Learning By Thinking - Publications - Faculty & Research

25 Jun 2018
Research & Ideas

In America, Immigrants Really Do Get the Job Done

ferrantraite The Muslim ban. The Wall. Children separated from their parents at the Mexican border. The past two years have seen an aggressive push by the Trump administration against both legal and illegal immigration. But it’s not just... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Agriculture & Agribusiness; Technology; Service

02 Dec 2019
What Do You Think?

How Does a Company like Boeing Respond to Intense Competitive Pressure?

the rocket, which was built and operated by another company, the United Launch Alliance.” While we were addressing one possible example of a lack of coordinated, long-term thinking under pressure (among... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Air Transportation

03 Feb 2016
What Do You Think?

How Do You Hire an 'Impostor'?

the right coaching in order to help to achieve a high self esteem...” Having inspired the question in the title, Joel then seemed to answer it by saying, “I think the answer lies in the demands of the role... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

06 Mar 2006
Research & Ideas

Four Strategies for Making Concessions

wage increase. The union was asking for a 4 percent increase, while management wanted to raise salaries by only 1 percent. The executive considered the situation. During past negotiations, weeks were lost as each side jockeyed for... View Details

Keywords: by Deepak Malhotra

24 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

Uncovering Racial Discrimination in the ‘Sharing Economy’

would not stay here at any price" to "This is an extremely nice apartment; I would stay here even if it were a lot more expensive than a nice hotel room." With these ratings, the researchers controlled for apartment/room quality as seen View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Construction; Real Estate; Advertising

15 Dec 2020
Research & Ideas

The Unspoken Messages of COVID-19 Restrictions

they are also signaling to people that it might be safer to go out now,” says Michael Luca, the Lee J. Styslinger III Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Policymakers trying to avoid draconian lockdowns—and View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Food & Beverage

September–October 2020
Article

Social-Impact Efforts That Create Real Value

By: George Serafeim

Until the mid-2010s few investors paid attention to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data—information about companies’ carbon footprints, labor policies, board makeup, and so forth. Today the data is widely used by investors. How can organizations create... View Details

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22 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

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

in-office and remote, and we’ve entered a gray zone in which people are asking, ‘What will permanent look like?’ It’s comfortable to think of our remote work environment as temporary; it’s much more difficult to View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

23 Sep 2022
Research & Ideas

8 Strategies to Sustain Business Innovation

a same-day reply by phone or email. The rules aren’t mission statements, but rather a way to make learning experiences easier to adopt and follow. McDonald adds, “Even simple rules can outlive their... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

17 Apr 2022
Book

How to Avoid the 'Ethical Slide' That Leads Companies Astray

Company managers have likely heard the old quip: Business ethics is a contradiction in terms. That’s because too often, business is viewed as a hard-hearted enterprise, driven by getting ahead at all costs, even if that means cutting... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

31 May 2017
What Do You Think?

Can Amazon Do What Walmart Couldn’t, Stop the 'Wheel of Retailing'?

In 1997, a young entrepreneur visited a class at Harvard Business School taught by my colleague, Len Schlesinger. The class discussed a case based on the visitor’s fledgling online retailing company that had rapidly expanded sales to $100... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

18 Oct 2004
Research & Ideas

The Bias of Wall Street Analysts

If it's one lesson the individual investor learned the hard way from the collapse of Enron, it is that the recommendations of Wall Street stock analysts can be influenced by much more than purely objective... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

25 Apr 2000
Research & Ideas

Adjusting the Fit for Government

these people will end up not owning a lot of the economy because of historical conditions. So there is an equity issue." The Right Mix "I think most governments try too hard [to do everything]," said panelist Udayan Wagle,... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

19 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

Racist Umpires and Monetary Ministers

the corners" in baseball parlance—and more likely to throw it straight over the plate where it is easier to hit. In other words, the pitchers seemed to compensate for discrimination by throwing the ball in areas where the outcome was... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Sports; Information; Publishing

06 Oct 2010
Research & Ideas

John Kotter: Four Ways to Kill a Good Idea

"confounding questions, inane comments, and verbal bullets." This excerpt looks at attack strategies used by naysayers: fear mongering, delay, confusion, ridicule. For more information, read Kotter's HBR.org blog post, Know Your... View Details

Keywords: by John Kotter & Lorne A. Whitehead

31 Aug 2021
Book

Feeling Powerless at Work? Time to Agitate, Innovate, and Orchestrate

pernicious effects that power has." Sharing some of their power with their employees, for example by giving them more autonomy or allowing them to contribute to the decision-making process, can actually lead to better results: higher... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald

15 Aug 2022
Book

University of the Future: Finding the Next World Leaders in Higher Ed

superb scholars and among the world’s most talented students. China’s university leaders have been among the best in the world. But in recent ideological campaigns, its students are forced to sit through required courses in Party ideology, and they View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Education

09 Aug 2010
Research & Ideas

How to Speed Up Energy Innovation

Is there a special sauce for stimulating innovation in the energy sector, a concoction to spur cost-effective developments toward solving the climate change problem? HBS professor Rebecca Henderson doesn't claim to know all the ingredients for that special sauce. But... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

14 Jun 2021
Op-Ed

When Your Nerves Get the Best of You, Change the Narrative

excited—and not just a state of mind we need to calm down—our levels of anxiety drop. Even more effective is when we frame the upcoming task as an opportunity to learn and improve—regardless of our immediate success or failure. "I decided... View Details

Keywords: by Francesca Gino

11 Feb 2008
Research & Ideas

Does Democracy Need a Marketing Manager?

effectively to voters? A: While around a fifth of U.S. adults are political partisans, about half don't participate. If citizens think their vote will not matter, see no important differences among the candidates, encounter barriers to... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

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