Publications

February 2006 (Revised April 2006)
Teaching Note

General Motors U.S. Pension Funds (TN)

By: Luis M. Viceira

Keywords: Retirement; Auto Industry

October 2004 (Revised July 2006)
Background Note

The Professional Services Course

By: Ashish Nanda

Outlines the conceptual framework, module structure, and service flow of an MBA course on professional services. View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Leadership

Educators

May 1996 (Revised June 1996)
Case

Dennis Hightower: New Horizons

By: Ashish Nanda

Named president of Disney TV and Telecommunications, Dennis Hightower has to yet again come in as an outsider and take charge. The magnitude of challenge is much larger than in 1987, and the situation facing him is subtly different. View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Personal Development and Career; Telecommunications Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry

30 Jun 2008
Research & Ideas

Rethinking Retirement Planning

Many of us are sailing toward retirement with the hope that Social Security, personal savings, and money saved in an employer's 401(k) or 403(b) plan will add up to the magic sum required to enjoy our remaining years in reasonable style.... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Banking; Financial Services

6 Oct 2021
Talk

How to Transition In and Out of Work

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz

How to keep home and work separate while working remotely. Some remote employees miss their commute, with several even creating a fake commute to turn off work at the end of a long workday. Expert Jon Jachimowicz explains how to maximize the positive lifestyle benefits... View Details

Keywords: Work From Home (WFH); Positivity; Lifestyle; Passion; Work-Life Balance

1996
Chapter

Mentoring and the Boundaryless Career: Lessons from the Minority Experience

By: D. Thomas and M. C. Higgins

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Diversity

April 1996 (Revised June 1996)
Case

Dave Armstrong (A)

A second-year Harvard MBA student considers the pros and cons of three job offers. He identifies several concerns and evaluates each job in terms of how well they meet these concerns. He assesses probabilities for whether the jobs will be successful for him. View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Decision Making

Educators

19 Nov 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

Teaching The Moral Leader

teaching leadership development programs (and even members of a leadership team inside a business), to feel confident in their ability to teach any of the class sessions, modules, or the entire course," Sucher explains. We asked... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Education

2025
White Paper

Navigating Opportunity: Career Information and Mobility in Low-Wage Employment

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Kerry McKittrick, Amanda Holloway, Rony Rodriguez Ramirez and Ali Epstein

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Employment

Read Now

September 16, 2022
Article

A Causal Test of the Strength of Weak Ties

By: Karthik Rajkumar, Guillaume Saint-Jacques, Iavor I. Bojinov, Erik Brynjolfsson and Sinan Aral

The authors analyzed data from multiple large-scale randomized experiments on LinkedIn’s People You May Know algorithm, which recommends new connections to LinkedIn members, to test the extent to which weak ties increased job mobility in the world’s largest... View Details

Keywords: Job Mobility; Social Networks; Social Ties; Networks; Personal Development and Career

Register to Read

1989
Chapter

The Influence of Race on Career Dynamics

By: D. A. Thomas and Clayton P. Alderfer

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Race

January 1991
Article

Work and Family: Should Parents Feel Guilty?

By: L. S. Paine

Keywords: Work-Life Balance

1997
Chapter

Beyond the Myth of the Perfect Mentor

By: L. Hill

Keywords: Training; Personal Development and Career

24 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

Who Sets Your Benchmarks?

Editor's note:When it comes to improving your leadership abilities, Professor Robert Steven Kaplan is a big believer in starting with a look in the mirror. In fact, he wrote a book on that subject: What To Ask The Person In The Mirror:... View Details

Forthcoming
Article

Now Is the Time for Courage: Five Strategies to Drive Bold Action amid Uncertainty.

By: Ranjay Gulati

Research has shown that fortune favors the bold, not the cautious. But in volatile and uncertain times, many leaders hesitate to act, and others simply freeze up. The question is, Can bravery be acquired? In this article an HBS professor who has done extensive research... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Leadership; Risk Management; Personal Characteristics

Register to Read

Article

Present Bias Causes and Then Dissipates Auto-enrollment Savings Effects

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Peter Maxted

Present bias causes procrastination, which leads households to stick with auto-enrollment defaults. However, present bias also engenders overconsumption. Separation from each employer generates a rollover of 401(k) balances to an individual retirement account (IRA)... View Details

Keywords: Present Bias; Procrastination; Personal Finance; Decision Making; Social Psychology; Retirement

Read Now

November 8, 2013
Article

What Men Can Do to Help Women Advance Their Careers

By: Debora Spar

Today, most major corporations—along with hospitals, law firms, universities, and banks—have entire units devoted to helping women and minorities succeed. There are diversity officers and work/family offices and gender-sensitivity training courses in all tiers of... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Gender

April 2011 (Revised June 2012)
Background Note

Note on U.S. Pension Accounting

By: Robert C. Pozen and Brij Khurana

The purpose of this note is to describe the manner in which publicly traded corporations and local governments in the United States account for their pension plans. View Details

Keywords: Retirement; Accounting; United States

Educators