Learning By Doing - Publications - Faculty & Research

08 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

How to Demotivate Your Best Employees

motivated to work harder over the long term. But new research suggests that some awards may actually have the opposite effect, according to a recent paper called The Dirty Laundry of Employee Award Programs: Evidence from the Field, written View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Service

22 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Bringing ‘Lean’ Principles to Service Industries

"waterfall" method in which each step of the process is completed in turn by a separate worker. By sharing mistakes across the process, the customer and project team members benefit individually... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Computer

30 Jun 2022
HBS Case

Peloton Changed the Exercise Game. Can the Company Push Through the Pain?

demand, which led to shipment delays, followed by pricing confusion and a series of public relations bungles—just as the pandemic eased and people began returning to gyms. Peloton scrambled by recalling... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Media & Broadcasting; Health; Bicycle

10 Sep 2007
Research & Ideas

High Note: Managing the Medici String Quartet

legendary classical pianist. From Curzon they learned to destroy a piece by making a metronome play the wrong tempo; then they tried to play against it. They would come up with ways to make a piece harder to... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Music

01 Dec 2006
What Do You Think?

How Important Is Quality of Labor? And How Is It Achieved?

out why a handful of organizations are able to achieve true excellence. One of several things they all do is hire for attitude and train for skills. By "attitude," they typically mean the ability... View Details

Keywords: by by Jim Heskett

02 Apr 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

Making the Move to General Manager

they've been learned in the program. At the same time, it provides benefits to the sponsoring organizations by requiring participants to work on personally relevant issues. It does, however, have one other... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

27 Feb 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

How Following Best Business Practices Can Improve Health Care

Harvard Business School spends a significant amount of research funds each year on the health care industry, answering questions such as: How can the business of health care be made more efficient? What can a business do to motivate... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Health; Medical Devices & Supplies

14 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

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

Work-from-home employees whose days seem longer, with more meetings and emails than ever before, may find a new Harvard Business School study validating. An analysis of the emails and meetings of 3.1 million people in 16 global cities found that the average workday... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

11 Jun 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

Teaching the Next Generation of Energy Executives

You may think that being an energy executive—especially a manager in a leading oil company—might be the easiest job around. Just flip the production switch, and watch gas prices head toward $4 a gallon. But students enrolled in Harvard Business School professor Forest... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

02 Jan 2012
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Articles of 2011

make bad decisions? Using both field and quantitative data from the MGM-Mirage Group, this paper discusses how management controls affect the learning rates of lower-level employees. Research, focusing on hotel casino hosts, was conducted... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

23 Apr 2024
In Practice

Getting to Net Zero: The Climate Standards and Ecosystem the World Needs Now

With each month clocking record-breaking temperatures across the planet, this Earth Day reflected the renewed urgency of regulators and businesses to find climate-change solutions. The US Securities and Exchange Commission recently adopted new rules that will mandate... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

05 Aug 2022
Research & Ideas

Why People Crave Feedback—and Why We’re Afraid to Give It

Workplace surveys consistently show that employees crave better information about how they could improve their performance. But most say they don’t get it. A recent Gallup poll, for example, found only 26 percent of employees strongly believe that the feedback they... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

22 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

Open Source Software: The $9 Trillion Resource Companies Take for Granted

What does it take to put a price tag on open source software (OSS), a resource so critical to the global economy that some 96 percent of commercial programs include some code created, tinkered with, or distributed for free by... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Computer; Information Technology; Technology

27 Feb 2024
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Should Share Their DEI Data (Even When It’s Unflattering)

address societal challenges. “Since 2020, we’ve seen increasing calls for companies to disclose their diversity data,” says Balakrishnan. “We wanted to know, how do attitudes toward your company change once you make this information... View Details

Keywords: by Shalene Gupta

12 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

What Actually Draws Sports Fans to Games? It's Not Star Athletes.

suggests that spectators also value something far simpler: the suspense of not knowing who will win. In fact, stadiums sell more tickets when the outcome of a game is less predictable, says a study by Harvard Business School Professor... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Sports

25 Jan 2012
Research & Ideas

A Few Firms Have Outsized Influence in D.C.

into the issue, however, Kerr found that wasn't necessarily the case. Collaborating with William Lincoln of the University of Michigan and Prachi Mishra of the International Monetary Fund, Kerr tapped into a database of lobbying activities kept View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

30 Mar 2021
Research & Ideas

Commuting Hurts Productivity and Your Best Talent Suffers Most

as the COVID-19 pandemic wanes and remote employees—perhaps grudgingly—contemplate returning to offices. Wu’s conclusions were clear: A long commute hurts workers and their employers by hindering creativity and productivity, which stifles... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

02 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

Why We Still Need Twitter: How Social Media Holds Companies Accountable

somewhere, and then you have operations all over the US or maybe even worldwide,” he says. “It’s actually not that simple to understand what’s going on in all of your facilities.” In that way, social media could be used by companies to... View Details

Keywords: by Kasandra Brabaw; Technology

November 2024
Supplement

AlphaGo (C): Birth of a New Intelligence

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

This case, the final of a three-part series, explores DeepMind's pivotal transition from mastering games to solving real-world scientific challenges. In December 2020, DeepMind's AI system AlphaFold 2 achieved a breakthrough by solving protein folding—a 50-year-old... View Details

Keywords: Autonomy; Deep Learning; Drug Discovery; Healthcare Innovation; Neural Networks; Scientific Research; Technology Startup; AI and Machine Learning; Technological Innovation; Research and Development; Business Model; Business Strategy; Open Source Distribution; Technology Industry; United States

Citation

Purchase

16 Jan 2013
Research & Ideas

The Messy Link Between Slave Owners and Modern Management

management today. “How much more do we need to think about our responsibility to people?” As fascinating as her findings were, Rosenthal had some misgivings about their implications. She didn't want to be perceived as saying something... View Details

Keywords: by Katie Johnston

Publications