Publications

July 2004 (Revised October 2018)
Case

Opium and Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth Century

By: Geoffrey Jones, Elisabeth Koll and Alexis Gendron

This case examines the role of Jardine Matheson, a trading company founded by two Scottish merchants, in the opium trade between India and China during the nineteenth century. The two Opium Wars fought between Western powers and China, which sought to stop opium... View Details

Keywords: History; Globalized Economies and Regions; Ethnicity; Multinational Firms and Management; Groups and Teams; Trade; Social and Collaborative Networks; China; United Kingdom

January 1998 (Revised April 1998)
Case

Lincoln Electric: Venturing Abroad

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Jamie O'Connell

Lincoln Electric, a 100-year-old manufacturer of welding equipment and consumables based in Cleveland, Ohio, motivates its U.S. employees through a culture of cooperation between management and labor and an unusual compensation system based on piecework and a large... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Restructuring; Transformation; Construction; Compensation and Benefits; Management; Market Entry and Exit; Labor and Management Relations; Competitive Advantage; Expansion; Manufacturing Industry; Ohio

March 8, 2023
Article

How to Help Superstar Employees Fulfill Their Potential

By: Anthony J. Mayo

To better understand the leadership challenges and development opportunities facing high-potential employees, researchers analyzed more than 3,000 applications to Harvard Business School’s High Potentials Leadership Program over a nearly 20-year period. The... View Details

Keywords: Personal Characteristics; Leadership Development; Personal Development and Career; Management Skills; Business Education

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March–April 2019
Article

Operational Transparency: Make Your Processes Visible to Customers and Your Customers Visible to Employees

By: Ryan W. Buell

Conventional wisdom holds that the more contact an operation has with its customers, the less efficiently it will run. But when customers are partitioned away from the operation, they are less likely to fully understand and appreciate the work going on behind the... View Details

Keywords: Operational Transparency; Customers; Services; Operations; Customer Focus and Relationships; Employees; Customer Satisfaction; Behavior; Service Industry

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Article

How B2B Companies Can Win Back Customers They've Lost

By: Frank V. Cespedes and León Poblete

Most research and training in sales focus on acquiring new customers. But winning back previous customers is increasingly important: mergers, choice in supply chains, and uncertainty about trade wars mean that B2B customers are constantly re-evaluating relationships... View Details

Keywords: B2B; Customer Reacquisition; Customer Relationship Management

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2014
Working Paper

The Triumph of the Humble Chief Risk Officer

By: Anette Mikes

This paper tracks the evolution of the role of two chief risk officers (CROs), and the tools and processes they have implemented in their respective organizations. While the companies are from very different industries (one is a power company, the other is a toy... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Managerial Roles

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Web

Admissions & Financial Support - Doctoral

Harvard Business School Statement of Purpose Recommendation Letters Standardized Tests Research Community Anil Doshi Technology & Operations Management Filippo Mezzanotti Business Economics Sarah Wolfolds Strategy Anastassia Fedyk... View Details

August 1999 (Revised February 2000)
Background Note

What It Really Means to Manage: Exercising Power and Influence

By: Linda A. Hill

Describes the realities versus the myths of what it means to be a manager. In particular, it focuses on the limitations of formal authority as a source of power and identifies other sources of power that effective managers rely upon. Also outlines a framework of... View Details

Keywords: Framework; Management Teams; Alliances; Power and Influence

Program

Developing Yourself as a Leader—Virtual

and professional network Extend your network by connecting and working with accomplished executives from various backgrounds, industries, and countries across the globe Build relationships with a diverse group of peers who can provide... View Details

14 Aug 2019
News

Fintech on Main Street: How small businesses are banking on new technology

October 2019 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Pantheon Ventures in 2019

By: Victoria Ivashina and Tonia Labruyere

The case discusses the strategy of Pantheon, a UK-based fund of funds investing in private equity. Client demands and preferences had changed in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis and Pantheon had to adapt its business model to accommodate requests for... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Private Equity; Corporate Strategy; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom

Research Summary

Executive Compensation

By: Tatiana Sandino

Professor Sandino’s other stream of research examines players that influence the design of an executive’s compensation. She has examined the role shareholder activists can play in influencing CEO pay and found that a compensation-related shareholder proposal could... View Details

2016
Working Paper

Executive Compensation and Environmental Harm

By: Dylan Minor

We explore the relationship between managerial incentives and environmental harm. We find that high-powered executive compensation packages can increase the odds of environmental law breaking by 40%–60% and the magnitude of environmental harm by over 100%. We document... View Details

Keywords: Misconduct; Environmental Performance; Accounting Scandal; Sustainable Finance; Crime and Corruption; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Executive Compensation; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Governance

SSRN

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2009
Working Paper

Walking Through Jelly: Language Proficiency, Emotions, and Disrupted Collaboration in Global Work

By: Tsedal Beyene, Pamela J. Hinds and Catherine Durnell Cramton

In an ethnographic study comprised of interviews and concurrent observations of 145 globally distributed members of nine project teams of an organization, we found that uneven proficiency in English, the lingua franca, disrupted collaboration for both native and... View Details

Keywords: Spoken Communication; Interpersonal Communication; Globalized Firms and Management; Groups and Teams; Behavior; Emotions; Social and Collaborative Networks

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April 1997
Case

ABB Germany

By: Hugo Uyterhoeven

Describes Europe's most famous postwar multinational merger between Asea of Sweden and Brown Boveri of Switzerland. Gives background on both companies and focuses particularly on BBC's geographic organization, its corporate culture, and the relationship between its... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Multinational Firms and Management; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Goals and Objectives; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Geographic Location; Rank and Position; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Sweden; Switzerland; Germany

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October 2023
Case

Making Progress at Progress Software (A)

By: Katherine Coffman, Hannah Riley Bowles and Alexis Lefort

In this case, the Human Capital team at Progress Software has identified that some employees have a hard time understanding how to advance within Progress. This realization leads the team to develop several major people-process innovations: the introduction of... View Details

Keywords: Leading Change; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Prejudice and Bias; Personal Development and Career; Human Capital; Employee Relationship Management; Technology Industry; Bulgaria

30 Jan 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Modularity and Intellectual Property Protection

Keywords: by Carliss Y. Baldwin & Joachim Henkel

February 2018
Supplement

Qualtrics (C)

By: Doug J. Chung and James M. Lattin

Qualtrics was an online survey research platform and since the beginning, the company had relied entirely on an inside sales model—sales done remotely without face-to-face contact with clients. The low-cost inside sales model, along with an emphasis on a strong sales... View Details

Keywords: Inside Sales Model; Sales; Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation