Publications

26 Jun 2020
Research & Ideas

Why Japanese Businesses Are So Good at Surviving Crises

deeply hit by pandemic and seismic culture shifts, it’s important to recognize that many of the Japanese companies in the Tohoku region continue to operate today, despite facing serious financial setbacks from the disaster. How did these... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

August 2012
Supplement

Albert 'Jack' Stanley in Nigeria (C)

By: Lena G. Goldberg and Annelena Lobb

The international joint venture that successfully bid for $6 billion in contracts to build LNG trains on Nigeria's Bonny Island became entangled in a widening bribery and corruption probe triggered by an unrelated accusation against an employee of one of the JV... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Crime and Corruption; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Governance Compliance; Law; Joint Ventures; Business Subsidiaries; Government Legislation; Rail Industry; Nigeria; United States; United Kingdom

March 2025 (Revised June 2025)
Case

Designing the Future of Work: Atlassian's Distributed Work Practices

By: Ashley Whillans and Gabriel Rondón Ichikawa

In early 2020, the software company Atlassian made a bold commitment: employees could work from anywhere—forever. While many tech peers reversed course on remote work, Atlassian worked to optimize their fully distributed model across 13 countries. This case follows... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Working Conditions; Management Practices and Processes; Product Development; Organizational Culture; Business Strategy; Employees; Technology Industry

May–June 2021
Article

How to Close the Gender Gap

By: Colleen Ammerman and Boris Groysberg

Most companies say they’re committed to advancing women into leadership roles. What they may fail to recognize, though, is that systemic barriers are holding women back. As a result, women remain disadvantaged at every stage of their employment and underrepresented in... View Details

Keywords: Gender Discrimination; Employment; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Talent and Talent Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation

2018
Chapter

Work and Workplace

By: Kai Ruggeri, Jana Berkessel, Jascha Achterberg, Gerhard M. Prinz, Alessandra Luna-Navarro, Jon M. Jachimowicz and A. V. Whillans

Work is a major part of many lives. While individual experiences with work will differ—from how long we work to what jobs we have and to what extent we enjoy them—almost everyone is affected by employment, whether they have a job or not. Decades of research in the... View Details

Keywords: Workplace; Behavioral Insights; Retirement Savings; Working Conditions; Employees; Performance; Happiness; Health; Job Search; Change

September 2009 (Revised November 2021)
Case

OnStar: Not Your Father's General Motors

By: Clayton M. Christensen

After two years of less than stellar performance resulting in sales well below plan, senior management at General Motors (GM) mobile telecommunications service start-up, OnStar, recognized that without a substantial change in their strategy, support for the venture... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Technology; Risk and Uncertainty; Joint Ventures; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Product Positioning; Risk Management; Auto Industry; Telecommunications Industry

September 2009
Module Note

Leading Teams Note

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: Interpersonal Communication; Experience and Expertise; Decision Choices and Conditions; Knowledge Sharing; Leadership; Business Processes; Groups and Teams

Program

Creating Brand Value

cultural and relationship prowess today's business-to-consumer (B2C) brand managers need. You will explore branding as a collective and collaborative meaning-making process among firms, consumers, and other... View Details

08 Aug 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Entrepreneurship and Business History: Renewing the Research Agenda

Keywords: by Geoffrey G. Jones & R. Daniel Wadhwani

Emily Truelove

Emily Truelove is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. She teaches LEAD in the MBA program. She also teaches in executive education programs, including Leadership for Senior Executives,... View Details

12 Sep 2024
Blog Post

4 Things You Need to Know about Immersive FIELD Courses at HBS

cultural activities. As elective courses, IFCs bring together groups of students whose interests are uniquely aligned. Not only are students eager to experience the same IFC location, they also share an... View Details

2018
Chapter

Britain: Global Legacy and Domestic Persistence

By: Geoffrey Jones

This chapter explores the British experience in a volume which examines the historical evolution of business groups in developed Western economies. The chapter argues that during the nineteenth century British merchant houses established business groups with... View Details

Keywords: Business Groups; Conglomerates; Globalization; Entrepreneurship; Business History; Organizations; Business Conglomerates; United Kingdom

Professor Christopher A. Bartlett received an economics degree from the University of Queensland, Australia (1964), and both the masters and doctorate degrees in business administration from Harvard University (1971 and 1979).

As a practicing manager prior... View Details

Keywords: consulting; health care; management consulting; manufacturing; medical supplies; wine

Article

The Economy of Fear: H.P. Lovecraft on Eugenics, Economics and the Great Depression

By: Sophus A. Reinert

The early twentieth-century weird writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft is today best remembered for his genre defining style of academic noir pulp fiction. Yet in focusing on certain tropes of his work, such as the many memorable monsters he created to populate his... View Details

Keywords: H.P. Lovecraft; Society; Economics

December 2015
Case

Negotiating the Path of Abraham, 2015 Progress and Challenges

By: James K. Sebenius

The Abraham Path board reviews the last five years and seeks to frame and act on its major strategic, negotiating, and operational challenges going forward. The Abraham Path Initiative seeks to revitalize a route of Middle East cultural tourism following Abraham's path... View Details

27 Sep 2013
Working Paper Summaries

The Impact of Conformance and Experiential Quality on Healthcare Cost and Clinical Performance

Keywords: by Claire Senot, Aravind Chandrasekaran, Peter T. Ward & Anita L. Tucker; Health

January 2017 (Revised December 2017)
Case

Merging American Airlines and US Airways (A)

By: David G. Fubini, David A. Garvin and Carin-Isabel Knoop

In February 2013, US Airways announced that it would merge with American Airlines to create the world’s largest airline. Doug Parker, the CEO of US Airways, would become CEO of the new American Airlines Group (AAL). The case describes a number of critical decisions... View Details

Keywords: Airlines; Merger; Takeover; Integration Strategy; Merger Integration; Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Making; Governance; Management Teams; Operations; Organizational Culture; Air Transportation Industry; United States

September 2023 (Revised June 2024)
Case

Kaspi.kz: Building Trust through Innovation

By: Sandra J. Sucher, Fares Khrais and Marilyn Morgan Westner

This case is written to help students explore how companies can maintain and develop trust while innovating, how to identify and respond effectively to warning signs that they may not be as trusted as they believe, and how being trusted can aid in expanding and growing... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Trust; Technology Adoption; Innovation and Invention; Banking Industry