Publications

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June 2017
Article

Creating Reciprocal Value Through Operational Transparency

By: Ryan W. Buell, Tami Kim and Chia-Jung Tsay

We investigate whether organizations can create value by introducing visual transparency between consumers and producers. Although operational transparency has been shown to improve consumer perceptions of service value, existing theory posits that increased contact... View Details

Keywords: Operational Transparency; Service Management; Production Management; Organizational Performance; Behavioral Operations; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Consumer Behavior; Labor; Organizational Design; Operations; Service Industry; United States; Kenya

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Code of Change

Two dramatically different approaches to organizational change are being employed in the world today, according to our observations, research, and experience. We call these Theory E and View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer & Nitin Nohria

April 2024
Article

Decision Authority and the Returns to Algorithms

By: Hyunjin Kim, Edward L. Glaeser, Andrew Hillis, Scott Duke Kominers and Michael Luca

We evaluate a pilot in an Inspections Department to explore the returns to a pair of algorithms that varied in their sophistication. We find that both algorithms provided substantial prediction gains, suggesting that even simple data may be helpful. However, these... View Details

Keywords: Algorithmic Aversion; Algorithmic Decision Making; Algorithms; Public Entrepreneurship; Govenment; Local Government; Crowdsourcing; Crowdsourcing Contests; Inspection; Principal-agent Theory; Government Administration; Decision Making; Public Administration Industry; United States

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Research Summary

Overview

Yanhua Bird's research encompasses two streams: (1) entrepreneurship and social innovation — how the design and structure of alternative forms of enterprises influence their activities and success, with a focus on peer-to-peer markets and social enterprises, and (2)... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Strategy; Social Evaluation; Entrepreneurship; Social Innovation; Social Movements; Non-market Strategy; Corporate Sustainability

2009
Chapter

Creativity, Improvisation, and Organizations

By: Colin M. Fisher and Teresa M. Amabile

Although the literatures on both organizational creativity and organizational improvisation have been expanding in recent years, the links between these literatures have not been deeply explored. This chapter explores those links to create a conceptualization of... View Details

Keywords: Body of Literature; Innovation and Invention; Organizational Culture; Research; Creativity; Theory

James Riley is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches LEAD in the MBA required curriculum.

Professor Riley is an economic sociologist. He conducts ethnographic research to... View Details

fall 1997
Article

Motivating Creativity in Organizations: On Doing What You Love and Loving What You Do

By: T. M. Amabile

Creativity in all fields, including business, flourishes under intrinsic motivation- the drive to do something because it is interesting, involving, exciting, satisfying, or personally challenging. This article presents the Componential Theory of Organizational... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Motivation and Incentives; Situation or Environment; Organizational Culture

March 1995
Background Note

Gender Differences in Managerial Behavior: The Ongoing Debate

Do men and women have distinct leadership styles? Do they approach management differently? This note summarizes the two perspectives that have dominated the ongoing debate on gender differences in organizational leadership and management behavior. Psychological... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Style; Gender

Educators

2013 Winner of Academy of Management Awards for Outstanding Publication in Organizational Behavior and Best Published Paper in Organization and Management Theory

Using data from embedded participant-observers and a field experiment at the second... View Details

01 Jan 2006
News

January 12, 2023
Article

Progressive Decentralization: A High-level Framework

By: Jad Esber and Scott Duke Kominers

We explain a high-level framework for designing for future decentralization up front, and offer some guidance about when and how to do so. The guidelines apply to both web3 projects and more traditional organizations. View Details

Keywords: Crypto Economy; Cryptocurrency; Decentralization; Decentralized Autonomous Organizations; Entrepreneurial Journey; Entrepreneurial Management; Organization Behavior; Organization And Management Theory; Organization Form; Organizational Structure

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2017
Article

Self-Managing Organizations: Exploring the Limits of Less-Hierarchical Organizing

By: Michael Y. Lee and Amy C. Edmondson

Fascination with organizations that eschew the conventional managerial hierarchy and instead radically decentralize authority has been longstanding, albeit at the margins of scholarly and practitioner attention. Recently, however, organizational experiments in radical... View Details

Keywords: Self-Managed Organizations; Self-Managed Teams; Self-organizing Systems; Self-managing Organizations; Flat Organization; Decentralization; Organization Design; Non-hierarchical Organizations; Less-hierarchical Organizing; Organizational Structure; Organizational Design; Research

Michael Tushman holds degrees from Northeastern University (B.S.E.E.), Cornell University (M.S.), and the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. (Ph.D.). Tushman was on the faculty of the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, from 1976 to 1998 where he was... View Details

June 1991 (Revised April 1997)
Background Note

Managing the Multibusiness Corporation

By: David J. Collis

Lays out some ideas on how to restructure a multibusiness corporation. Identifies sixteen elements of organization design, and then applies contingency theory to argue that these elements need to be aligned with the tasks the corporation uses to create value across its... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Alignment; Corporate Strategy; Theory; Value Creation

Educators

October 2013
Article

When Power Makes Others Speechless: The Negative Impact of Leader Power on Team Performance

By: Leigh Plunkett Tost, Francesca Gino and Richard P. Larrick

We examine the impact of subjective power on leadership behavior and demonstrate that the psychological effect of power on leaders spills over to impact team effectiveness. Specifically, drawing from the approach/inhibition theory of power, power-devaluation theory,... View Details

Keywords: Power; Leadership; Team Performance; Groups and Teams; Performance; Leadership Style; Power and Influence

Derrick studies how teams accomplish complex work in novel contexts. His dissertation advances the idea of disciplined flexibility: a strategy teams use to navigate uncertainty... View Details

1998
Book

The Multinational Traders

By: Geoffrey Jones

This book examines the history and theory of multinational trading companies. The essays in this volume demonstrate the importance of trading companies in trade and investment flows in the world economy from the nineteenth century to the present day. The empirical... View Details

Keywords: Company History; Trade; Globalization; Books; Organizational Structure; Perspective; Diversification; Theory; Asia; Europe; United States

2002
Book

Organizations, Policy and the Natural Environment: Institutional and Strategic Perspectives

By: Andrew J. Hoffman and Marc Ventresca

This book brings together emerging perspectives from organization theory and management, environmental sociology, international regime studies, and the social studies of science and technology to provide a starting point for discipline-based studies of environmental... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Regulation