New CEO - Publications - Faculty & Research

26 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

What Companies Want Most in a CEO: A Good Listener

For a better shot at landing the top job at today’s companies, aspiring CEOs should set aside their slide presentations and work on their listening skills instead, new research suggests. Companies are... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald

30 Jun 2008
Research & Ideas

Rethinking Retirement Planning

phase; it simply doesn't represent a sustainable solution for consumers. Yet employers are the natural gatekeepers for retirement plans, he believes. For example, when focus groups were presented with a new retirement product, individuals... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Banking; Financial Services

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

What It Takes: Minorities in the Executive Suite

We are on the cusp of a new millennium; yet the face of corporate power in the United States remains overwhelmingly white. People of color hold less than 1 percent of all senior executive posts. But what about leaders such as Kenneth... View Details

Keywords: by Judith A. Ross

05 Jul 2022
What Do You Think?

Have We Seen the Peak of Just-in-Time Inventory Management?

for Competitive Advantage. Your feedback to last month’s column Is Stakeholder Management Facing New Headwinds? Thoughtful comments raise added questions. That was the case in the several responses to last month’s column. The general... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Manufacturing; Shipping; Transportation

09 May 2017
What Do You Think?

Should Management Be Primarily Responsible to Shareholders?

way: “What happened to the lessons I was taught on campus about running the business as a ‘going concern’?” How do we encourage CEOs to manage for sustainability? What do you think? On September 13, 1970, an opinion piece appeared in The... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

08 May 2013
Research & Ideas

A Company’s Evolving View of Gender Equity

gender-related themes from media outlets including the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. This allowed them to trace how, when, and why the firm evolved in its focus on gender. They also created a time line to explore links between... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Accounting

27 Oct 2009
First Look

First Look: October 27

Transworld Auto Parts had to implement its new strategy flawlessly to survive the auto industry upheaval. The new CEO asked her leadership team to craft strategy maps and... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

08 Oct 2014
Research & Ideas

Who Is the Chief Sustainability Officer?

performance," says Harvard Business School associate professor George Serafeim. To create more understanding about the position, Serafeim wrote the paper "Chief Sustainability Officers: Who Are They and What Do They Do?" with Kathleen Miller, View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Manufacturing

14 Jun 2011
First Look

First Look: June 14

management, innovation loses out. At best, leaders of core business units dismiss innovation initiatives as irrelevancies. At worst, they see the new businesses as threats to the firm's core identity and values. Many View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

06 Jun 2005
Research & Ideas

Don’t Listen to “Yes”

decisions. But conflict does not mean browbeating. In his new book, Why Great Leaders Don't Take Yes for an Answer: Managing for Conflict and Consensus (Wharton School Publishing), Roberto describes the toll on organizations when leaders... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

16 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restaurant Revolution: How the Industry Is Fighting to Stay Alive

producers who supply the industry. Equally hit are supply chain partners who move goods across the country. "It’s going to take some time to retool operating models to be able to succeed in this new environment.” Coming into 2020,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael S. Kaufman, Lena G. Goldberg, and Jill Avery; Food & Beverage

28 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

Eyes Shut: The Consequences of Not Noticing

But perhaps armed with more data, you will. Blitz USA was once the largest manufacturer of gas cans in the United States, with approximately 80 percent of the gas can market. Cy Elmburg, the chairman of Blitz USA, has testified that in July 2006 he sent a letter to the... View Details

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman; Retail

22 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

Balancing the Future Against Today’s Needs

This separate-yet-connected structure allows leaders to provide freedom to some to blaze a new trail, while protecting the ability of others to stay on the tried-and-true path. "You need to separate out your innovators and let them... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Michelman

18 Apr 2023
Research & Ideas

What Happens When Banks Ditch Coal: The Impact Is 'More Than Anyone Thought'

Consumers who are eager to mitigate climate change can take many actions, such as reducing the number of airline flights they take or installing solar panels on their homes. But the planet is in a race against time, and individual action alone won’t help most countries... View Details

Keywords: by Barbara DeLollis; Financial Services; Mining

26 Feb 2001
Research & Ideas

David, Goliath, and Disruption

As elegantly described by HBS professor Clayton M. Christensen in his 1997 bestseller, The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, so-called disruptive technologies are upstart innovations that manage to... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

March 2024 (Revised August 2024)
Case

Darktrace: Scaling Cybersecurity and AI (A)

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Alexis Lefort

In 2023, Darktrace CEO Poppy Gustafsson was contemplating her growth strategy at a leading U.K.-based cybersecurity venture, launched in 2013 by a group of anti-terror cyber specialists, University of Cambridge mathematicians, and artificial intelligence (AI) experts.... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Talent; Scaling; Entrepreneurship; Cybersecurity; Leadership; Business Growth and Maturation; Recruitment; Resignation and Termination; AI and Machine Learning; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Going Public; Technology Industry; United Kingdom; Europe; United States

Citation

Educators

Purchase

25 Jan 2011
First Look

First Look: Jan. 25

adoption. The "extensive" margin refers to the timing of a country's adoption of a new technology; the "intensive" margin refers to how many units are adopted (for a given size economy). At the aggregate level, our... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Jun 2006
Research & Ideas

The Promise of Channel Stewardship

The various components of a channel (whether within a supplier or within a third-party vendor) may be able to improve operations by taking advantage of new technologies, but usually there is no one at the helm guiding the activities of... View Details

Keywords: by V. Kasturi Rangan & Marie Bell; Consumer Products

05 Jan 2009
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Articles and Working Papers 2008

scrutiny. Time to manage your own professional image before others do it for you. An interview with professor Laura Morgan Roberts. 2. The Seven Things That Surprise New CEOs In the newly released book On... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

31 Aug 2021
Book

Feeling Powerless at Work? Time to Agitate, Innovate, and Orchestrate

Although CEOs hold positions of power, many can feel powerless in certain ways—particularly when it comes to influencing the behaviors and performance of their employees. Yet perhaps they aren’t taking the time to understand what drives... View Details