Publications

Educators

13 May 2019
News

Reading the Market

Article

Participation Constraints in the Vickrey Auction

By: Jerry R. Green and Jean-Jacques Laffont

Economic agents are characterized by two privately observable parameters: their willingness to pay for an item being auctioned, and their reservation utility level which must be exceeded, in expectation, to induce them to participate in this auction. This creates a... View Details

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Fall 2021
Article

Job-Hopping Toward Equity: Changing Employers Can Help Narrow the Gender Gap in Executive Compensation

By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Eric Lin

Changing employers has been linked to larger pay increases for executives and managers. Although survey-based studies suggest that men gain more than women, an analysis of more than 2,000 job moves found that executive women are commanding bigger increases than men... View Details

Keywords: Executive Compensation; Gender; Equality and Inequality

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December 2016 (Revised May 2018)
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 15: Using the Levers of Control to Implement Strategy

By: Robert Simons

This module reading pulls together key concepts and techniques from the Strategy Execution series into an integrated model—the levers of control. The four levers are: (1) belief systems, (2) boundary systems, (3) diagnostic control systems, and (4) interactive control... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Execution; Levers Of Control; Balancing Innovation And Control; Managing Growing Businesses; Turn Around Management; Human Behavior; Organizational Life Cycle; Strategy; Management Systems; Performance; Measurement and Metrics; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Behavior

2022
Working Paper

Exploring the Relationship between Team Diversity, Psychological Safety and Team Performance: Evidence from Pharmaceutical Drug Development

By: Henrik Bresman and Amy C. Edmondson

Breakthrough performance in teams requires pooling diverse perspectives and expertise. To realize the potential of diversity, communicating and translating across differences is essential. However, left to their own devices, diverse teams tend to underperform, in part... View Details

Keywords: Teams; Psychological Safety; Groups and Teams; Diversity; Interpersonal Communication; Performance

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April 2012
Case

Pret A Manger

By: Frances X. Frei, Rick Goldberg and Stephanie van Sice

Pret A Manger, a London-based chain of sandwich shops, was known for its fast, genuine service and pre-packaged sandwiches prepared on-site daily. Instructed by its board to grow at 15 percent per year, Pret considered opening "twin" shops in locations too small to... View Details

Keywords: Customer Service Excellence; Growth Planning And Management; Employee Performance Management; Information Management; Production Planning; Employee Attitude Development And Empowerment; Employee Retention; Leadership Development And Career Planning; Service Delivery; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Employees; Performance; London

Educators

26 Oct 2010
News

Heads I Win, Tails I Win Too

April 2020
Article

A Theory of Experimenters: Robustness, Randomization, and Balance

By: Abhijit Banerjee, Sylvain Chassang, Sergio Montero and Erik Snowberg

This paper studies the problem of experiment design by an ambiguity-averse decisionmaker who trades off subjective expected performance against robust performance guarantees. This framework accounts for real-world experimenters’ preference for randomization. It also... View Details

Keywords: Experiment Design; Experimenters; Theory; Performance

2022
Article

Values and Inequality: Prosocial Jobs and the College Wage Premium

By: Nathan Wilmers and Letian Zhang

Employers often recruit workers by invoking corporate social responsibility, organizational purpose, or other claims to a prosocial mission. In an era of substantial labor market inequality, commentators typically dismiss these claims as hypocritical: prosocial... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Equality and Inequality; Wages; Recruitment

Allen Grossman was appointed a Harvard Business School Professor of Management Practice in July 2000. He joined the Business School faculty in July 1998, with a concurrent appointment as a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). He... View Details

Keywords: education industry; nonprofit industry

18 Feb 2016
News

America's Steps Forward to Improving Health Care

May 2018
Article

The Amount and Source of Millionaires' Wealth (Moderately) Predicts Their Happiness

By: Grant Edward Donnelly, Tianyi Zheng, Emily Haisley and Michael I. Norton

Two samples of more than 4,000 millionaires reveal two primary findings. First, only at high levels of wealth—in excess of $8 million (Study 1) and $10 million (Study 2)—are wealthier millionaires happier than millionaires with lower levels of wealth, though these... View Details

Keywords: Income; Well-being; Happiness; Wealth; Money; Attitudes; Situation or Environment

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20 Apr 2017
News

Making Health Insurance That Consumers Actually Like

2023
Working Paper

How Private Investors Value 'Platformness': An Exploratory Study of Unicorns

By: David B. Yoffie, Michael A. Cusumano, Annabelle Gawer, Sarah von Bargen and Kwesi Acquay

This paper explores the premium investors have been willing to pay for private companies (unicorns) that are digital platforms vs. traditional companies. View Details

Keywords: Platforms And Ecosystems; Digital Platforms; Investment Portfolio

31 Oct 2004
Research & Ideas

The New CEO’s Wrong Message

Bearing full responsibility for a company's success or failure, but being unable to control most of what will determine it. Having more authority than anyone else in the organization, but being unable to wield it without unhappy... View Details

Keywords: by Michael E. Porter, Jay W. Lorsch & Nitin Nohria

October 2005 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Infosys (A): Strategic Human Resource Management

By: Thomas J. DeLong, Jaya Tandon and Ganesh Rengaswamy

Hema Ravichandar, head of human resources, was given a new and aggressive milestone to reach: ensure Infosys is on the Top 10 lists of both Best Performing Companies and Best Employers by 2007. No large organization had ever been able to achieve this distinction... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Transition; Cost; Human Resources; Employee Relationship Management; Problems and Challenges; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology Industry

Educators