Publications

Web

Entrepreneurship - Recruiting

Planning 13% Locations United States: 86% Mid-Atlantic 3% Midwest 2% Northeast 39% South 5% Southwest 5% West 32% International: 14% Asia 5% Europe 5% Latin America 3% Founding a Business 138 Number of Founders Have a Cofounder 54% Connected with a Cofounder at HBS 46%... View Details

Winter 2019
Article

Leadership Forged in Crisis

By: Nancy F. Koehn

Five great leaders from history (Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Ernest Shackleton, Rachel Carson, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer), according to Koehn, had their leadership forged in crisis. She writes that “leaders can emerge from many different backgrounds, genders,... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Leadership Style; Personal Characteristics; History

March 2021 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Helen Keller: Changing the World

By: Robert Simons and Shirley Sun

This case describes the rise of Helen Keller who at 19 months became deaf and blind. Refusing to be sidelined from life, Keller showed great determination in learning how to communicate with others, employing tutors and travelling to Boston to enroll in the Perkins... View Details

Keywords: Mission And Purpose; Values And Beliefs; Success; Diversity; Leading Change; Personal Development and Career; Personal Characteristics; Power and Influence

Web

HBS - The year in Review

Shoe Company, was published in 1921, at a time when the field of management education was still quite new. Dean Wallace Donham strongly believed that the best way to teach business education was by discussion, not by lecture. His visionary approach had an View Details

31 Jan 2023
Research & Ideas

It’s Not All About Pay: College Grads Want Jobs That ‘Change the World’

are comparable across regions. Social impact jobs are ‘luxury goods’ If an employer seeking college-educated employees highlights the potential to improve society—and the job includes work toward those... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

09 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

Industry Self-Regulation: What’s Working (and What’s Not)?

accusations that it claimed to do something but then failed to deliver on it. This charge is called greenwashing when the claims are related to the environment, but similar charges are also being levied at firms that adopt codes of conduct for a range of other... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

March 2015
Case

The Sino-Russian Rapprochement: Energy Relations in a New Era

By: Rawi Abdelal, Morena Skalamera and Sogomon Tarontsi

The United States could enhance or threaten China's energy security but China was unsure of the U.S. intentions. China and the United States were both friends and potential foes. In the meantime, Russia's own ambivalent relationship with the United States and its... View Details

Keywords: International Relations; Energy; Trade; Conflict and Resolution; Business and Government Relations; Energy Industry; China; United States; Russia

Article

The (Perceived) Meaning of Spontaneous Thoughts

By: Carey K. Morewedge, Colleen Giblin and Michael I. Norton

Spontaneous thoughts, the output of a broad category of uncontrolled and inaccessible higher-order mental processes, arise frequently in everyday life. The seeming randomness by which spontaneous thoughts arise might give people good reason to dismiss them as... View Details

Keywords: Spontaneous Thoughts; Self-Insight; Meaning; Attribution; Judgment And Decision Making; Decision Making; Cognition and Thinking

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01 Dec 2023
News

The Exchange: Help Wanted

emerged, and it’s one that hinges on social skills. Sadun leads the Digital Reskilling Lab at HBS; Fuller co-leads the School’s Managing the Future of Work project. Here, they talk about the rise of soft skills in the C-suite. Your... View Details

Keywords: Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Educational Services

Web

About - Race, Gender & Equity

relations in organizations with a focus on leadership, identity, and organizational culture change. Examples of her past research include studies of men and masculinity on offshore oil platforms; the impact of racial diversity on retail... View Details

Web

Business History - Faculty & Research

Ahmed Dahawy and Choetsow Tenzin February 2025 | Case | Faculty Research This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Morocco. The case explores the various historical, cultural, and social factors that View Details

22 Feb 2021
Blog Post

I Found My Future at HBS and You Can Too

community’s lifeblood sat dormant along the banks of the Ohio River. Consumed by poverty, the soft bigotry of low expectations had crept into the social construct, sentencing families in underserved communities like mine to a lifetime of... View Details

21 Jan 2014
First Look

First Look: January 21

Davin, Joseph P., Sunil Gupta, and Mikołaj Jan Piskorski Abstract—We study the impact of peer behavior on the adoption of mobile apps in a social network. To identify social... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 4, 2025
Editorial

Employee Stress Is a Business Risk—Not an HR Problem

By: Marion Chomse, Lydia Roos, Reeva Misra and Ashley Whillans

Workplace stress, on the rise for decades, has been treated by many organizations as a personal issue instead of a business-critical risk that merits executive oversight. This is likely due in part to the fact that companies have not effectively quantified and tracked... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Well-being; Risk Management; Competitive Advantage

Article

Organizational Beliefs and Managerial Vision

By: Eric J. Van den Steen

Can managers have an impact on their firm that goes beyond their direct actions and decisions? This article shows that a manager with strong beliefs about the right course of action will attract, through sorting in the labor market, employees with similar beliefs. This... View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Goals and Objectives; Decisions; Labor; Markets; Employees; Motivation and Incentives; Recruitment; Risk and Uncertainty; Values and Beliefs

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November 2000
Case

WARDA: Leading a Rice Revolution in West Africa

By: Ray A. Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Cate Reavis

The West Africa Rice Development Association, along with various national and international partners, was developing and transferring new rice technologies to farmers throughout West and Central Africa. While production in West Africa was growing faster than any other... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Government and Politics; Technological Innovation; Leadership; Performance Effectiveness; Problems and Challenges; Research and Development; Nonprofit Organizations; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Africa

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Web

Policies, Rules & Guidelines | About

During Course Activities The purpose of this policy is to clarify the School’s position on capturing (e.g., photography, audio, video, live streaming and other formats) and/or disseminating (e.g., via the media or use of social media)... View Details

November 2010
Case

Esquel Group: Building a Sustainable Partnership with Cotton Farmers in Xinjiang (A)

By: James K. Sebenius and Jason Cheng Qian

Esquel Group, leading manufacturer of quality shirts, sought to negotiate long-term partnerships with often-exploited farmers in Xinjiang (western China) to procure a superior cotton variety. Seeking to secure a large supply of specialty cotton in an ethical and... View Details

Keywords: Contracts; Agreements and Arrangements; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Leasing; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Partners and Partnerships; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Hong Kong; Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu

June 2011 (Revised February 2013)
Case

Mandatory Environmental, Social, and Governance Disclosure in the European Union

By: George Serafeim

In 2011, the European Commission was deciding on how to best modify the existing European Union policy on corporate disclosure of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) information. Previous directives had recommended that European companies report ESG... View Details

Keywords: Integrated Corporate Reporting; Corporate Strategy; Corporate Disclosure; Environmental Accounting; Competitive Strategy; International Accounting; Financial Reporting; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Debates; Europe