Breaks - Publications - Faculty & Research

Web

MBA Key Dates and Calendar

View important dates in the MBA Program including holidays and breaks and a link to the academic calendar. View Details

2016
Working Paper

The Microstructure of Work: How Unexpected Breaks Let You Rest, but Not Lose Focus

By: Pradeep Pendem, Paul Green, Bradley R. Staats and Francesca Gino

How best to structure the work day is an important operational question for organizations. A key structural consideration is the effective use of breaks from work. Breaks serve the critical purpose of allowing employees to recharge, but in the short term, translate to... View Details

Keywords: Breaks; Productivity; Attention; Workload; Harvesting; Working Conditions; Behavior; Performance Productivity; Organizations

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31 Jul 2018
News

On Breaking Convention

January 2010 (Revised August 2011)
Case

United Breaks Guitars

By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

When social media propagate a complaint about poor customer service, an international media event ensues. How do viral videos spread and what can firms do about them? This case dissects an incident in which a disgruntled customer used YouTube and Twitter to spread a... View Details

Keywords: Communication Technology; Customer Satisfaction; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Network Effects; Service Delivery; Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet; Air Transportation Industry

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August 28, 2018
Article

How Intermittent Breaks in Interaction Improve Collective Intelligence

By: Ethan Bernstein, Jesse Shore and David Lazer

People influence each other when they interact to solve problems. Such social influence introduces both benefits (higher average solution quality due to exploitation of existing answers through social learning) and costs (lower maximum solution quality due to a... View Details

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22 Feb 2022
News

Breaking News

the question of what happens when there’s no one left to break the story. Using a dataset of more than 10,000 facilities belonging to more than 1,000 publicly listed companies in the United States—a dataset that represents 80 percent of... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; illustration by Dana Smith; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information

29 Nov 2010
HBS Case

United Breaks Guitars

object lesson in what that means for big, recognizable companies and their brands. "United Breaks Guitars" documents the incredible viral power of social media, analyzing the reach and impact of a clever customer complaint music... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

2017
Blitz Discussions

Breaking "Performance" Through Performance

November 2008 (Revised January 2011)
Exercise

Breaking Through Action Plan

By: David A. Thomas and Karen J. Watai

The "Breaking Through Action Plan" is a developmental tool based on the book, Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America by David A. Thomas and John J. Gabarro. The Action Plan was originally designed as part of a facilitated session but... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Personal Development and Career; Relationships; Power and Influence; Trust

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The time has come for American managers to rethink the traditional relationship between management and workers. The personnel practices of the past are an obstacle today, blocking the higher productivity and quality levels your firm will need to succeed in the... View Details

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Code of Change

Two dramatically different approaches to organizational change are being employed in the world today, according to our observations, research, and experience. We call these Theory E and Theory O of change. Like all managerial action, these approaches are guided by very... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer & Nitin Nohria

June 2010 (Revised January 2021)
Teaching Note

United Breaks Guitars

By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

Teaching Note for 510057. View Details

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May 2010 (Revised August 2010)
Case

Breaking the Buck

By: Robert C. Pozen and Elizabeth Leonard

After an incredibly volatile six months since Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, Finbar McCall contemplated his options. As the investment manager of RPG Prime Reserve Fund, Inc. (RPGXX), McCall had just heard the news that the U.S. Treasury was extending the... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Financial Crisis; Financial Management; Insurance; Investment Funds; Business and Government Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations; Financial Services Industry

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26 May 2015
News

Breaking down barriers

During her career at Morgan Stanley, Lauren Wagner Boyman (MBA 2006) helped revolutionize the industry by enabling financial advisors to use social media. (Published May 2015) View Details

01 Dec 2010
News

Make or Break

BLOOM: Build it and good things will come. Ron Bloom (MBA ’85) has been an investment banker, a special assistant to the president of the United Steelworkers, and cochairman of President Obama’s task force over-seeing the Chrysler and GM bailouts. Now he’s gotten an... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing

23 Jul 2008
News

Breaking the Wall

14 May 2012
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Smartphone Addiction

ends up being less effective and efficient than it could be. The power of PTO is that it breaks this cycle, mitigating the pressure, freeing individuals to spend time in ways that are more desirable for themselves personally and for the... View Details

Keywords: by Leslie A. Perlow