Workplace Design - Publications - Faculty & Research

27 Nov 2006
Research & Ideas

Manly Men, Oil Platforms, and Breaking Stereotypes

offshore platforms as the organizational environment for your research? A: We selected this setting because we knew it to be one where the work is hazardous and the workforce largely male—and, in these respects, similar to the workplaces... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Energy; Utilities

02 Apr 2001
What Do You Think?

Telecommuting: Dangerous to Health?

by any standard. What does all of this say about the role of technology in knowledge transfer? Does it have its limits? And what does it say about the future of telecommuting, one of the great workplace "movements" in recent... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

12 Jan 2016
First Look

January 12, 2016

Expenditure Panel Survey and joint probabilities of workplace exposures from the General Social Survey, and we conducted a meta-analysis of the epidemiological literature to estimate the relative risks of poor health outcomes associated... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

13 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

6 Ways to Support COVID-Weary Employees

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to rock the workplace with no end in sight, leaving business leaders to struggle with a wide variety of challenges, including keeping staff members happily engaged—and employed. To make sense of the... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

30 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Germany’s Pioneering Corporate Managers

its formal design nor to a set of bureaucratic functions. Instead it is a particular social space in which people live and work—and that means the intersubjective dimension and collective behavior that a View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

21 Feb 2012
Research & Ideas

Leadership Program for Women Targets Subtle Promotion Biases

For the last quarter century, many fought hard to overcome gender discrimination in the workplace by raising awareness, strengthening antidiscrimination policies, and encouraging more women to enter the corporate world. At first blush,... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish

29 May 2012
First Look

First Look: May 29

2012) Abstract Controversy surrounds occupational health and safety regulators, with some observers claiming that workplace regulations damage firms' competitiveness and destroy jobs, and others arguing that they make View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

23 Jul 2018
Research & Ideas

The Open Office Revolution Has Gone Too Far

employers on this issue. Much of my research is about the impact of workplace transparency (the observability of employee activities, routines, behaviors, output, and/or performance) on employee productivity and collaboration. So these... View Details

Keywords: Re: Ethan S. Bernstein

08 Sep 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

Capitalism Works Better When I Can See What You're Doing

knew the salaries of your peers, would you feel happier in a more equitable workplace? The answer to all these questions is often yes. But sometimes too much transparency can be a bad thing. Open-office designs can make workers less... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

19 Dec 2016
Research & Ideas

The 10 Most Popular Stories of 2016

platforms. “How Uber, Airbnb, and Etsy Attracted Their First 1,000 Customers” was the most-read story on Working Knowledge in 2016. Other popular topics among our readers included workplace communication, negotiation, white-collar crime,... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

03 Jun 2008
First Look

First Look: June 3, 2008

association, fair pay practices) and whether these codes have affected their business outcomes (e.g., staff turnover and absenteeism, product defect rates, sales growth). In this paper, we review the existing evaluations of other private codes governing View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

19 Jun 2013
Research & Ideas

Analyzing Institutions to Solve Big Problems

The academic study of institutions provides important insights into topics such as job design and health-care reform. But the field is a complex one, and it's not always obvious to outsiders how the intellectual tools of the trade are... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel & Anna Secino

08 May 2013
Research & Ideas

A Company’s Evolving View of Gender Equity

A company's internal deliberations and changing beliefs about women in the workplace over the course of two decades, particularly about their role as leaders, is the subject of a recent paper that traces how fundamental societal views can... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Accounting

17 Apr 2013
Research Event

Conference Challenges Gender Conventions

workplace negotiation and the way academics study negotiation are overwhelmingly masculine. But despite evidence that the game is rigged against them, women still believe they'd be better negotiators if they only tried harder. Scholars... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish

16 Aug 2024
In Practice

Election 2024: What's at Stake for Business and the Workplace?

In a US presidential election year with more twists and turns than most in recent memory, many of the issues on the ballot impact business. And keeping politics in the workplace respectful is forefront on managers’ minds as a divided... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

05 Dec 2011
Research & Ideas

It’s Alive! Business Scholars Turn to Experimental Research

very rational view of people, and workers were almost considered like widgets," says Assistant Professor Ian Larkin, a member of the NOM Unit. His experimental research suggests that social comparisons are a bigger workplace motivator... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

10 Apr 2006
Research & Ideas

American Auto’s Troubled Road

engineering and designing for 'buildability.'" Down The Road While U.S automakers retrench, Toyota is aggressively building American factories and, with other foreign automakers, adding billions of dollars to the U.S. economy while... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons; Manufacturing; Transportation; Auto

03 Sep 2013
First Look

First Look: September 3

organizational design so as to reinforce and enable each other. August 2013 Harvard Business Review 91, no. 9 (September 2013): 68-76 Great Leaders Who Make the Mix Work By: Groysberg, Boris, and Katherine Connolly Abstract—Business... View Details