encouragement - Publications - Faculty & Research

03 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

The Tricky Business of Managing Web Advertising Affiliates

programs are worth it: "We are convinced that affiliate marketing fills a genuine need." But it pays to take steps to closely manage these efforts. If in-house staff is being used to manage the affiliate program, they write, "the merchant may want to View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Advertising; Publishing

05 Nov 2007
What Do You Think?

Why Is Succession So Badly Managed?

themselves with leadership talent inside the firm? Is the board insuring that the CEO is building a cadre of insiders ready to assume positions of leadership when needed? Has the board encouraged the development of what Bower calls... View Details

Keywords: Re: James L. Heskett

20 Mar 2007
First Look

First Look: March 20, 2007

firm-size distribution and de jure and de facto measures of international capital integration. We then explore causal channels through which foreign capital may encourage entrepreneurship. We find evidence that entrepreneurial activity in... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

07 Oct 2002
Research & Ideas

What Leaders Need to Do To Restore Investor Confidence

then must ensure that the various internal systems are consistent with the conduct desired—and then it must walk the talk. In a world filled with cynicism, people spot the contradictions very quickly. Finally, senior management needs to View Details

Keywords: by Harvard Management Update

17 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Let Customers Call the Shots

concept to well-behaved consumption markets such as soft drinks. Consumer empowerment won't work there; empowering systems are most needed in situations where demands are fragmented and versatile. As these systems improve and succeed, they will also View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

11 Jan 2000
Research & Ideas

Calling All Managers: How to Build a Better Call Center

Harker, "it sometimes proves difficult to justify additional investment into an entity that is typically thought of as a cost center." An organization that cares about its customers also cares about its employees, and vice-versa. For example, when a company... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Service; Financial Services

17 Sep 2024
HBS Case

The Climate Targets Leaders Need to Know as Regulations Loom

As investor pressure mounts on companies to show their environmental impacts, leaders are encountering an unwieldy tangle of terms and approaches. Climate accounting basics and a dictionary of sorts can help demystify the calculations and voluntary targets that... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

27 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 27

Michael W. Toffel Abstract 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 View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Sep 2005
Research & Ideas

The Broadband Explosion: Thinking About a Truly Interactive World

dramatically. Q: If there is agreement that a broadband explosion is generally a desirable thing, what role should government regulators and policymakers play in encouraging it? A: This is one of the major issues in the book, but there is... View Details

Keywords: by Sara Grant; Technology; Communications; Telecommunications

11 Apr 2018
Research & Ideas

Sexual Harassment: What Employers Should Do Now

Enlist ‘witnesses’ to report or handle harassment Companies should openly encourage people to speak up when they notice a problem. “There are times when plenty of people know about it, but don’t do anything about it, maybe because they... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

19 Oct 2015
Research & Ideas

Business Research that Makes for Smarter Public Policy

what seemed to work in the past, and build on that,” he says. At the time there was intense debate about companies that were deemed “too big to fail,” and how they could be regulated in a way that limited excessive risk-taking, rather than View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

28 Sep 2009
Research & Ideas

Improving Accountability at the World Bank

deliberation. The Bank should also encourage debate on the project or policy reform in national legislatures prior to board discussion; The Implementation, Supervision, and Completion stage should use participatory monitoring and... View Details

Keywords: by Alnoor Ebrahim

05 Jul 2022
Op-Ed

Hear Me Out: Introverts Can Be Loud and You Might Like Microsoft Teams

We've been encouraging readers to share feedback and observations about Working Knowledge articles by email, resulting in a slew of thoughtful responses. Here are a few comments from June, published with permission: Re: "Extroverts, Your... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

30 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

How Your Employees and Customers Drive a New Value Profit Chain

people back to Bentonville headquarters for recognition; and executive merchandising contests that create incentives for executives to spend more time in the stores. All of this reflects basic company values and culture. In other very large organizations, anything that... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Mahoney

06 Jan 2003
Research & Ideas

Why Expensing Options Doesn’t Solve the Problem

up discouraging the use of stock options, the potential for fraud, and grotesquely outsized gains, will not be reduced. Any compensation system that is based on performance has the potential to encourage cheating. Only ethical management,... View Details

Keywords: by William Sahlman

17 Dec 2001
Research & Ideas

Risks and Rewards of the Intrapreneur

Globe newspaper started Boston.com, the start-up founders had to calm the waters to ensure the newspaper's execs that the Web site wouldn't be stealing stories or ad revenue, said Lisa Desisto, Boston.com's CEO. Desisto said her group worked a "grass roots... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

07 May 2008
Research & Ideas

The Intellectual History of Harvard Business School

created, developed, and refined at HBS during the past century. The second was to illustrate the variety of ways in which those ideas have influenced students, the business world, and the academy. And the third was to encourage future... View Details

Keywords: by Richard S. Tedlow; Education

23 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

AIDS in Africa—What’s the Solution?

do you control an epidemic that is sexually transmitted?" he asked the group. "People have suggested all sorts of things," some fairly outlandish. One suggestion he recalled was simply encouraging people to have sex less... View Details

Keywords: by Julie Jette

13 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

6 Ways to Support COVID-Weary Employees

accommodating high-risk workers. They offered the following advice, based on recent research: Encourage sick employees to stay home with paid time off Gary Johns, professor of management at Concordia University: Many employees continue to... View Details