Publications

TeachingInterests

Managing Human Capital

By: Ethan S. Bernstein

The Managing Human Capital course has been specifically designed to teach practical skills for the future general manager (not just the human resource practitioner) who seeks to manage both other people and her or his own career with optimal... View Details

06 Jul 2015
News

Money and Quotas Motivate the Sales Force Best

03 Aug 2017
News

Still a strong polarization in the labor force

Web

The Five Forces - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

Five Forces Threat of Substitute Products or Services Bargaining Power of Suppliers Bargaining Power of Buyers Threat of New Entrants Rivalry Among Existing Competitors The Five Forces is a framework for... View Details

November 2012
Article

Does Management Really Work?

By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

HBR's 90th anniversary is a sensible time to revisit a basic question: Are organizations more likely to succeed if they adopt good management practices? The answer may seem obvious to most HBR readers, but these three economists cast their net much wider than that. In... View Details

Keywords: Best Practices; Consulting Firms; Corporations; Cost Control; Employee Training; Executive Ability (Management); Executives—training Of; Hospitals—administration; Industrial Management—research; Productivity Incentives; School Management Teams; Work Environment; Management; Research

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September 2013 (Revised April 2014)
Teaching Note

Transitions Asia: Managing Across Cultures

By: Roy Y.J. Chua, Sharon Mozgai and Dawn Lau

The director of an interim executive research firm, Chee Lung Tham, faced a clash of culture and management styles when his mainland China client threatened to fire the American interim manager that Tham had assigned. The client, Wong Lung, ran a family-owned garment... View Details

Keywords: China; Cross-cultural Management; Family Business; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Management Style; Service Industry; China

April 2013 (Revised April 2014)
Case

Transitions Asia: Managing Across Cultures

By: Roy Y.J. Chua and Dawn H. Lau

The director of an interim executive search firm, Chee Lung Tham, faced a clash of culture and management styles when his mainland Chinese client threatened to fire the American interim manager that Tham had assigned. The client, Wong Lung, ran a family-owned garment... View Details

Keywords: China; Cross-cultural Management; Management Style; Conflict Management; Family Business; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Service Industry; China

TeachingInterests

Product Management

By: Sara McKinley Torti

A Product Manager is obsessed with the problem their product tries to solve and works to both define the product’s functional requirements and lead cross-functional teams to develop, launch and improve their product over time. Taught by an experienced former Google... View Details

August 2013
Teaching Note

Nutricia Middle East: Measuring Sales Force Effectiveness

By: F. Asis Martinez-Jerez

Nutricia's Middle East and African region is transitioning from a trading to a customer focus. CEO Ernest Vandenbussche must decide how to market infant milk formula most effectively in a region where the information environment is much less rich than in other... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Customer Relationship Management; Commercialization; Management Practices and Processes; Salesforce Management; Nutrition; Performance Evaluation; Information Management; Health Industry; Africa; Middle East

April 2006
Case

Nutricia Middle East: Measuring Sales Force Effectiveness

Nutricia's Middle East and African region is transitioning from a trading to a customer focus. CEO Ernest Vandenbussche must decide how to market infant milk formula most effectively in a region where the information environment is much less rich than in other... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Salesforce Management; Customer Relationship Management; Emerging Markets; Nutrition; Performance Effectiveness; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Health Industry; Middle East; Africa

June 1983 (Revised April 1991)
Case

Dominion Engineering Works

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Dominion Engineering Works faces important strategic decisions about whether to continue its focused strategy of selling newsprint machines to the Canadian paper industry or whether recent changes in industry conditions and the emergence of three global competitors... View Details

Keywords: Machinery and Machining; Globalized Markets and Industries; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Partners and Partnerships; Competitive Strategy; Customization and Personalization; Diversification

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2020
Working Paper

Working (From Home) During a Crisis: Online Social Contributions by Workers During the Coronavirus Shock

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Wesley W. Koo and Xina Li

Prior research has documented that during mortality-related crises workers face psychic costs and are motivated to make social contributions. In addition, management practices that encourage workers to make social contributions during a crisis create value for firms.... View Details

Keywords: Crisis; Social Contributions; Work From Home (WFH); Cannot Work From Home (CWFH); Social Distancing; Online Communities; Coronavirus; COVID-19; Health Pandemics; Employees; Working Conditions; Internet and the Web; Crisis Management

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August 2000 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Dell's Working Capital

By: Richard S. Ruback and Aldo Sesia

Dell Computer Corp. manufactures, sells, and services personal computers. The company markets its computers directly to its customers and builds computers after receiving a customer order. This build-to-order model enables Dell to have much smaller investment in... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Working Capital; Manufacturing Industry; Computer Industry

2014
Working Paper

The New Empirical Economics of Management

By: Nicholas Bloom, Renata Lemos, Raffaella Sadun, Daniela Scur and John Van Reenen

Over the last decade the World Management Survey (WMS) has collected firm-level management practices data across multiple sectors and countries. We developed the survey to try to explain the large and persistent TFP differences across firms and countries. This review... View Details

Keywords: Management; Organization; Productivity; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Productivity; Microeconomics

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Web

Building From the Bottom Up - Managing the Future of Work

shippers, grocery clerks, servers, healthcare assistants, housekeepers, and janitors. Despite working long hours in difficult jobs, many of these workers are trapped in positions with low wages and little or no prospects for advancement.... View Details

2016
Book

Managing in the Gray: Five Timeless Questions for Resolving Your Toughest Problems at Work

By: Joseph L. Badaracco

Part of a manager's job is making tough calls, and the hardest challenge can be resolving "gray area” problems—situations in which analysis of the numbers, facts, and data fails to provide a clear answer. Gray areas test not only managers’ skills but also their... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Decision Choices and Conditions

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July 2020
Technical Note

Digital Natives Growing Without a Sales Force

By: Das Narayandas, Michael Norris and Amram Migdal

This brief case describes the rise of so-called digital natives (also called born-in-digital) in the 2000s and 2010s that successfully grew without a sales force. The case highlights the emergence of business-to-business Internet and cloud-based companies and their... View Details