Publications

September 2016
Case

Truly Human Leadership at Barry-Wehmiller

By: Dylan Minor and Jan Rivkin

The chief executive of Barry-Wehmiller, a large maker of industrial equipment, has resolved to run the company via “truly human leadership” in which “success is measured by the way we touch the lives of people.” With unusual people practices and a distinctive strategy,... View Details

Keywords: Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Values and Beliefs; Organizational Culture; Employees; Business Strategy; Manufacturing Industry

03 Jan 2017
First Look

January 3, 2017

Winter 2017 MIT Sloan Management Review Why Big Data Isn't Enough By: Chai, Sen, and Willy C. Shih Abstract—There is a growing belief that sophisticated algorithms can explore huge databases and find relationships independent of any... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

09 May 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, May 9

show that frame flexibility is both cognitive, through claimed beliefs and understandings, and emotional, through claimed appeals to feelings and aspirations. First, we reexamine an assumption that cognitive frames are static and suggest... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 May 2011
What Do You Think?

How Ethical Can We Be?

another environment?" Anyone who has studied business cultures in various parts of the world probably would respond affirmatively. Gerald Nanninga observed that "unethical decisions can often appear to be the 'best' decision... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

31 Aug 2021
Book

Feeling Powerless at Work? Time to Agitate, Innovate, and Orchestrate

stresses: “There is always something you and others can do to make changes. Effecting change alone can be hard, especially in the face of big challenges that affect an entire social or political system, but by banding together and sustaining collective action, we can... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald

01 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Encouraging Dissent in Decision-Making

beliefs that foam strikes incurred during the launch of the space shuttle Columbia posed no risk to its fuselage. This propensity to maintain silence, a flaw at once personal and organizational, is "widespread and problematic"... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons

March 2023 (Revised September 2023)
Case

Patagonia: 'Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder'

By: Brian Trelstad, Nien-hê Hsieh, Michael Norris and Susan Pinckney

In September 2022, Yvon Chouinard, the iconoclastic founder of outdoor apparel company Patagonia, announced a new ownership model for his company. Chouinard and his family had held complete control of the company's voting and non-voting stock since its founding 50... View Details

18 Apr 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, April 18, 2018

distance themselves from seekers who they learn consulted others, an effect mediated by perceptions that their own advice will be disregarded. Underlying these effects is an asymmetry between advisors’ and seekers’ beliefs about the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

28 Jan 2020
Book

Advanced Leadership Requires More Than Outside-The-Box Thinking

actions. Change is possible! A new view of the past helps pave the way toward a belief in a different version of the future. Telling a great story builds hope. It should also show other people what’s in it for them. So a great leadership... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

23 May 2018
Research & Ideas

How to Know If Your Neighborhood Is Being Gentrified

The High Line redevelopment in winter, New York City. sx70 A new study of gentrification shows that the addition of a coffee shop or restaurant in your neighborhood could be an early indicator that housing prices are about to spike. The research also casts some doubt... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

15 Dec 2003
Research & Ideas

Women Leaders and Organizational Change

that is necessary to make the changes in organizations that we are advocating involves the capacity to reflect on and learn from our own life and experience; to solicit and integrate feedback from others; to remain continually open to reevaluating our View Details

Keywords: by Mallory Stark

August 2020
Case

Zoom Video Communications: Eric Yuan's Leadership During COVID-19

By: Scott Duke Kominers, Christopher Stanton, Andy Wu and George Gonzalez

In the first half of 2020, worldwide lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic brought explosive growth to the Zoom Video Communications platform, as people replaced in-person work and social events with videoconferencing. Months into the pandemic, CEO Eric Yuan... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Communication Technology; Customer Value and Value Chain; Values and Beliefs; Technological Innovation; Leadership; Crisis Management; Organizational Culture; Working Conditions; Strategy; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Health Pandemics; Technology Industry; United States; California

01 Dec 2006
What Do You Think?

How Important Is Quality of Labor? And How Is It Achieved?

that lead to economic prosperity. He defines labor quality in terms of such things as discipline and attitudes toward work. This requires social beliefs and institutions that produce labor quality. By implication, this largely rules out... View Details

Keywords: by by Jim Heskett

28 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

Unilever: Transformation and Tradition

shareholders. Unilever's historical legacy provided organizational and cultural constraints on the options available. It entered the 1960s with an organization that was so decentralized as to be fragmented. The British and Dutch... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products

05 Nov 2021
Op-Ed

Is the Business World Finally Ready for the Wisdom of Shibusawa?

he created Japan’s first modern bank, Dai’ichi Bank (First National Bank). Its successor, Mizuho Bank, remains one of Japan’s largest banks. Observers might consider Shibusawa as Japan’s Alexander Hamilton, whose similar pop culture... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones and Rei Morimoto; Financial Services; Retail

18 Nov 2002
Research & Ideas

Where Morals and Profits Meet: The Corporate Value Shift

developing a course on cross-cultural management for the second-year MBA program. While this project has persuaded me that leading companies around the world are gravitating toward a set of what might be termed "generally accepted ethical principles," it has... View Details

Keywords: by Carla Tishler

May 2017
Case

Fresh to Table

By: Gautam Mukunda and Brooks C. Holtom

After the contentious firing of an office manager, the leadership at Fresh to Table, a software-as-a-service provider for luxury hotels and restaurants, make an unpleasant discovery. While reviewing the office manager's internal electronic communications, company... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Resignation and Termination; Organizational Culture; Values and Beliefs; Leadership