Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,467)
- Faculty Publications (451)
- October 2018
- Supplement
African Bank Investments Limited (B)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
Less than a year after joining the board of African Bank Investments Limited (ABIL), the newest director finds himself in difficult discussions with other directors about removing the struggling company’s CEO. The case is set in South Africa in mid-2014 as shares in... View Details
- September 2018 (Revised October 2018)
- Supplement
Lexoo: Building a Long-Lasting Platform
By: Chiara Farronato and Elena Corsi
Lexoo, a UK-based online marketplace for legal services, was facing the strategic choice of how to grow from early start-up to mature platform. Daniel van Binsbergen, Lexoo's CEO, and web developer Chris O'Sullivan, CTO, had set up Lexoo to help Small and Medium-Sized... View Details
- August 28, 2018
- Article
How Intermittent Breaks in Interaction Improve Collective Intelligence
By: Ethan Bernstein, Jesse Shore and David Lazer
People influence each other when they interact to solve problems. Such social influence introduces both benefits (higher average solution quality due to exploitation of existing answers through social learning) and costs (lower maximum solution quality due to a... View Details
Keywords: Transparency; Social Influence; Collective Intelligence; Interaction; Problem Solving; Collaboration; Intermittant; Breaks; Always On; Communication Technologies; Communication; Design; Information; Management; Leadership; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Performance; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information Technology
- Article
The Impact of the 'Open' Workspace on Human Collaboration
By: Ethan Bernstein and Stephen Turban
Organizations’ pursuit of increased workplace collaboration has led managers to transform traditional office spaces into “open,” transparency-enhancing architectures with fewer walls, doors, and other spatial boundaries, yet there is scant direct empirical research on... View Details
Keywords: Open Office; Transparency; Collaboration; Collective Intelligence; Workspace; Workspace Design; Architecture; Cubicles; Boundaries; Spatial Boundaries; Human Behavior; Propinquity; Co-location; Interaction; Sociometers; People Analytics; Buildings and Facilities; Communication; Design; Human Resources; Leadership; Management; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Networks; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information Technology; United States
- August 2018
- Article
Deep Help in Complex Project Work: Guiding and Path-Clearing Across Difficult Terrain
By: Colin M. Fisher, Julianna Pillemer and Teresa M. Amabile
How do teams working on complex projects get the help they need? Our qualitative investigation of the help provided to project teams at a prominent design firm revealed two distinct helping processes, both characterized by deep, sustained engagement that far exceeds... View Details
- Article
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Corporate Compliance Programs: Establishing a Model for Prosecutors, Courts, and Firms
By: Eugene F. Soltes
When prosecutors, courts, and regulators make charging and sentencing decisions, they must evaluate whether firms have effective compliance programs. Such evaluations are difficult because of the challenges associated with measuring effectiveness. Notably, these... View Details
- June 2018
- Case
Candor at Clever
By: Ethan Bernstein and Om Lala
Clever, a high-growth EdTech company based in San Francisco, had grown quickly in market share and headcount. As with many high-growth companies, however, early employees (many of whom had never managed people before) had been given the opportunity to manage teams, and... View Details
Keywords: Performance Feedback; Talent Development And Retention; Talent Management; Feedback; Difficult Conversations; Radical Candor; Scaling Start-ups; Scaling And Growth; Developing Effective Managers; Effective Managers; First-time Managers; Kim Scott; Clever; Bay Area; Silicon Valley; Interpersonal Communication; Talent and Talent Management; Human Resources; Leadership Development; Management Practices and Processes; Management Skills; Management Style; Organizations; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Conflict and Resolution; Technology Industry; Education Industry; San Francisco; United States
- June 2018
- Teaching Note
Difficult Conversations and Dealing with Challenging Situations at Work
By: Boris Groysberg and Amram Migdal
Teaching Note for HBS Nos. 416-031, 416-032, 416-033, 416-034, 416-035, and 416-036. View Details
Keywords: Communication; Communication Intention and Meaning; Human Resources; Employee Relationship Management; Management Skills; Performance; Performance Evaluation; Personal Development and Career; Relationships; Groups and Teams; Social Psychology; Attitudes; Behavior; Conflict and Resolution; Conflict Management; Emotions; Perception; Personal Characteristics; Perspective; Power and Influence; Prejudice and Bias; Reputation; Satisfaction; Trust
- April 2018
- Article
Effective Sales Training: What Are the Foundational Elements?
