t help with hour-by-hour time management. A new tool for measuring the subjective value of... View Details

14 Feb 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: February 14

a period of two and a half years, we examine the conditions under which discretion is exercised to deviate from the assigned First-In-First-Out scheduling policy, and the performance effects of those choices. Exploiting random assignment... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Web

MBA Experience - Leadership

on how managers become effective leaders by addressing the human side of enterprise. The first modules examine teams, individuals, and networks in the context of: The determinants of group culture. Managing the performance of individual... View Details

September 2003
Case

Driving Change at Seagate

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Douglas A Raymond and Lyn Baranowski

A new CEO, Steve Luczo, together with COO Bill Watkins, have led a turnaround of Seagate, raising productivity dramatically and increasing innovation through teamwork, cross-functional collaboration, and other transformations in the culture of this manufacturer of disk... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development; Transformation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Groups and Teams; Performance Productivity; Initial Public Offering; Going Public; Information Technology Industry

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07 Dec 2010
First Look

First Look: Dec. 7

regularly explore together: (1) Who is your primary customer? Have you organized your company to deliver maximum value to that customer? (2) How do your core values prioritize shareholders, employees, and customers? Is everyone in your company committed to those... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

29 Oct 2013
First Look

First Look: October 29

complete. The local was never entirely subsumed by the global. Convergence and homogenization were stronger in aspirations than in preferences for particular products and scents, which remained more persistently local despite the spread... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Feb 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: February 21

to pose a problem for the economy. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=52111 Seeking to Belong: How the Words of Internal and External Beneficiaries Influence Performance By: Green, Paul, Francesca Gino,... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

11 Jul 2017
First Look

First Look at New Ideas and Research, July 11

their worth from their multisided platforms (MSPs), which facilitate interactions or transactions between parties. Many MSPs are more valuable than companies in the same industries that provide only products or services: For instance,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Aug 2022
What Do You Think?

Does Religious Belief Affect Organizational Performance?

the question is extended more broadly to organizations in general, there is little for us to go on in responding to the question. The impact of culture on performance has interested me for several decades, having teamed in 1992 with John... View Details

Keywords: Re: James L. Heskett

February 2016
Case

Health Catalyst

By: Kevin Schulman and Suresh Balu

Dan Burton, Health Catalyst CEO (HBS Baker Scholar), and Tom Burton, Health Catalyst Senior Vice President of Product Development and cofounder, closed on a $41 million investment round. Their firm was one of the hottest companies in the health information technology... View Details