Improving Productivity - Publications - Faculty & Research

27 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

Employee-Suggestion Programs That Work

Bumping up against accepted theories in process improvement, a new research paper from Harvard Business School questions the value of prioritizing problems identified by frontline employees. Citing a hospital safety improvement program... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Guttry

12 Jun 2006
Research & Ideas

The Promise of Channel Stewardship

end users would agree: Their distribution channels are outdated and unwieldy, serving neither customers nor channel partners as well as they should. In a few cases, distribution channels are streamlined and satisfying for all participants. In some cases, technology has... View Details

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

10 Jan 2008
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Operations Management

Sharpening Your Skills dives into the HBS Working Knowledge archives to bring together articles on ways to improve your business skills. Questions to be answered: Can "lean" productions methods View Details

01 Mar 2014
News

Cutting Edge

and bolts: exiting underperforming adjunct businesses (e.g., pickles and fresh poultry); shaking up the management team; improving the supply chain (thereby increasing plant productivity by 50 percent); and... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing; Food and Beverage Stores; Retail Trade

18 Apr 2005
Research & Ideas

Selling Luxury to Everyone

and retailers keep the segment growing? Tahari said she and her husband have considered the idea of buying one of their retailers in an effort to get more information about how their products are selling, View Details

Keywords: by Julie Jette; Consumer Products

07 Nov 2007
Op-Ed

How Marketing Hype Hurt Boeing and Apple

would be delayed. Apple's stock, although it rebounded after a strong earnings report, dropped six percent when the company announced a $200 price cut on the iPhone only 8 weeks after the product launched. CEOs, often dismissive of... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Consumer Products; Consumer Products

05 Sep 2006
Research & Ideas

HBS Cases: Porsche’s Risky Roll on an SUV

other firms around the world improve in competitiveness and quality, at what point are customers no longer going to be willing to pay a premium for higher-quality goods? The quality differential will also probably shrink over time in... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Auto; Manufacturing

30 Apr 2021
News

Revealing the Rules

context of the unspoken rules, how can leaders improve outcomes for all employees? Leaders should have a frank discussion about the unspoken rules in their organizations and how they might be the cause of employees failing to get promoted... View Details

01 Apr 1996
News

Wake-Up Call: Farewell to the American Dream?

better to pay people well, in order to maintain demand for goods and services. Higher wages would induce companies to get serious about improving productivity, instead of thinking that productivity "gains"... View Details

23 Jul 2014
Lessons from the Classroom

Innovation Is Magic. Really

When business executives create innovative products or services, they often look to impress their customers by delivering an experience more meaningful, more delightful, than possibly expected. A true "wow!" moment. And Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Consumer Products

December 2020 (Revised March 2025)
Case

Responsive Working at PepsiCo UK (A): Designing a Turnaround

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Nancy Boghossian Staples

Facing a significant decline in revenues in 2016, David Gwilliam, Head of Transformation at PepsiCo UK introduced a new way of working (“Responsive Working”), which encompasses a set of work practices and some new team structures. The work practices comprise a set of 9... View Details

Keywords: SLAM Teams; Turnaround; Groups and Teams; Employees; Training; Decision Making; Planning; Performance Improvement; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United Kingdom; Europe

Citation

Educators

Purchase

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

06 Sep 2011
Research & Ideas

How Small Wins Unleash Creativity

All good managers understand the importance of making sure that every member of a team feels personally motivated and necessary throughout the workday, lest their work should stagnate and suffer. But what's the key to igniting creativity, joy, trust, and View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

18 Nov 2016
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Making a Fast Start on a New Job

Experience Lacking experience, contract workers find it difficult to advance to a job with expanded responsibilities. But it can be done. Research into the the concept of "stretchwork." Reflecting on Work Improves Job... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

01 Dec 2011
News

Ticktock

Roomba turned out to be a gadget, a fad item, because after a while it was a hassle to use and provided little results, even if it was always fun to have it running around the house,” Nanda states. “After seeing its product in the field... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel; viral marketing; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing

19 May 2014
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Should Compete for Your Privacy

improve their automated product recommendations. These recommendations are often presented as ''inspired by your browsing history'' or ''recommended for you,'' and help consumers discover new View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Consumer Products

Research Summary

Leadership and Leadership Development: An Ontological Approach

This summarizes my research program over the last twelve years (with my co-investigators Werner Erhard, Steve Zaffron, and more recently Kari Granger) in which the objective has been to rigorously distinguish leader and leadership and to create a technology for... View Details

November 2009
Case

Finance Myopia in a Systems Business

By: J. Bruce Harreld

This short case describes the tensions that often arise between finance executives attempting to curtail unproductive activities and strategy executives trying to optimize overall firm performance. View Details

Keywords: Finance; Managerial Roles; Performance Improvement; Performance Productivity; Conflict and Resolution; Strategy; Competition