Publications

09 Jan 2006
Research & Ideas

When Benchmarks Don’t Work

that internal support or shared services groups provide, such straight-across cost or numeric comparisons become meaningless. Today's successful support unit earns its keep by being a trusted partner to the business units it serves. So,... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan; Service

2007
Article

Three Perspectives on Team Learning: Outcome Improvement, Task Mastery, and Group Process

By: Amy C. Edmondson, James R. Dillon and Kate Roloff

The emergence of a research literature on team learning has been driven by at least two factors. First, longstanding interest in what makes organizational work teams effective leads naturally to questions about how members of newly formed teams learn to work together... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Practice; Groups and Teams; Research; Adaptation; Cooperation

Article

Team Scaffolds: How Mesolevel Structures Enable Role-based Coordination in Temporary Groups

By: M. Valentine and A. C. Edmondson

This paper shows how meso-level structures support effective coordination in temporary groups. Prior research on coordination in temporary groups describes how roles encode individual responsibilities so that coordination between relative strangers is possible. We... View Details

Keywords: Fluid Personnel; Team Scaffolds; Team Effectiveness; Role-based Coordination; Multi-method; Service Delivery; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Performance Efficiency

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Bright Ideas: The Creative Power of Groups

and execute truly creative solutions. Perhaps the traditional image of the creative genius working alone to create great breakthroughs is not so accurate after all. To shatter conventional wisdom about group... View Details

Keywords: by Laurie Joan Aron

2014
Working Paper

Team Scaffolds: How Meso-Level Structures Support Role-based Coordination in Temporary Groups

By: Melissa A. Valentine and Amy C. Edmondson

This paper shows how meso-level structures support effective coordination in temporary groups. Prior research on coordination in temporary groups describes how roles encode individual responsibilities so that coordination between relative strangers is possible. We... View Details

Keywords: Fluid Personnel; Team Scaffolds; Team Effectiveness; Role-based Coordination; Multi-method; Health Care and Treatment; Analytics and Data Science; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Organizational Structure; Outcome or Result; Performance Effectiveness; Groups and Teams; Networks; Behavior; Balance and Stability; Health Industry

SSRN

Read Now

April 2010 (Revised May 2010)
Supplement

George Martin at The Boston Consulting Group (C)

By: Leslie A. Perlow and Kerry Herman

George Martin, managing partner at The Boston Consulting Group, is worried as some of his best performers have recently pulled him aside to discuss the challenges they face managing the demands of their work lives with their desire for more predictable time with their... View Details

Keywords: Work-Life Balance; Problems and Challenges; Employees

2012
Working Paper

Pay Dispersion and Work Performance

By: Alessandro Bucciol and Marco Piovesan

The effect of intra-firm pay dispersion on work performance is controversial and the empirical evidence is mixed. High pay dispersion may act as an extra incentive for employees' effort or it may reduce motivation and team cohesiveness. These effects can also coexist... View Details

Keywords: Performance; Wages; Motivation and Incentives; Groups and Teams; Italy

In early 2020, the world began what is undoubtedly the largest work-from-home experiment in history. Now, organizations continue to wrestle with whether and how to have workers return to their offices. Business leaders need to be able to answer a number of questions... View Details

February 2001 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Ducati & Texas Pacific Group - A "Wild Ride" Leveraged Buyout

Describes the attempt of Texas Pacific Group (TPG), a buyout firm, to purchase a controlling stake in Ducati Motor, the world's leading high-performance motorcycle company, based in Bologna, Italy. Ducati is part of Cagiva Group, a family-controlled industrial group.... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Leveraged Buyouts; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Manufacturing Industry; Motorcycle Industry; Texas; Italy

Educators

01 Feb 2023
What Do You Think?

Will Hybrid Work Strategies Pull Down Long-Term Performance?

generations of entrants to the workforce who have become accustomed to study and work from home, if not from anywhere. Bloom estimates that working from home is equivalent to a 7-8 percent pay increase for... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Web

Topics - HBS Working Knowledge

Government and Politics (455) Groups and Teams (37) Growth Management (12) Growth and Development Strategy (40) Growth and Development (16) Happiness (29) Health Care and Treatment (96) Health Disorders (3) Health Pandemics (32) Health... View Details

02 May 2016
Blog Post

Why We Recruit: Samsung Global Strategy Group

the best talent from top business schools and develops them into high-caliber global general managers for Samsung Group companies. At Samsung GSG, one learns essential management skills by working across... View Details

Keywords: Technology

April 2010
Case

George Martin at The Boston Consulting Group (A)

By: Leslie A. Perlow and Kerry Herman

George Martin, managing partner at The Boston Consulting Group, is worried as some of his best performers have recently pulled him aside to discuss the challenges they face managing the demands of their work lives with their desire for more predictable time with their... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Work-Life Balance; Management Teams; Interpersonal Communication; Jobs and Positions; Employees; Consulting Industry; Boston

Educators

May – June 2011
Article

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth: How High Status Individuals Decrease Group Effectiveness

By: Boris Groysberg, Jeffrey T. Polzer and Hillary Anger Elfenbein

Can groups become effective simply by assembling high status individual performers? Though an affirmative answer may seem straightforward on the surface, this answer becomes more complicated when group members benefit from collaborating on interdependent tasks.... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Equity; Theory; Human Resources; Integration; Body of Literature; Performance Effectiveness; Status and Position; Experience and Expertise

November 2022
Article

A Language-Based Method for Assessing Symbolic Boundary Maintenance between Social Groups

By: Anjali M. Bhatt, Amir Goldberg and Sameer B. Srivastava

When the social boundaries between groups are breached, the tendency for people to erect and maintain symbolic boundaries intensifies. Drawing on extant perspectives on boundary maintenance, we distinguish between two strategies that people pursue in maintaining... View Details

Keywords: Culture; Machine Learning; Natural Language Processing; Symbolic Boundaries; Organizations; Boundaries; Social Psychology; Interpersonal Communication; Organizational Culture

29 Oct 2013
Research & Ideas

Do Employees Work Harder for Higher Pay?

know of the existence of the other groups. One group was given a lower starting pay rate ($3 per hour) and another a higher one ($4 per hour). Evaluating the work effort and performance of the low-pay versus... View Details

Keywords: by Chuck Leddy & Harvard Gazette

Web

Case Research & Writing Group - Faculty & Research

Research Services Case Research & Writing Group 1ms Established in November 1999, the Case Research & Writing Group (CRG) grew out of Harvard Business School’s commitment to increase the diversity, impact,... View Details

November 2019
Teaching Note

Actera Group: Investing in Mars Cinema Group (A) and (B)

By: Victoria Ivashina and Jeffrey Boyar

In summer of 2010, Murat Çavuşoğlu (HBS MBA 1994) led private equity firm Actera Group’s investment in Mars Cinema Group (Mars), the leading movie exhibitor in Turkey. Immediately after acquiring Mars and merging it with the second larger player in the market, AFM,... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Value Creation; Transformation; Valuation; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Turkey