front line employees - Publications - Faculty & Research

September 2002 (Revised August 2003)
Case

Genzyme's Gaucher Initiative: Global Risk and Responsibility

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Andrew N. McLean

In Egypt, Genzyme's humanitarian commitment to treat all sufferers of the rare Gaucher disease worldwide first confronts its commercial imperative to recoup the huge investment required to bring the drug Cerezyme to market. Here Tomye Tierney must decide how to balance... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Investment; Emerging Markets; Negotiation; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Sales; Commercialization; Expansion; Value Creation

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22 May 2020
News

What Hospitals Overwhelmed by Covid-19 Can Learn From Startups

Article

Does Front-Loading Taxation Increase Savings?: Evidence from Roth 401(k) Introductions

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian

Can governments increase private savings by taxing savings up front instead of in retirement? Roth 401(k) contributions are not tax-deductible in the contribution year, but withdrawals in retirement are untaxed. The more common before-tax 401(k) contribution is... View Details

Keywords: Saving; Retirement; Taxation

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30 Jun 2021
News

Back to the Office? The Future of Remote and Hybrid Work, with Tsedal Neeley, PhD

Kris Johnson Ferreira

Kris Ferreira is the Edgerley Family Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Technology and Operations Management (TOM) Unit. She teaches the Supply Chain Management course in the MBA elective curriculum and analytics in numerous Executive Education... View Details

Keywords: retailing

16 Mar 2021
News

Employers Must Ensure the Safety of Home Workspaces

25 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

Rapport: The Hidden Advantage That Women Managers Bring to Teams

communication and rapport between managers and employees. In this case, the manager may not have scheduled the fast-food stations properly, forcing an overtaxed employee to juggle both packaging meals and taking orders. With an improperly... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin; Food & Beverage

2023
Working Paper

Too Many Managers: The Strategic Use of Titles to Avoid Overtime Payments

By: Lauren Cohen, Umit Gurun and N. Bugra Ozel

We find widespread evidence of firms appearing to avoid paying overtime wages by exploiting a federal law that allows them to do so for employees termed as “managers” and paid a salary above a pre-defined dollar threshold. We show that listings for salaried positions... View Details

Keywords: Wages; Organizational Design; Job Design and Levels; Compensation and Benefits

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14 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

You're Right! You Are Working Longer and Attending More Meetings

minutes—during the pandemic’s early weeks. Employees also participated in more meetings, though for less time than they did before COVID-19 sent many workers home. “There is a general sense that we never stop being in View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

Alexandra C. Feldberg

Alexandra (Allie) Feldberg is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School.

Professor Feldberg uses qualitative and quantitative methods to examine intersections between gender,... View Details

08 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

Keep Your Weary Workers Engaged and Motivated

[This is the sixth installment in a monthly series on management issues in the time of COVID-19.] We recently asked 600 CEOs: What is keeping you awake at night during this global pandemic? A major and multifaceted concern that emerged is how to keep View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

08 Mar 2021
In Practice

COVID Killed the Traditional Workplace. What Should Companies Do Now?

A year ago, COVID-19 forced many companies to send employees home—often with a laptop and a prayer. Now, with COVID cases subsiding and vaccinations rising, the prospect of returning to old office routines appears more possible. But will employees want to flock back to... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

January 2008 (Revised August 2011)
Case

ProntoWash: Washing the World's Cars to a Tango Beat

ProntoWash management considers whether franchising and the Balanced Scorecard could be combined to help customer-facing employees provide consistent service across the world and capture relevant management information. In 2007, ProntoWash, an international car-wash... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Growth and Development Strategy; Balanced Scorecard; Management Systems; Franchise Ownership; Performance Consistency; Argentina

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2022
Book

Business Ethics: What Everyone Needs to Know

By: J.S. Nelson and Lynn A. Stout

An authoritative and practical guide to business ethics, written in an accessible question-and-answer format. In today's turbulent business climate, business ethics are more important than ever. Surveys of employees show that misconduct is on the rise. Cover stories... View Details

Keywords: Business Ethics; Organizational Behavior; Ethics; Governance Controls; Lawfulness

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2011
Working Paper

Managerial Practices That Promote Voice and Taking Charge among Frontline Workers

By: Julia Adler-Milstein, Sara J. Singer and Michael W. Toffel

Process-improvement ideas often come from frontline workers who speak up by voicing concerns about problems and by taking charge to resolve them. We hypothesize that organization-wide process-improvement campaigns encourage both forms of speaking up, especially voicing... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Employees; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Management Practices and Processes; Operations; Business Processes; Performance Improvement

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01 Mar 2023
What Do You Think?

How Much Does 'Deep Purpose' Matter to the Bottom Line?

mission is the starting point for its culture. The nature of a mission statement matters only if leaders and their employees believe in it and live it. In my research, too often I’ve found that leaders are content to check the box on... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Article

Managing Climate Change: Lessons from the U.S. Navy

By: Forest Reinhardt and Michael W. Toffel

The U.S. Navy operates on the front lines of climate change. It manages tens of billions of dollars in assets on every continent and on every ocean, which take many years to design and build and then have decades of useful life. This means that it needs to understand... View Details

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13 Aug 2021
Research & Ideas

Managers, Here’s How to Bond with New Hires Remotely

remote—compared with 5 percent before the pandemic—many companies are already setting up frequent informal chats online to keep the communication lines with remote employees open. “I’ve already had... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

Research Summary

Personal Development and Interpersonal Feedback

Enabling individual development and learning are key to enabling organizational success as well as employee satisfaction and engagement. Many organizational approaches to employee development visualize feedback processes as mechanisms for illuminating individual... View Details

Keywords: Feedback; Personal Development

April 1998
Case

Jim Sharpe: Extrusion Technology, Inc. (C)

By: H. Kent Bowen and Barbara Feinberg

Jim Sharpe, president of Extrusion Technology, describes the first five years at the aluminum extrusion company he purchased. He begins with day one as he introduced himself to the employees in 1987 and assured them of the company's continuity. Over the next two years,... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Forecasting and Prediction; Cost Management; Profit; Innovation Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Mining Industry

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