Publications

June 2023
Supplement

Social Media Background Screening at Fama Technologies (B)

By: Joseph Pacelli, Jillian Grennan and Alexis Lefort

Fama Technologies is an online screening company that uses AI to analyze job applicants' publicly available online content for signs of risk and culture fit. The case opens with Ben Mones, founder and CEO, looking to secure funding from venture firms. He is running... View Details

Keywords: Human Resources; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Organizational Culture; Talent and Talent Management; United States

24 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

Developing Your Next CEO for the Family Business

as CEO. I agree but CEO selection is more complex for family companies. Options for Family Companies In family companies, you also have the choice of family and non-family successors, giving you four broad... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Auto

February 2003 (Revised October 2003)
Case

Cable Data Systems

By: Paul W. Marshall and Todd H Thedinga

Describes the operating challenges of Cable Data Systems (CDS), a minority-owned cable installation company with a dual mission of maximizing profits and providing employment opportunities to minorities in urban markets. Following the merger of two cable installation... View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Employment; Forecasting and Prediction; Urban Scope; Cost Management; Infrastructure; Labor Unions; Demand and Consumers; Demographics; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Boston

November 2022
Case

Hiring with the Community in Saint Paul

By: Mitchell B. Weiss and Sarah Mehta

This case reviews Saint Paul Mayor Melvin Carter’s decision to involve the community in the process of hiring his cabinet members. Rather than relying on an executive recruiting firm or choosing cabinet heads from his own network, Carter recruited 100 community members... View Details

Keywords: Community Engagement; Competency and Skills; Government and Politics; Human Resources; Government Administration; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Decision Making; Public Administration Industry; United States; Minnesota; Saint Paul

10 Feb 2003
Research & Ideas

Commodity Busters: Be a Price Maker, Not a Price Taker

Business is about making money, not measuring macho. The scrap heap of business disasters is littered with managers whose ego drive overwhelmed good business sense. Founder and former chief executive Ray Noorda had a wonderful business in... View Details

Keywords: by Benson P. Shapiro

June 2024
Background Note

Do Companies Overvalue External Talent?

By: Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

When looking to fill a position above entry level, companies have two choices: transfer/promote an internal candidate, or hire from the outside. Anecdote and research alike show that external hires are usually offered a higher starting salary than internal candidates. View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Selection and Staffing; Job Offer

01 Mar 2014
News

Generation Next

quarters and selected top-notch people to lead various parts of the group." Nisa casts the Agrovet reshuffle as the event that allowed her to shape her current role: head of innovation, corporate strategy,... View Details

Keywords: Mark Bergen; Godrej Group; Management

01 Dec 2009
News

One Man Crime Wave

We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody dropped the girl off the bridge. And so John D. MacDonald (MBA ’39) begins another book, with an opening line so deft it makes other writers want to... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; fiction writing; Arts, Entertainment; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

September 2019 (Revised May 2021)
Case

pymetrics: Early Days

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In 2013, CEO Frida Polli was contemplating the next steps for her start-up business, pymetrics. After receiving her PhD in neuropsychology and MBA from HBS, she was determined to put her scientific and academic knowledge to work to build a business solving real world... View Details

June 1990 (Revised March 1991)
Supplement

Jonah Creighton (B)

By: Anne Donnellon and Joshua D. Margolis

Covers Jonah's two-hour meeting with the company's executive vice president who is next in line to become president, and the outcome of the discriminatory hiring incident that initially troubled Jonah. View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Outcome or Result; Problems and Challenges; Prejudice and Bias

November 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Dewberry Capital

By: William J. Poorvu

In 2003, key executives of Dewberry Capital, a fast-growing, Atlanta-based real estate company, are evaluating their growth strategy and the resultant organizational issues. John Dewberry, the entrepreneurial founder of the firm, has developed a portfolio of... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Selection and Staffing; Business Growth and Maturation; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Real Estate Industry; Atlanta

April 1998 (Revised November 1999)
Case

CitySoft, Inc.

By: Myra M. Hart, Marco Iansiti, Andrea H. Chermayeff and Diana S. Gardner

Two entrepreneurs are discussing how to scale-up their new company. They face a variety of issues, ranging from hiring and training to strategy and focus. View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Strategy; Business Growth and Maturation; Selection and Staffing; Internet; Web Services Industry

06 Oct 2022
News

On the Road to Recovery

learning curve. When Nightingale Nurses got its start, Moreno’s partners had staffing experience only in areas like IT and office personnel, and Moreno had led companies in... View Details

Keywords: Nursing and Residential Care Facilities; Nursing and Residential Care Facilities; Nursing and Residential Care Facilities; Nursing and Residential Care Facilities

September 2019 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Burunda Prince at The Farm, a Comcast NBCUniversal Innovation Hub (Powered by Boomtown)

By: Linda A. Hill, Eric Mankin and Emily Tedards

After a successful inaugural year, Burunda Prince, the Managing Director of Comcast’s startup business accelerator The Farm, was getting ready for an eventful 2019. Comcast was America's largest cable and internet service provider, having built a profitable business... View Details

Article

Isolating the Symbolic Implications of Employee Mobility: Price Increases after Hiring Winemakers from Prominent Wineries

By: Peter W. Roberts, Mukti Khaire and Christopher I. Rider

When a skilled employee moves from one organization to another, the effects on the hiring organization can be substantive (i.e., changes in actual outcomes) and symbolic (i.e., changes in expectations or valuations and therefore prices). We theorize that strong or even... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Organizations; Performance Expectations; Price; Competency and Skills; Quality; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Selection and Staffing; Valuation; Food and Beverage Industry

September 2008 (Revised October 2008)
Case

Marc Abrahams: Annals of an Improbable Entrepreneur

By: Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind

Marc Abrahams was a media entrepreneur who specialized in science humor. In 2008, he sought to boost the scale and monetization potential of his business. That business, called Improbable Research, encompassed a magazine (Annals of Improbable Research), a high-profile... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Selection and Staffing; Human Capital; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Personal Development and Career

June 2008
Article

Current State of Fellowship Hiring: Is a Universal Match Necessary? Is It Possible?

By: Christopher D. Harner, Anil S. Ranawat, Muriel Niederle, Alvin E. Roth, Peter J. Stern, Shepard R. Hurwitz, William Levine, G. Paul DeRosa and Serena S. Hu

Currently, approximately ninety percent of the six hundred twenty graduating orthopaedic residents are planning on entering a post-graduate fellowship. Since January of 2005, two of the largest fellowship match programs, Sports Medicine and Spine Surgery, were... View Details

Keywords: Medical Specialties; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Employment; Market Timing; Marketplace Matching; Health Industry

18 Jun 2012
Research & Ideas

Better by the Bunch: Evaluating Job Candidates in Groups

have worked on" —Max Bazerman A recent collaboration between Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) reveals that you're much less likely to stereotype by gender if you apply an "evaluation nudge"—an... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish

August 2011 (Revised July 2014)
Case

Earl Martin Phalen: Ready to ROAR?

By: Noam T. Wasserman, Julia Taylor and Yael Braid

Earl Martin Phalen is in the midst of starting his second non-profit organization, Summer Advantage, by implementing the lessons he learned from BELL, the non-profit he had founded and run for the prior 15 years. His aspirations for Summer Advantage were to make it... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Nonprofit Organizations; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Selection and Staffing; Leadership Development; Financial Management