Publications

Read Now

January 2018
Case

Scaling Swagbucks (A)

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble

In early 2014, Chuck Davis (HBS '86) has joined Swagbucks as its first professional CEO to scale a successful and profitable brand promotion and consumer research business. Davis came into the job while serving as a venture partner at TCV, a growth stage VC firm,... View Details

Keywords: Loyalty Management; Scaling; Scale; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Leading Change; Growth Management; Religion; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Transition; Leadership; Web Services Industry; Technology Industry

Research Summary

Trust

By: Sandra J. Sucher

In this research, I aim to provide a practical orientation to trust—how to build it, how it can be damaged, how it might be repaired—grounded in my experience as an executive and in the research on organizational trust and moral philosophy. As a case researcher, I... View Details

December 2010 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House

By: A. Eugene Kohn, Arthur I Segel and Andrew Pierson Terris

Steve Williams, General Counsel of Unilever PIc, has two key decisions to make prior to commencing construction on the redevelopment of Unilever House - the company's London corporate headquarters. The purpose of the redevelopment is to reinvigorate the corporate... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Leasing; Sales; Restructuring; Leading Change; Financing and Loans; Decisions; Business Headquarters; Design; Projects; London

November 2013 (Revised January 2015)
Case

Restructuring JAL

By: Malcolm Baker, Adi Sunderam, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno

Hideo Seto, the recently appointed chairman of the investment committee of the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corporation, must decide whether to push JAL group, Japan's largest airline, into bankruptcy or to act as a sponsor in an out-of-court restructuring. The... View Details

Keywords: Bankruptcy; Costs Of Financial Distress; Cost vs Benefits; Air Transportation; Restructuring; Capital Structure; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Air Transportation Industry; Japan; United States

Article

From Counting Risk to Making Risk Count: Boundary-Work in Risk Management

By: Anette Mikes

For two decades, risk management has been gaining ground in banking. In light of the recent financial crisis, several commentators concluded that the continuing expansion of risk measurement is dysfunctional (Power, 2009; Taleb, 2007). This paper asks whether the... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Banks and Banking; Financial Crisis; Expansion; Organizational Culture; Management Teams; Managerial Roles

Find at Harvard

Research Summary

Overview

My research lies in the intersection of economic growth and political economy focusing on the role of historical legacies, biogeography and culture in shaping contemporary economic performance. As growth economists our understanding of comparative economic development... View Details

Keywords: Institutions; Ethnicity; Economic Growth; Development Economics; Macroeconomics; Culture; Religion; Africa; Asia

January 1995
Case

3M: Profile of an Innovating Company

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Afroze A Mohammed

Traces the birth and development of 3M Corp., focusing in particular on the origins of its entrepreneurially-based ability to innovate. In particular, it highlights the role of CEO William L. McKnight in creating a unique set of values, policies, and structures to... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Competitive Advantage; Organizational Culture

22 Jan 2019
Interview

Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Curt Nickisch

Amy Edmondson, professor at Harvard Business School, first identified the concept of psychological safety in work teams in 1999. Since then, she has observed how companies with a trusting workplace perform better. Psychological safety isn’t about being nice, she says.... View Details

Keywords: Psychological Safety; Trust; Organizational Culture; Performance Effectiveness

Second Quarter 2014
Article

Dynamics of the Board Interview

By: Blythe McGarvie

You want candidates who meet the requirements of cultural fit, the right skill set, and meaningful diversity. No one expects the candidate to know everything about the company during the interview process. Research shows that companies with more women on their boards... View Details

14 Oct 2019
News

Having more female leaders may boost companies’ share price performance, Credit Suisse says

01 Mar 2019
News

Fostering an Innovation Culture: Talent, Discipline and Leadership

20 Dec 2018
News

Using Fintech to Disrupt Eastern Bank from Within

07 Mar 2018
News

No Music, No Life: The Legacy Of Tower Records

2007
Book

When Professionals Have to Lead: A New Model for High Performance

By: Thomas J. DeLong, John J. Gabarro and Robert Lees

For too long, professional services firms (PSFs) have relied on the "producer-manager" model, which works well in uncomplicated business environments. However, today's managing directors must balance conflicting roles, more demanding clients, tougher competitors, and... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Management Practices and Processes; Service Operations; Performance Effectiveness; Strategy

Find at Harvard

November 10, 2022
Article

5 Ways Startups Can Prepare for a Recession

By: Lou Shipley

Startups face unique challenges during economic downturns. They typically aren’t yet profitable and so are reliant on outside funding—and therefore are especially exposed when macroeconomic conditions change. To make it through a recession, startup CEOs should hit the... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Organizational Culture; Sales; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decisions; Inflation and Deflation; Financial Crisis; Employee Relationship Management; Business Startups; Credit

Register to Read

December 2023
Case

Davivienda Bank's Upskilling and Reskilling Strategy in Colombia

By: Jorge Tamayo, Raffaella Sadun and Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago

Set in 2022, this case describes the digital transformation strategy of Davivienda— a leading player in Colombia’s commercial banking and one of the companies belonging to Grupo Bolívar, a major Colombian financial conglomerate—and the bank’s upskilling and reskilling... View Details

17 Sep 2012
News

Dual threat to a happy EADS-BAE union

October 1987 (Revised March 1992)
Case

United Parcel Service (A)

United Parcel Service (UPS) in 1987 faced serious challenges to its long-standing policies of on-the-job training and promotion from within. Increased competition in its traditional business of ground transport found UPS lagging in computerization and in need of... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Information Technology; Organizational Culture; Human Resources; Service Industry; United States

2010
Book

Beauty Imagined: A History of the Global Beauty Industry

By: Geoffrey Jones

The global beauty business permeates our lives, influencing how we perceive ourselves and what it is to be beautiful. The brands and firms that have shaped this industry, such as Avon, Coty, Estée Lauder, L'Oréal, and Shiseido, have imagined beauty for us. This book... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Markets and Industries; Brands and Branding; Industry Growth; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

Find at Harvard