Publications

Web

Events - Business History

Authoritarian Asia" Meg Rithmire, F. Warren McFarlan Associate Professor of Business Administration at HBS, discussed her forthcoming book, Precarious Ties: Business and the State in Authoritarian Asia . Precarious Ties analyzes "the View Details

23 Mar 2023
Research & Ideas

As Climate Fears Mount, More Investors Turn to 'ESG' Funds Despite Few Rules

Investor interest in social responsibility has skyrocketed in the past three years, even as US regulations to hold companies accountable remain in flux and the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) label itself draws backlash. Investors are willing to pay a... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services

Web

Faculty & Researchers - Managing the Future of Work

of the Harvard Project on the Workforce and a non-resident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He studies issues related to employment and income polarization and the relationship between talent and economic... View Details

August 2014 (Revised May 2015)
Case

Teaming at Disney Animation

By: Amy C. Edmondson, David L. Ager, Emily Harburg and Natalie Bartlett

Jonathan Geibel, Director of Systems at Walt Disney Animation Studios (hereafter referred to as Disney Animation), walked through the workspace occupied by the group he had been tasked to lead. Geibel knew he was part of a creative and magical environment. The Disney... View Details

Keywords: Leading Change; Creativity; Organizational Structure; Animation Entertainment; Organizational Culture; Groups and Teams; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States

09 Dec 2019
Research & Ideas

Identify Great Customers from Their First Purchase

working paper, Ascarza and coauthor Nicolas Padilla, a doctoral candidate at Columbia Business School, show that a statistical tool known as a deep exponential family model can effectively sort the most relevant variables and account for complex View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Retail; Service

December 1997 (Revised October 2008)
Case

Wolfgang Keller at Konigsbrau-TAK (A)

By: John J. Gabarro

Wolfgang Keller, manager of the Ukrainian subsidiary of a German beer company, faces a managerial dilemma. His subordinate, Dmitri Brodsky, is a talented and experienced commercial director who is not meeting his goals expediently and often requires considerable... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Performance Evaluation; Management Style; Managerial Roles; Behavior; Conflict Management; Situation or Environment; Failure; Employee Relationship Management; Food and Beverage Industry; Ukraine; Germany

28 Mar 2016
Research & Ideas

What's a Boss Worth?

exploration. “There is a growing literature in the social sciences about the importance of peer effects—many people think about how to form teams and what the right team should look like,” says Stanton. But according to this data, the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Service

June 2023
Article

The Effect of Firms' Information Exposure on Safeguarding Employee Health: Evidence from COVID-19

By: Lisa Yao Liu and Shirley Lu

We show that information exposure through international business networks enables firms to take proactive measures that benefit employees and potentially the local community. Specifically, in the early days of COVID-19, firms that have business networks with China and... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Networks; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Health Pandemics; Decision Choices and Conditions; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

Web

Globalization - Faculty & Research

poorer borrowers negatively moderate the relationship between social globalization and MFI interest rate, and positively moderate the relationship between economic... View Details

03 Jun 2013
Research & Ideas

The Power of Rituals in Life, Death, and Business

All over the world, people in pain turn to rituals in the face of loss—no matter if it's the death of a loved one (dressing in black, for example), the end of a relationship (burning old love letters), or the crushing defeat in a Little... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

February 2003
Background Note

Leading Teams

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer

This note which describes the architecture and processes that characterize effective teams, begins by detailing the steps involved in designing a team, from diagnosing the complexity, interdependence, and objectives of the task to harnessing the key resources teams... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Decision Making; Leadership; Managerial Roles; Performance Effectiveness; Groups and Teams

29 Mar 2022
Book

5 Qualities That Help Companies Thrive for Decades—Even Centuries

Professors Geoffrey Jones and Tarun Khanna, the book, which is available in India, includes interviews with dozens of business and social leaders culled around the topic of lasting leadership principles. The interviews were conducted by... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

August, 2022
Article

Changing Ingroup Boundaries: The Effect of Immigration on Race Relations in the United States

By: Vasiliki Fouka and Marco Tabellini

How do social group boundaries evolve? Does the appearance of a new outgroup change the ingroup's perceptions of other outgroups? We introduce a conceptual framework of context-dependent categorization, in which exposure to one minority leads to recategorization of... View Details

Keywords: In-group-out-group Relations; Ingroup-outgroup Relations; Immigration; Race; Relationships; United States

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Article

Recent Advances in the Empirics of Organizational Economics

By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

We present a survey of recent contributions in empirical organizational economics, focusing on management practices and decentralization. Productivity dispersion between firms and countries has motivated the improved measurement of firm organization across industries... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Productivity; Geographic Location; Motivation and Incentives; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Competition; Human Capital; Markets; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Multinational Firms and Management; India; Brazil; United States

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May 2011
Article

The Power of Small Wins

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer

What is the best way to motivate employees to do creative work? Help them take a step forward every day. In an analysis of knowledge workers' diaries, the authors found that nothing contributed more to a positive inner work life (the mix of emotions, motivations, and... View Details

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September 2009 (Revised May 2011)
Case

Acumen Fund: Measurement in Impact Investing (A)

By: Alnoor Ebrahim and V. Kasturi Rangan

Acumen Fund is a global venture capital firm with a dual purpose: it looks for a return on its investments, and it also seeks entrepreneurial solutions to global poverty. This case examines Acumen's new projects in Kenya. The organization's investment committee and its... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Venture Capital; Investment Return; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Risk Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Social Enterprise; Financial Services Industry; Kenya

12 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

The Three Components of Family Governance

otherwise encourage the education of family members about the business. Plan family social gatherings and rituals and help to create healthy, harmonious family relationships. Any family council that accomplishes these tasks strengthens a... View Details

Forthcoming
Article

On the Limits of Anonymization for Promoting Diversity in Organizations

By: Linda W. Chang and Edward H. Chang

Anonymization of job applicant resumes is a recommended strategy to increase diversity in organizations, but large-scale tests have shown mixed results. We consider decision-makers’ social dominance orientation (SDO), a measure of anti-egalitarianism/endorsement of... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Selection and Staffing; Rank and Position