Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,549)
- Faculty Publications (828)
- December 1, 2021
- Article
Do You Know How Your Teams Get Work Done?
By: Rohan Narayana Murty, Rajath B. Das, Scott Duke Kominers, Arjun Narayan, Suraj Srinivasan, Tarun Khanna and Kartik Hosanagar
In a research study at four Fortune 500 companies, when managers were asked about their teams’ work, on average they either did not know or could not remember 60% of the work their teams do. This is a major problem because it can lead to unrealistic digital... View Details
- December 2021
- Article
Employee Responses to Compensation Changes: Evidence from a Sales Firm
By: Jason Sandvik, Richard Saouma, Nathan Seegert and Christopher Stanton
What are the long-term consequences of compensation changes? Using data from an inbound sales call center, we study employee responses to a compensation change that ultimately reduced take-home pay by 7% for the average affected worker. The change caused a significant... View Details
- November 15, 2021
- Article
What Do Black Executives Really Want?
By: Frank Cooper III and Ranjay Gulati
Recruiting and retaining Black talent is a priority for many organizations. Most are committed to and investing in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). And yet, according to interviews and focus groups with Black executives working in a variety of blue-chip... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Hospital 57357: Aligning Performance Towards a Vision of a Cancer-Free Childhood
By: Susanna Gallani and Youssef Abdel Aal
The case follows the Children Cancer Hospital in Egypt, also known as Hospital 57357, as it goes through the roll-out of a new performance management system, which Dr. Sherif Abouel Naga, founder and CEO of the hospital, had championed. This was a critical juncture as... View Details
- October 13, 2021
- Editorial
How Companies Can Improve Employee Engagement Right Now
By: Daniel Stein, Nick Hobson, Jon M. Jachimowicz and Ashley Whillans
A year and a half into the pandemic, employees’ mental “surge capacity” is likely diminished. Managers must take proactive steps to increase employee engagement, or risk losing their workforce. Engaged employees perform better, experience less burnout, and stay in... View Details
- September 2021
- Case
Brown Capital Management
By: Luis M. Viceira, Emily R. McComb and Sarah Mehta
Set in July 2021, this case looks at several growth strategies under consideration at Brown Capital, the second-oldest Black-owned asset management firm in the U.S. Since its 1983 founding, Baltimore-based Brown Capital has specialized in small company growth... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Growth and Development Strategy; Diversity; Race; Finance; Equity; Public Equity; Stocks; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Investment; Investment Portfolio; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Employee Ownership; Strategy; Financial Services Industry; United States; Maryland; Baltimore
- Article
Elevate Employees, Don't Eliminate Them
By: Ryan W. Buell
The last major global shock—the 2008 recession—led to what economists call a “jobless recovery” as companies found they could get by with fewer employees. But post-pandemic, the author writes, managers should focus on changing employees’ roles instead. He has five key... View Details
- 2021
- Book
Lead and Disrupt: How to Solve the Innovator's Dilemma
By: Charles A. O'Reilly III and Michael Tushman
Why do successful firms find it so difficult to adapt in the face of change—to innovate? In the past ten years, the importance of this question has increased as more industries and firms confront disruptive change. The pandemic has accelerated this crisis, collapsing... View Details
- Article
Unconscious Bias Training That Works
By: Francesca Gino and Katherine Coffman
To become more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, many companies have turned to unconscious bias (UB) training. By raising awareness of the mental shortcuts that lead to snap judgments—often based on race and gender—about people’s talents or character, it strives to... View Details
- August 2021
- Case
Zoom Video Communications: Building a Culture of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion During COVID-19
By: Karen G. Mills, Scott Duke Kominers, Christopher Stanton, Andy Wu, George Gonzalez and Gabriella Elanbeck
Keywords: Diversity Management; Diversity Training; Cultural Change; Cultural Diversity; Inclusion; Inclusive Growth; Inclusive Hiring; Hiring; Hiring Of Employees; Recruiting; Performance Management; Change Leadership; Race And Ethnicity; Racial Bias; Racial Disparity; Racial Injustice; Racial Tensions; Racism; Organization; Organization Process; Organization Structure; Structural/institutional Racism; Leadership And Change Management; Leadership And Managing People; Leading; Gender Bias; Discrimination; Inequalities; Inequality; Social Change; Employee Attitude Development And Empowerment; Employee Bonding; Employee Empowerment; Employee Engagement; Employee Fairness; Employee Morale; Employee Performance Management; Employee Relations; Company Culture; Company Values; Values; COVID-19 Pandemic; Demographics; Diversity; Age; Ethnicity; Gender; Business Processes; Change Management; Change; Race; Human Capital; Human Resources; Compensation and Benefits; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Jobs and Positions; Job Interviews; Leadership; Leading Change; Management; Management Teams; Business or Company Management; Crisis Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Style; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Culture; Happiness; Prejudice and Bias; Satisfaction; Equity; Identity; Leadership Style; Values and Beliefs; Technology Industry; United States
