Big Four - Publications - Faculty & Research

04 Jun 2020
Book

It’s Not About You: Why Leaders Need to Look Outward

isn't what we observe [that] is getting in the way of great leadership. We're finding that if we can change the orientation, progress can be made.” We’ve been teaching people to look in the mirror, but I want to change the mirror to a window. The next View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

16 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

The Most Successful Startups Have Hands-On Founders

product companies in India for a three-day executive retreat. Prior to the retreat, participants were surveyed to find out how often they engaged in four management practices: providing structured feedback, conducting performance reviews,... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

15 Jan 2013
First Look

First Look: January 15

typology of social entrepreneuring models. This typology is based on four possible forms of capital that can be leveraged: social, economic, human, and political. Furthermore, our findings reveal that these View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

14 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

Pay Attention To Your ‘Extreme Consumers’

products. Often, she saw a big disconnect between what people said they did and what they actually did. In focus groups, for example, women would say they changed their razor blades regularly. Only when researchers visited consumers in... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

31 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

From SpinPop to SpinBrush: Entrepreneurial Lessons from John Osher

today's difficult economic climate was the subject of a panel discussion at Harvard Business School recently. The discussion, part of a one-night event called "Entrepreneurship During an Uncertain Time," featured four highly... View Details

Keywords: by Dennis Fisher; Consumer Products

07 Jan 2002
Research & Ideas

How Marketing Can Reduce Worldwide Poverty

distinction of replacing the exchange paradigm with an intervention paradigm, where we say we're intervening to change lives, not to change consumer choices. Rangan: Four billion people are outside the exchange network. But it's not as... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

25 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

Is Baseball Ready to Compete for the Next Generation of Fans?

While football and basketball are now the most popular and financially successful of the four major professional sports leagues, Major League Baseball appears to be rallying. Last week, MLB said revenue for the 2022 regular season, which... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Media & Broadcasting; Sports

18 Nov 2022
HBS Case

What Does It Take to Safeguard a Legacy in Asset Management?

management worldwide in 2017, according to a survey from the Money Management Institute. “There are now many more firms founded by underrepresented minority leaders, but they still are a small proportion of this very big industry.” Just... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services

18 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

'Likes' Lead to Nothing—and Other Hard-Learned Lessons of Social Media Marketing

five years, or 18.5 percent of the total by then. “All brands, big and small, are firmly in social media today,” says Jill J. Avery, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School. “Social media has become a mainstream tactic.” Marketing... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Advertising; Technology

02 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

The Secret of How Microsoft Stays on Top

its embrace of the Internet. Yet Bill Gates was able to quickly change strategy to allow the company to become a top competitor in selling Internet-related technologies and services. How did Microsoft accomplish this? A: In any industry subject to rapid technological... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

19 Mar 2014
Research & Ideas

A Brand Manager’s Guide to Losing Control

strategies that brand managers have used in order to cope with it. Avery recently sat down with HBS Working Knowledge to discuss their findings. According to the paper, consumers are operating in four concurrent Web-based eras: The Age of... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Advertising

20 Nov 2019
Research & Ideas

It's No Joke: AI Beats Humans at Making You Laugh

each other for longer than five years. First, the participants rated jokes on a scale from “extremely funny” to “not funny at all.” Then, after seeing their partners’ ratings for four of the jokes, they predicted their partners’ ratings... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

06 Oct 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

18 Tips Managers Can Use to Lead Through COVID's Rising Waters

address concerns, and ultimately get everyone back on the same track to achieve team goals. Team leaders should focus their relaunch in four key areas. Revisit your shared purpose. A relaunch ensures that every team member understands and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

17 Apr 2019
Research & Ideas

How Managers Stifle Creativity

you don’t need to be a coding genius in a dorm room to birth a breakthrough, says Harvard Business School Professor Teresa M. Amabile, who has studied the interplay between creativity, productivity, and innovation for more than four... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

27 May 2015
Research & Ideas

Build 'Scaffolds' to Improve Performance of Temporary Teams

efficiency on a temporary team. What they call a team scaffold is fixed while individual team members flow through the structure. “The big 'aha' was how very little structure this is” The paper, published in the March-April 2015 edition... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Health

18 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

How New Managers Become Great Managers

organizations. We can learn vicariously from their experiences. Consider the example of one manager who was about to undergo a critical transition in her career, only four years after first becoming a manager. When she was about to step... View Details

Keywords: by Linda Hill

06 Aug 2019
Cold Call Podcast

Super Bowl Ads Sell Products, but Do They Sell Brands?

in class, in real time, and the list of ads are almost never the same. They don't match up, and that's a big “a-ha” moment for students to think about, what is the purpose of this ad? So going back to your question of are the stakes... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Sports; Entertainment & Recreation; Media & Broadcasting

25 Mar 2015
HBS Case

Tate’s Digital Makeover Transforms the Traditional Museum

four museums, including the acclaimed Tate Modern—has pushed the boundaries of what an art museum can be. Its journey may be both a road map and a caution for many institutions—cultural and business—as they begin to explore the promise of... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Education

04 Nov 2013
Research & Ideas

The Real Cost of Bribery

think of the cost as just fines and regulatory actions, you're missing a big piece of the puzzle." As Serafeim had hypothesized, the extent of bribery's impact on all four competitiveness factors... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

31 Jul 2019
Research & Ideas

Distressed Employees? Try Resilience Training

Every year depression affects one in every five employees and costs American businesses $210 billion in medical bills and lost productivity. In fact, for every worker with a depressive disorder, a company loses an average of 32 productive workdays per year. Depressed... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Health

Publications