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- February 2023 (Revised October 2023)
- Case
Amazon and the Future of Organized Labor
By: Reshmaan Hussam, Trevor Fetter and Grace Liu
From their peak in the 1950s, private-sector labor unions in the United States declined rapidly in membership and influence, decade after decade. But growing inequality—especially visible during the COVID-19 pandemic—sparked new interest in labor and organizing.... View Details
- Working Paper
Group Fairness in Dynamic Refugee Assignment
By: Daniel Freund, Thodoris Lykouris, Elisabeth Paulson, Bradley Sturt and Wentao Weng
Ensuring that refugees and asylum seekers thrive (e.g., find employment) in their host countries is a profound humanitarian goal, and a primary driver of employment is the geographic
location within a host country to which the refugee or asylum seeker is... View Details
- 2023
- White Paper
Managing Workforce Risk in an Era of Unpredictability and Disruption
By: Joseph B. Fuller, Michael Griffiths, Reem Janho, Michael Stephan, Carey Oven, Keri Calagna, George Fackler, Robin Jones, Sue Cantrell and Zac Shaw
- 2023
- Book
Workplace Conditions
By: Jill Maben, Jane Ball and Amy C. Edmondson
This Element reviews the evidence for three workplace conditions that matter for improving quality and safety in healthcare: staffing; psychological safety, teamwork, and speaking up; and staff health and well-being at work. The authors propose that these are... View Details
- January 2023
- Case
Natura: Weathering the Pandemic at Brazil's Cosmetic Giant
By: Brian Trelstad, Pedro Levindo and Carla Larangeira
Brazil's Natura, a multi-brand cosmetics group, has taken several measures to safeguard the livelihoods of its thousands of employees and millions of sales representatives during the COVID-19 health and economic crisis. The company has also made strides in its efforts... View Details
Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; ESG Reporting; Acquisition; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Making; Social Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Environmental Management; Climate Change; Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Global Strategy; Corporate Governance; Health Pandemics; Human Resources; Human Capital; Crisis Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Distribution Channels; Supply Chain; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Customer Ownership; Relationships; Business and Community Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Networks; Partners and Partnerships; Science-Based Business; Reputation; Human Needs; Social Issues; Strategy; Equality and Inequality; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Brazil; Latin America
- January 2023 (Revised November 2024)
- Technical Note
Legal Analysis: Labor Unions in the United States
By: Reshmaan Hussam, Trevor Fetter and Grace Liu
This note provides an overview of the regulation, mechanics, and history of labor unions in the United States, along with an overview of their place in the early 21st century. View Details
- 13 Jan 2023 - 14 Jan 2023
- Conference Presentation
India’s Quest for Sustainable Growth in a New Global Reality:: The Need for a Region- and Sector-Driven Approach
By: Christian H.M. Ketels and Michael E. Porter
- January 2023
- Article
Firm-Induced Migration Paths and Strategic Human-Capital Outcomes
By: Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Tarun Khanna and Victoria Sevcenko
Firm-induced migration typically entails firms relocating workers to fill value-creating positions at destination locations. But such relocated workers are often exposed to external employment opportunities at their destinations, possibly triggering turnover. We... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Job Design and Workers’ Wellbeing: Evidence from a Hospital Setting
By: Susanna Gallani and Jacob Riegler
This study examines the relationship between job design imbalance and workers’ well-being. We build on Simons (2005) framework for the design of high-performing jobs and develop a survey instrument to capture workers’ perceptions of their job design and work... View Details
- January 2023
- Article
Psychological Safety Comes of Age: Observed Themes in an Established Literature
By: Amy C. Edmondson and Derrick P. Bransby
Since its renaissance in the 1990s, psychological safety research has
flourished—a boom motivated by recognition of the challenge of navigating uncertainty and change. Today, its theoretical and practical significance
is amplified by the increasingly complex and... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
State Employment as a Strategy of Autocratic Control in China
By: Jaya Y. Wen
This paper presents evidence that autocrats use state-owned firms to strategically pacify social unrest via employment provision, a role that may contribute to their favorable treatment and persistence across settings. I use variation in a regional conflict between... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
The Market for CEOs: Evidence from Private Equity
By: Paul A. Gompers, Steven N. Kaplan and Vladimir Mukharlyamov
Most research on the CEO labor market studies public company CEOs while largely ignoring CEOs in private equity (PE) funded companies. We fill this gap by studying the market for CEOs among U.S. companies purchased by PE firms in large leveraged buyout transactions.... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Too Many Managers: The Strategic Use of Titles to Avoid Overtime Payments
By: Lauren Cohen, Umit Gurun and N. Bugra Ozel
We find widespread evidence of firms appearing to avoid paying overtime wages by exploiting a
federal law that allows them to do so for employees termed as “managers” and paid a salary above a
pre-defined dollar threshold. We show that listings for salaried positions... View Details
- December 2022
- Case
Taylor Farms: Adding Value to Fresh Produce
By: José B. Alvarez, Forest L. Reinhardt, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Pedro Levindo
In October 2022, Bruce Taylor (HBS MBA, 1981), Chairman and CEO of Taylor Farms, the leading producer of salads and healthy fresh foods in the United States, wondered whether this was the right time for Taylor Farms to venture into the Controlled Environment... View Details
- 2022
- White Paper
The Partnership Imperative: Community Colleges, Employers, & America's Chronic Skills Gap
By: Joseph B. Fuller and Manjari Raman
The nature of work has changed dramatically across
industries in the last few decades due to rapid and
repeated waves of automation. Nowhere is this more
evident than in middle-skills positions—those that
require less than a four-year college degree but more
than... View Details
- December 8, 2022
- Article
What Companies Still Get Wrong about Layoffs
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Marilyn Morgan Westner
Research has long shown that layoffs have a detrimental effect on individuals and on corporate performance. The short-term cost savings provided by a layoff are often overshadowed by bad publicity, loss of knowledge, weakened engagement, higher voluntary turnover, and... View Details
- December 2022 (Revised March 2023)
- Teaching Note
Spanish Labor Law: Lifting all Boats or Leveling Down?
By: Vincent Pons
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 722-008. View Details
- December 2022
- Article
Competition, Contracts, and Creativity: Evidence from Novel Writing in a Platform Market
By: Yanhui Wu and Feng Zhu
A growing number of people today are participating in the gig economy, working as independent contractors on short-term projects. We study the effects of competition on gig workers' effort and creativity on a Chinese novel-writing platform. Authors produce and sell... View Details
- December 2022
- Article
Conflicting Interests and the Effect of Fiduciary Duty: Evidence from Variable Annuities
By: Mark Egan, Shan Ge and Johnny Tang
We examine the variable annuity market to study conflicts of interest and the effect of fiduciary duty in brokerage markets. Insurers typically pay brokers higher commissions for selling more expensive annuities. Our results indicate that sales are four times as... View Details
- December 2022
- Supplement
Freelancer, Ltd. Case Supplement
By: Christopher Stanton, Karim R. Lakhani, Jin Hyun Paik and Nina Cohodes
Over the course of the 2010s, the rapid advancement of mobile technologies and the rise of online freelancing platforms seemed to portend a radical transformation of labor markets into on-demand, flexible talent pools. Even though several Fortune 500 companies,... View Details
Keywords: Labor Markets; Freelancers; Change Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Globalized Firms and Management; Human Capital; Employment; Digital Platforms; Global Range; Adoption; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Growth and Development Strategy; Computer Industry; Electronics Industry; Employment Industry; Information Industry; Australia; United States; Philippines