Continuous Development - Publications - Faculty & Research

January 2013
Case

Zappos.com 2009: Clothing, Customer Service, and Company Culture (MM)

On July 17, 2009, Zappos.com, a privately-held online retailer of shoes, clothing, and other soft-line retail categories, learned that Amazon.com, a $19 billion multinational online retailer, had won its Board of Directors' approval to offer to merge the two companies.... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Internet and the Web; Mergers and Acquisitions; Organizational Culture; Growth and Development Strategy; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

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22 Aug 2006
First Look

First Look: August 22, 2006

805-067 Molecular Insight has developed a novel biopharmaceutical to detect heart attacks. The company's unique approach to intellectual property protection uses the Hatch Waxman Act and the Orphan Drug Act. The company is struggling to... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

09 May 2017
What Do You Think?

Should Management Be Primarily Responsible to Shareholders?

owners of a corporation, professional managers and directors are their agents, primarily responsible for carrying out their wishes and creating value for them. This idea was further developed in a 1976 article by Michael Jensen and... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

03 Jan 2023
Book

Confront Workplace Inequity in 2023: Dig Deep, Build Bridges, Take Collective Action

Despite calls for making the workplace more equitable, women, particularly Black women, continue to get the short end of the stick at work. Only 6 percent of the top 3,000 companies in the US are led by a woman. In 2022, only two Black... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

28 Nov 2018
HBS Case

On Target: Rethinking the Retail Website

Professor Srikant M. Datar in a recent case study, Data Science at Target, co-written with research associate Caitlin N. Bowler. “Target had to make this big shift from thinking only about retailing to also thinking about data. And to do that, data had to become the... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Retail

01 Dec 2023
News

Engaging Students More Deeply

Students at Success Academy stay more focused on the dot rug. Photo courtesy HBS Multimedia Development To tell the compelling stories of a developer working to revitalize Miami Beach, a Maine lobsterman... View Details

Keywords: April White

01 Jun 2024
News

Quantum Leap

“This is the first new kind of computer in 75 years,” says John Levy (MBA 1979), CEO of the quantum computing startup SEEQC. “And we’re building it on a chip!” Strolling through his company’s design and testing facility in Elmsford, New York, Levy looks less like a... View Details

Keywords: Alexander Gelfand; photographed by Chris Sorensen; quantum computing; innovation; leadership; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing; Manufacturing

January 2020
Case

Ureed.com: The Marketplace for Language

By: Ashley V. Whillans, Esel Çekin and Alpana Thapar

Jordanian entrepreneur, Nour Al Hassan, founded Tarjama in 2008, tapping into an underserved and high demand need: Arabic translation service. Its lean model comprised of hiring full-time employees, mainly women, who worked from home. It steadily grew over the... View Details

Keywords: Language Translation; Freelancers; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Management; Expansion; Quality; Growth and Development Strategy

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06 Sep 2022
Research & Ideas

Does Hybrid Work Actually Work? Insights from 30,000 Emails

Early COVID-19 lockdowns sparked a contentious debate that rages on in the workplace: Can businesses thrive if employees continue to work remotely? Skeptical CEOs, such as the leaders of Goldman Sachs and Starbucks, say they need workers... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

26 Feb 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, February 26, 2019

dollars. This creates a direct connection between U.S. monetary policy and EME credit cycles. We estimate that over a typical U.S. monetary easing cycle, EME borrowers experience a 32-percentage-point greater increase in the volume of loans issued by foreign banks than... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

28 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

Can Apprenticeships Work in the US? Employers Seeking New Talent Pipelines Take Note

the hiring market continues to prove challenging, and employers across the spectrum commit to diverse hiring practices, apprenticeships could create a pipeline for homegrown talent. “It raises a lot of concerns among some teachers and... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

18 Dec 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 18, 2018

the threshold for research and development (R&D) investment in an economically viable product. Further, the small size of patient populations for orphan drugs, together with the increasing prevalence of biologics among orphan drugs,... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

08 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

The Strategic Way To Hire a Sales Team

need stars and should not overpay, either in money or in time. In other words, effective hiring and selection in sales is about building the right portfolio of talent. This has actionable implications. Focus on how the salesperson makes a difference. View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

04 Apr 2023
Book

Two Centuries of Business Leaders Who Took a Stand on Social Issues

While shareholders still reign supreme at many companies, a widespread shift toward more responsible business practices is driving more leaders to take a stand on social and environmental issues today, says Harvard Business School Professor Geoffrey Jones. Jones... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Consumer Products; Fashion; Retail; Green Technology

07 Jun 2016
First Look

June 7, 2016

we review the goals of each cancer provision of the ACA and discuss the effects each has had to date. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51115 Notes on Developing a Strategy and Designing a Company: Vol. 1—A... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

16 Feb 2010
Research & Ideas

The Outside-In Approach to Customer Service

would not have risen to what is now, a $2.5-billion-a-year industry, without a revolutionary shift to outside-in thinking that allowed companies such as Fresh Express to realize that busy consumers wanted companies to make the whole salad for them rather than simply... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Consumer Products

27 Jun 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, June 27

and elsewhere. Yet the book shows that these entrepreneurs contributed significantly to the growth of environmental awareness among consumers, business leaders, and others. However the Earth's environmental health has continued to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Web

Career Re-Entry & Flexible Work - Alumni

Networking Taking a break from a job should not mean disappearing from the marketplace. Continue to maintain and expand your network, both virtually (digital communities, like LinkedIn) and in-person. Harvard ManageMentor: Leveraging Your... View Details

13 Feb 2020
Book

Open Your Organization to Honest Conversations

developed what they call the “strategic fitness process,” which has been used by more than 800 organizations and allows leaders to hear the raw but necessary truth from employees about “the good, the bad, and the ugly” to help shape... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

19 Apr 2010
Research & Ideas

The History of Beauty

respect. The cast of influential and colorful characters includes Madam C.J. Walker, the daughter of former slaves in Louisiana who developed a system for straightening African-American hair, which was so successful that she ranks as... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Beauty & Cosmetics

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