- August 12, 2021
- Article
The Endless Digital Workday
By: Arjun Narayan, Rohan Narayana Murty, Rajath B. Das and Scott Duke Kominers
The shift to remote work ended the traditional 9–5 workday: employees work in bursts, at night, between caregiving tasks, and whenever they can find time between the endless distractions of messages, calls, and emails. New research, however, shows that for many teams,... View Details
- Article
Design Physical and Digital Spaces to Foster Inclusion
By: Eric Anicich, Jon M. Jachimowicz, Merrick Osborne and L. Taylor Phillips
Often, strategies around making organizations more anti-racist focus on changing hearts and minds. Sometimes this isn’t enough, however, and can result in backlash or increased self-segregation among white employees. In these situations, leaders should consider using... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Multi-location Workers in Multinational Firms? Tradeoffs in Contextual Specialization of Employees and Organizational Outcomes
We study how “contextual specialization,” the act of focusing workers’ organizational tasks within a particular locational context, and “contextual non-specialization,” the practice of diversifying workers’ organizational tasks among multiple locational contexts,... View Details
- August 2021 (Revised April 2022)
- Case
KKR
By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
In June of 2021, KKR’s executive team convened to prepare for an upcoming board meeting. From a small, three-person partnership that started in 1976 and invested only in U.S. LBOs, the firm 45 years later was a public company that employed over 1,600 people and managed... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Multiple Team Membership, Turnover, and On-Time Delivery: Evidence from Construction Services
By: Hise O. Gibson, Bradely R. Staats and Ananth Raman
Firms who want to compete in dynamic markets are finding that they must build more agile operations to ensure success. One way for a firm to increase organizational agility is to allocate employees to multiple project teams, simultaneously—a practice known as multiple... View Details
- July 2021 (Revised October 2021)
- Case
Trouble at Basecamp: Managing Politics, Polarization, and Conflict in the Workplace (A)
By: Nour Kteily, Deepak Malhotra and David Lane
As founders of the software company Basecamp, Jason Fried and David H. Hansson were used to being the subjects of social media attention. Both maintained active and dedicated Twitter followings for their unique perspectives on management and life. But on April 26,... View Details
Keywords: Change; Communication; Policy; Diversity; Fairness; Values and Beliefs; Governance; Employees; Working Conditions; Leading Change; Leadership Style; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Work-Life Balance; Labor and Management Relations; Conflict and Resolution; Identity; Social Issues; Equality and Inequality; Digital Platforms; Conflict Management; Information Technology Industry; United States
- July 2021
- Supplement
Trouble at Basecamp: Managing Politics, Polarization, and Conflict in the Workplace (B)
By: Nour Kteily, Deepak Malhotra and David Lane
Supplement to the (A) case View Details
Keywords: Change; Communication; Diversity; Fairness; Values and Beliefs; Governance; Employees; Working Conditions; Leading Change; Leadership Style; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Work-Life Balance; Labor and Management Relations; Conflict and Resolution; Identity; Social Issues; Equality and Inequality; Technology Platform; Information Technology Industry; United States
- 9 Jul 2021
- Interview
Matthew Barzun and Amy Edmondson
By: Amy C. Edmondson and Matthew Barzun
Writer Matthew Barzun speaks with Harvard Professor and author Amy Edmondson about Barzun's book, "The Power of Giving Away Power: How the Best Leaders Learn to Let Go". Matthew Barzun has served as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom and Sweden. He served as... View Details
- Article
Are They Useful? The Effects of Performance Incentives on the Prioritization of Work Versus Personal Ties
By: Julia Hur, Alice Lee-Yoon and Ashley V. Whillans
Most working adults report spending very little time with friends and family. The current research explores the aspects of work that encourage employees to spend less time with personal ties. We show that incentive systems play a critical role in shaping how people... View Details
- 2021
- Article
Nudging the Commute: Using Behaviorally-Informed Interventions to Promote Sustainable Transportation
By: Ashley Whillans, Joseph Sherlock, Jessica Roberts, Shibeal O'Flaherty, Lyndsay Gavin, Holly Dykstra and Michael Daly
Dramatic reductions in carbon emissions must take place immediately. A human-centric method of reducing environmental impacts is to “nudge” employees away from single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs) toward more sustainable commuting options. While an abundance of research... View Details