Across industries, turnover in sales positions averages about 25–30% annually. This means that, at many firms, the equivalent of the entire sales force must be replaced and trained every four years or so. No other function has an ongoing talent management task of that... View Details
- Article
Investors as Stewards of the Commons?
By: George Serafeim
Over the past few years, there has been a significant increase in the number of initiatives seeking to mobilize investor voice towards positive social impact. In this paper, I provide a framework outlining the role of investors as stewards of the commons. While... View Details
- March 2018 (Revised June 2018)
- Case
Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A)
By: Tatiana Sandino and Olivia Hull
A year after Norwegian grocery chain REMA 1000 adopted Workplace, Facebook’s enterprise social network, Chief Human Resource Officer Tore Høylie is asked to evaluate its impact on company culture and communication. Almost 90% of the workforce is engaged with the... View Details
- March 2018
- Article
Making the Numbers? 'Short Termism' and the Puzzle of Only Occasional Disaster
By: Hazhir Rahmandad, Rebecca Henderson and Nelson P. Repenning
Much recent work in strategy and popular discussion suggests that an excessive focus on "managing the numbers"—delivering quarterly earnings at the expense of longer-term investments—makes it difficult for firms to make the investments necessary to build competitive... View Details
- February 2018
- Case
Infrastructure in Nigeria: Unlocking Pension Fund Investments
By: John Macomber and Pippa Tubman Armerding
The so-called “infrastructure finance gap” was a problem in Nigeria as in many parts of the world. Infrastructure projects like power plants and dams were very large capital investments that could generate long-term consistent cash flows, but their financing and... View Details
- February 2018 (Revised October 2019)
- Case
HubSpot and Motion AI: Chatbot-Enabled CRM
By: Jill Avery and Thomas Steenburgh
HubSpot, an inbound marketing, sales, and customer relationship management (CRM) software provider, announced that it had acquired Motion AI, a software platform that enabled companies to easily build and deploy chatbots, fueled by artificial intelligence, to interact... View Details
Keywords: CRM; Sales Management; Customer Service; Artificial Intelligence; B2B Vs. B2C; Business Marketing; SaaS; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Customer Focus and Relationships; Sales; Salesforce Management; Technological Innovation; Applications and Software; Customer Relationship Management; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Industry; Service Industry; United States; North America
- January 29, 2018
- Article
How to Build Trust with Colleagues You Rarely See
By: Tsedal Neeley
Building trust is key to success for any organization. But that can be tricky when it comes to colleagues that you only interact with virtually. What does it take to build trust when you can’t meet in person? In this piece, the author suggests that professionals should... View Details
- January 2018 (Revised September 2023)
- Case
Giving Birth to Ovia Health
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Julia Kelley
In late 2016, Paris Wallace, the CEO of Ovia Health, and the rest of the company’s co-founders faced a difficult decision about the best way to grow Ovia Health’s revenue. Founded in 2012, Ovia Health specialized in mobile and web applications in the women’s health... View Details
- January 2018 (Revised March 2019)
- Teaching Note
Jumia Nigeria: from Retail to Marketplace (A) and (B)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman
Founded in 2012, Jumia Nigeria, a startup effort by Germany-based Rocket Internet, aimed to become an African Amazon. The company entered the nascent market and immediately enjoyed an uptick in consumer spending fueled by the strength of Nigeria’s oil-based economy. By... View Details
- January 2018 (Revised January 2021)
- Background Note
Customer Lifetime Social Value (CLSV)
By: Elie Ofek, Barak Libai and Eitan Muller
One of the hallmarks of the digital revolution is the rise of the socially connected consumer. Concomitantly, the ability of companies to affect and measure the social interactions among customers has grown tremendously. Consequently, in assessing the full value of... View Details
- January–February 2018
- Article
Some Customers Would Rather Leave Without Saying Goodbye
By: Eva Ascarza, Oded Netzer and Bruce G.S. Hardie
We investigate the increasingly common business setting in which companies face the possibility of both observed and unobserved customer attrition (i.e., “overt” and “silent” churn) in the same pool of customers. This is the case for many online-based services where... View Details
- January 2018
- Supplement
Jumia Nigeria PowerPoint Supplement
Founded in 2012, Jumia Nigeria, a startup effort by Germany-based Rocket Internet, aimed to become an African Amazon. The company entered the nascent market and immediately enjoyed an uptick in consumer spending fueled by the strength of Nigeria’s oil-based economy. By... View Details