Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,882)
- Faculty Publications (1,628)
- October 26, 2023
- Article
How to Connect Employees to Your Company’s Purpose
By: Hubert Joly
We know making a noble corporate purpose — that is, one aimed at doing something good in the world — come to life is both important and hard. Emerging practices from leading companies show that the journey is not about top-down messaging. If anything, it’s about... View Details
- 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
- October 2023 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
Ball: EVA Driving the World's Leading Can Manufacturer (A)
By: Jonas Heese and Susan Pinckney
The case describes Ball’s multi decade history of using Economic Value Added to drive decision making and workforce compensation. In 2016, the company acquired Rexam PLC and became the world’s leading metal beverage container company. Consumer demand for varied... View Details
Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Cost Accounting; Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Buildings and Facilities; Green Building; Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Satisfaction; Decisions; Forecasting and Prediction; Machinery and Machining; Asset Pricing; Corporate Finance; Capital; Cost; Financial Management; Goods and Commodities; Compensation and Benefits; Executive Compensation; Employee Relationship Management; Goals and Objectives; Resource Allocation; Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Arizona; California; Texas
- October 2023 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
McDonald's Board of Directors (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
In October 2019, the McDonald’s Corporation board of directors, chaired by Enrique Hernandez, Jr., gathered to learn the results of their outside counsel’s investigation into the conduct of the CEO. On the surface, the iconic fast-food chain was thriving as growing... View Details
Keywords: Board Of Directors; Board Chair; Board Decisions; Business Ethics; Corporate Boards; Fast Food; Franchising; Legal Aspects Of Business; Legal Battle; Legal Settlement; Misconduct; Regulation; Reorganization; Restaurant Industry; Sexual Harassment; Shareholders; Stakeholder Management; Strategy And Execution; Turnaround; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Culture; Executive Compensation; Leadership; Management; Ethics; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Food and Beverage Industry; Illinois; United States
- October 2023
- Supplement
Making Progress at Progress Software (B)
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
- October 2023 (Revised April 2024)
- Case
ghSMART & Co: Building and Scaling a Time Smart Firm
By: Ashley Whillans and Sara Coronel Rodriguez
"For ghSMART, freedom is the first principle from which all good things flow”—Geoff Smart, Chairman and Founder, ghSMART. ghSMART was a leadership advisory firm that was grounded in the principle of freedom. Talented Consultants and Partners could work remotely from... View Details
- October 2023 (Revised November 2023)
- Case
Sprout Solutions
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Bonnie Yining Cao and Dawn H. Lau
Husband-and-wife co-founders Patrick and Alexandria Gentry had built Sprout Solutions to be one of the biggest Software-as-a-Service human resources management platforms in the Philippines, guided by the mission to "impact the life of every Filipino by improving... View Details
- October 3, 2023
- Article
The Employer-Educator Partnership That Can Fill U.S. Jobs
By: Joseph Fuller and Manjari Raman
Middle-skills workers—those with less than a four-year college education but more than a high school diploma—make up more than 60% of U.S. workers over the age of 25. These workers are the life force that keeps America’s economic engine humming, but, increasingly, as... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
The Impact of Input Inaccuracy on Leveraging AI Tools: Evidence from Algorithmic Labor Scheduling
By: Caleb Kwon, Antonio Moreno and Ananth Raman
Problem Definition: Considerable academic and practitioner attention is placed on the value of ex-post interactions (i.e., overrides) in the human-AI interface. In contrast, relatively little attention has been paid to ex-ante human-AI interactions (e.g., the... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
The Real Effects of Fair Workweek Laws on Work Schedules: Evidence from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia
By: Caleb Kwon and Ananth Raman
Effective in eight jurisdictions and banned in four, Fair Workweek Laws (FWL) aim to increase the predictability and stability of work schedules. Among other requirements, these laws penalize employers for unilaterally adjusting work schedules without providing some... View Details
- September 2023
- Supplement
David Beckham (B): Signing Lionel Messi to Inter Miami CF
By: Anita Elberse and David Moreno Vicente
In June 2023, David Beckham, co-owner of Major League Soccer team Inter Miami CF, is hoping to find a way to bring Lionel Messi, widely regarded as one of the best players the world of soccer has ever seen, to his team. But Messi—a seven-time winner of the Ballon d’Or... View Details
- September 2023 (Revised June 2024)
- Technical Note
Note on the Evolving Landscape of HR Tech
By: Joseph Pacelli and Alexis Lefort
- September 2023 (Revised October 2023)
- Case
Mohamed Salah
By: Anita Elberse and Taher El Moataz Bellah
In June 2022, Mohamed Salah, one of the world’s best soccer players, and his lawyer and advisor Ramy Abbas Issa were in ongoing discussions with top English Premier League club Liverpool FC about a new playing contract for Salah. Arguably the Arab world’s biggest... View Details
- September 2023 (Revised July 2024)
- Case
Honest Jobs: A Path to Redemption
By: Paul A. Gompers and Jeffrey Barkas
Founded by a formerly incarcerated job seeker, Honest Jobs' mission is to be the hub where people with criminal records come to build careers and employers come to find great talent. Honest Jobs faced early challenges as a two-sided platform for justice-involved job... View Details
- September 2023
- Article
(Not) Paying for Diversity: Repugnant Market Concerns Associated with Transactional Approaches to Diversity Recruitment
In a 20-month ethnographic study, I examine how a technology firm, ShopCo (a pseudonym), considered 13 different recruitment platforms to attract racial minority engineering candidates. I find that when choosing whether to adopt recruitment platforms focused on racial... View Details
- September 2023
- Article
Corporate Purpose in Public and Private Firms
By: Claudine Gartenberg and George Serafeim
Analyzing data from approximately 1.5 million employees across 1,108 established public and private US companies, we find that the strength of employee beliefs related to purpose is weaker in public companies. Among public companies, those beliefs are stronger for... View Details
- September–October 2023
- Article
Reskilling in the Age of AI
In the coming decades, as the pace of technological change continues to increase, millions of workers may need to be not just upskilled but reskilled—a profoundly complex societal challenge that will sometimes require workers to both acquire new skills and... View Details
- August 2023 (Revised February 2024)
- Case
Toby Norman: Is Passion Enough for Simprints to Thrive?
By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Amram Migdal and Max Hancock
As co-founder and CEO of Simprints—a social enterprise with the mission to “transform the way the world fights poverty"—Toby Norman was at a crossroads. His organization had developed ground-breaking technology used to verify aid delivery, reached more than 2.5 million... View Details
- August 2023
- Case
Beamery: Using Skills and AI to Modernize HR
By: Boris Groysberg, Alexis Lefort, Susan Pinckney and Carolina Bartunek
Unicorn human relationships startup Beamery evaluates it's growth versus depth strategy as its strategic partners and customers could become future competitors in a quickly changing AI based human resources and talent management industry View Details
Keywords: Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Competency and Skills; Experience and Expertise; Talent and Talent Management; Customers; Nationality; Learning; Entrepreneurship; Employee Relationship Management; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Values and Beliefs; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Analytics and Data Science; Applications and Software; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Job Offer; Job Search; Job Design and Levels; Employment; Human Capital; Europe; United Kingdom; United States
- August 2023
- Article
Formal Employment and Organized Crime: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Colombia
By: Gaurav Khanna, Carlos Medina, Anant Nyshadham, Jorge Tamayo and Nicolas Torres
Safety net programs, common in settings with high informality like Latin America, often use a means test to establish eligibility. We ask: in settings in which organised crime provides lucrative opportunities in the informal market, will discouraging formal employment... View Details