Publications

2012
Chapter

When Identities, Interests, and Information Collide: How Subgroups Create Hidden Profiles in Teams

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer, Lisa Kwan and Lisa B. Kwan

Purpose—We review how team members' identities and interests affect team functioning, paying special attention to subgroup dynamics triggered by fault lines and coalitions. This review sets the stage for describing novel pathways through which identities and... View Details

Keywords: Information; Conflict of Interests; Interests; Groups and Teams; Identity; Performance

July–August 2013
Article

Relaxing the Taboo on Telling Our Own Stories: Upholding Professional Distance and Personal Involvement

By: Michel Anteby

Scholars studying organizations are typically discouraged from telling, in print, their own stories. The expression "telling our own stories" is used as a proxy for field research projects that, in their written form, explicitly rely on a scholar's personal involvement... View Details

Keywords: Fieldwork; Research Practiced; Distance; Involvement; Taboo; Practice; Ethics; Education Industry

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2007
Working Paper

Competition in Modular Clusters

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and C. Jason Woodard

The last twenty years have witnessed the rise of disaggregated "clusters," "networks," or "ecosystems" of firms. In these clusters the activities of R&D, product design, production, distribution, and system integration may be split up among hundreds or even thousands... View Details

Keywords: Price; Profit; Digital Platforms; Industry Clusters; Competition; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration

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06 Feb 2023
HBS Seminar

Using Oral History in Business and Management Studies

09 Nov 2017
HBS Seminar

Alfonso Gambardella, Bocconi University

Strength in Numbers: The Political Power of Weak Interests

Many consumers feel powerless in the face of big industry’s interests. And the dominant view of economic regulators (influenced by Mancur Olson’s book The Logic of Collective Action, published in 1965) agrees with them. According to this... View Details

06 Jun 2016
Research & Ideas

Skills and Behaviors that Make Entrepreneurs Successful

entrepreneurial leaders as they collect more data. Differentiating serial founders and first-time founders Not all founders are cut from the same cloth, the study underscores. Analysis of the pilot data also revealed important differences... View Details

Keywords: by HBS Working Knowledge

What You Can Do to Create an Anti-Racist Organization - Recruiting

ethical and moral calling.” When an organization makes the commitment to be anti-racist, it creates a culture that values the collective and individual humanity of its employees. These are organizations that empower and support... View Details

26 Sep 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, September 26, 2017

forthcoming Review of Financial Studies Managing the Family Firm: Evidence from CEOs at Work By: Bandiera, Oriana, Andrea Prat, Renata Lemos, and Raffaella Sadun Abstract—We present evidence on the labor supply of CEOs and on whether family and professional CEOs differ... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

14 Mar 2013
Working Paper Summaries

No Taxation without Information: Deterrence and Self-Enforcement in the Value Added Tax

Keywords: by Dina Pomeranz

2015
Book

What Great Service Leaders Know and Do: Creating Breakthroughs in Service Firms

By: James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser and Leonard A. Schlesinger

Based on decades of collective field experiences, the authors present anecdotal evidence in support of eight things that great service leaders know and do. Great service leaders know that (1) leading a breakthrough service is different, and they take steps to ensure... View Details

Keywords: Management; Leadership; Service Operations; Service Delivery

June 2010
Article

Change for Change's Sake

By: Freek Vermeulen, Phanish Puranam and Ranjay Gulati

No one disputes that firms have to make organizational changes when the business environment demands them. But the idea that a firm might want change for its own sake often provokes skepticism. Why inflict all that pain if you don't have to? That is a dangerous... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Innovation and Invention; Leading Change; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Creativity; Power and Influence; Adaptation

September 2009
Article

Are You Having Trouble Keeping Your Operations Focused?

By: Robert S. Huckman

As a business broadens over time, it can lose the operational edge that led to its original success. Core strengths atrophy, efficiency or quality suffers, and sharper rivals close in to take advantage of the loss of focus. In his classic article "The Focused Factory"... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Business Growth and Maturation; Goals and Objectives; Resource Allocation; Operations; Performance Efficiency