small businesses - Publications - Faculty & Research

30 Oct 2005
Research & Ideas

Tuning Jobs to Fit Your Company

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, professor Robert Simons wrote about how organizations can design jobs for maximum performance. In this excerpt, Simons discusses what he terms the four basic "spans" of a job—control,... View Details

Keywords: by Robert Simons

14 Nov 2007
First Look

First Look: November 14, 2007

Working PapersNone Available This Week Cases & Course MaterialsAssessing and Enhancing Individual Power in the Family Business System Harvard Business School Note 808-026 Describes how to asses and... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

22 Oct 2010
Research & Ideas

Panel on Pedagogical Innovations in MBA Courses

Editor's Note: This is a summary of an HBS Faculty Research Symposium 2010 presentation. View a full summary from the link below. Date of Event:May 10, 2010 Speakers:Ray Gilmartin, Joseph Lassiter, Youngme Moon, Nitin Nohria Multiple pedagogical innovations are taking... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty; Education

04 Jun 2020
Book

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

for teams to thrive, even in the leader’s absence. Frei, the UPS Foundation Professor of Service Management at Harvard Business School, served as senior vice president for leadership and strategy at Uber and has consulted with WeWork and... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

10 Aug 2021
Blog Post

Meet the Health & Wellness Club

Our Mission Our mission is to establish a community at Harvard Business School for individuals who are interested in exploring health and wellness trends and connecting with like-minded students, entrepreneurs, and leaders in this space.... View Details

Keywords: Health-Related Services; Health Care; Consumer Products / Retail

2003
Book

When You Say Yes But Mean No: How Silencing Conflict Wrecks Relationships and Companies

By: Leslie Perlow

“Saying yes when you really mean no” is a problem that haunts organizations from start-ups to multi-nationals. It exists across industries, levels, and functions. And it’s exacerbated by a down economy, when the fear of losing one’s job is on everybody’s mind and the... View Details

Keywords: Conflict and Resolution; Relationships; Business Ventures

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21 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

Are You Sabotaging Your Own Company?

their work.” “Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.” The spy manual struck a chord with Stefan H. Thomke, the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

08 May 2020
In Practice

Nonprofits Hurt by COVID-19 Must Hoard Cash to Hold On

Professor of Marketing and co-chair of the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative. About the Author Danielle Kost is a senior editor at Harvard Business School Working Knowledge. [Image: PeopleImages] Related Reading The Key to Powerful Social... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

06 Jul 2023
News

Home Economics

In a remote village in the Mexican state of Chiapas, 13 women gather in an open-air community space. Each has arrived at their weekly meeting with a small deposit for El Banco—“the bank”—as the women have named the savings club they’ve... View Details

Keywords: April White

02 Mar 2016
News

David Moss is Rewriting History

standardized test writers, textbook publishers, and students. But lost in these debates is a much more fundamental question: Is history just a series of dates and events? While the debate rages over what to teach students about American history, Harvard View Details

Keywords: April White

13 Mar 2025
Blog Post

Launching Leaders: HBS's New Initiative Fuels First-Generation and Low-Income Student Success

James Bedford (MBA 2025) smiles as he recalls growing up on a boat off the southwest coast of England. "It was just me and my dad in the most beautiful spot in the world," he says. Looking back now, he recognizes it was poverty—but at the time, "it was just life."... View Details

05 May 2003
Research & Ideas

Sharing the Responsibility of Corporate Governance

Harvard Business School professor Constance Bagley studies the intersection of business and law, and is interested in how companies can use legal resources as a competitive asset. In this interview, Bagley... View Details

Keywords: by Carla Tishler

14 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

Keeping Your Balance With Customers

From product push to customer pull, technology has vastly reshaped the business transaction—and in turn, the customer's place in the value chain. Today, managing the customer relationship has become the single most important dimension of... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton

16 Feb 2010
Research & Ideas

The Outside-In Approach to Customer Service

women traverse their stores. In addition, Best Buy acquired Geek Squad to broaden its footprint into installation of equipment. The company applied the same concerted effort toward serving other valuable customer segments it had discovered, including View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Consumer Products

26 Sep 2006
First Look

First Look: September 26, 2006

Working PapersScale Without Mass: Business Process Replication and Industry Dynamics Authors:Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee, Michael Sorell, and Feng Zhu Abstract Since the mid-1990s, productivity growth has accelerated in the U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

30 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Six Steps for Making Your Threat Credible

of Chicken. Both sides make threats in an effort to change their counterpart's behavior or beliefs. You might threaten to take your business elsewhere unless the other side sweetens her offer or pursue litigation if she refuses to address... View Details

Keywords: by Deepak Malhotra

July 2012
Case

Revenue Solutions, LLC

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Ari Wasserman and Nick Esayian were both dissatisfied with their future prospects in their current careers. Wasserman, who managed an infomercial business for a direct response consumer marketing company, wanted more flexibility and ownership. Esayian was the CEO of... View Details

Keywords: Work-Life Balance; Partners and Partnerships; Small Business; Israel; United States

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26 Apr 2004
Research & Ideas

A Clear Eye for Innovation

excelled at analog photography but hasn't been able to make the leap to digital cameras. Boeing, a longtime leader in commercial aircraft, has experienced difficulties in its defense-contracting businesses and has recently stumbled in the... View Details

Keywords: by Charles A. O'Reilly III & Michael L. Tushman

15 Sep 2008
Research & Ideas

The Coming Transformation of Social Enterprise

Professor Kash Rangan is one of the pioneers of Harvard Business School's Social Enterprise Initiative, now 15 years old. Back in 1993, most people took a "spray and pray" approach to philanthropy—writing checks to charities and... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson

26 Oct 2017
Research Event

In an Era of 'Fake News,' What is the Future of Advertising and Publishing?

A year ago, discussions of the business of digital media may have focused on the plateauing ebook market or the diminishing pay for content providers. But after the 2016 presidential election, in which Russian operatives allegedly used... View Details

Keywords: by Jen Deaderick; Media & Broadcasting; Journalism & News

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