Harvard Business Publishing

7 Trends to Watch in 2022

Fri, 28 Jan 2022 11:41:27 -0500

As 2022 gets underway we asked our faculty to highlight some trends worth watching in the coming year...

3 Steps to Help Companies Rebuild Trust During the Pandemic

Thu, 27 Jan 2022 17:26:10 -0500

We’re approaching year three of the COVID-19 pandemic, with no clear end in sight. During this time, companies have had to make difficult decisions about whether employees should work from home, wear masks in the office, and get vaccinated and tested. Many companies that took a financial hit also struggled with...

How to Get Companies to Make Investments That Benefit Everyone

Fri, 21 Jan 2022 10:29:50 -0500

Regulators often punish companies for bad behavior—for instance, by fining them if they pollute the environment. But instead of focusing on what business leaders are doing wrong and constantly slapping their hands, government officials should shift to rewarding firms that make positive contributions to society, says...

Can Our Parenting Struggles Make Us Better Leaders?

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 16:58:10 -0500

I’m not just a professor and business consultant; I’m also a parent to two kids. As I’ve often mused, the challenges leaders face at home and at work aren’t necessarily all that different. In particular...

The Hidden Cost of a Product Recall

Mon, 04 Mar 2019 00:00:00 -0500

Drivers on Interstate 25 in Colorado have been speculating about the fate of hundreds of Volkswagen cars sitting in a lot near Pikes Peak International Raceway. It’s one of...

These 4 CEOs Created a New Standard of Leadership

Fri, 01 Mar 2019 00:00:00 -0500

Four titans who defined a new era in business during the past decade recently concluded their terms: PepsiCo’s Indra Nooyi, Unilever’s Paul Polman, Mayo Clinic’s John Noseworthy, and US Bancorp’s Richard Davis.

When they became CEOs...

Forget Cash. Here are Better Ways to Motivate Employees

Fri, 01 Feb 2019 04:00:00 -0500

In today's tight job market, employers must focus on how to attract and keep top talent. Giving away stacks of money may not always be the best incentive, warns Ashley Whillans.

With unemployment at near historic lows in the United States...

Should Companies Disclose Employee Compensation?

Thu, 15 Mar 2018 12:03:15 -0400

There is general support for the widespread practice of disclosing pay data in "bands" associated with jobs. Fewer people would go beyond this to disclose what individual employees make in their jobs. Others would...

'Likes' Lead To Nothing-And Other Hard-Learned Lessons Of Social Media Marketing

Mon, 25 Sep 2017 07:34:12 -0400

Seventeen years after the dawn of social media marketing, this medium continues to be an intriguing puzzle-a place where brands are investing more time and money, but are still struggling to determine what works well and where the returns on investment can be found. Social media spending has...

People Have An Irrational Need To Complete 'Sets' Of Things

Mon, 31 Jul 2017 10:19:23 -0400

Here's a tip for persuading people to finish more tasks, buy more products, or donate more money: Simply present assignments, requests, or items as arbitrary sets, rather than as individual units. New research reveals that...

Are Stockbrokers Illegally Leaking Confidential Information To Favored Clients?

Fri, 07 Jul 2017 14:29:55 -0400

Stockbrokers are taking advantage of their privileged position to increase profits for favored investors and hedge funds, all at the expense of their other customers, new research suggests. A team of economists has found evidence that brokers routinely leak confidential information about large stock trades to their best, most lucrative clients. When a savvy activist investor submits a trading order through a brokerage firm, for example,...

The Story Of Why Humans Are So Careless With Their Phones

Tue, 04 Apr 2017 07:40:47 -0400

Consumers act more recklessly with the products they own when better versions become available, according to research by Silvia Bellezza, Joshua M. Ackerman and Francesca Gino. This comic by Josh Neufeld explains...

The Dow At 20,000: What's That All About?

Tue, 31 Jan 2017 09:18:39 -0500

It took more than a century for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which tracks thirty selected blue chip stocks, to hit 20,000, but it finally happened last Wednesday - a milestone marked by banner headlines and happy investors. In a recent conversation in his Morgan Hall office,...

Hereï؟½s How Businessman Trump Is Likely to Approach the Presidency

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 14:08:27 -0500

Harvard Business School professors weigh in on how Donald Trumpï؟½s nearly 50 years of experience in building a global corporate empire (and zero years of political experience) might shape his approach to leading a nation...

Business Lessons From Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson

Mon, 19 Dec 2016 10:00:46 -0500

There is a theme to Dwayne Johnson's life, and that theme is never settling. Johnson vividly remembers a moment in the mid-90s when he was being driven back home to Tampa, Florida, by his father after getting cut from a Canadian Football League team, his dreams of an NFL career dashed. He looked in his wallet and saw...

Turning One Thousand Customers Into One Million

Fri, 02 Dec 2016 09:55:56 -0500

Few companies in the past few years have rocketed to success faster than Uber, Airbnb, and Etsy, which together have transformed the way we hail a cab, plan a vacation, and shop for handmade gifts, respectively. In a previous HBS Working Knowledge article, How Uber, Airbnb, and Etsy Attracted Their First 1,000 Customers, we explored...

Hazard warning: The unacceptable cost of toxic workers

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 08:20:35 -0400

Toxic workers aren't just a pain in the rear; they're also a pain in the bottom line, according to a new Harvard Business School working paper. Dylan Minor, visiting assistant professor of business administration in the HBS Strategy unit, says a company stands to lose...

The Bright Side Of Patents

Tue, 16 Feb 2016 16:42:47 -0500

We examine whether patents help startups grow and succeed using detailed micro data on all patent applications filed by startups at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office since 2001 and approved or rejected before 2014. We find that patent approvals help...

Is Group Loyalty A Force For Good Or Evil?

Tue, 12 Jan 2016 05:49:47 -0500

Most ethical principles are pretty unambiguously good. Honesty, fairness, compassion-sure they have their downsides (being "honest to a fault"), but that's more a by-product of something good than it is something evil in and of itself. Then there's loyalty. While ostensibly...

Without Immigrants, We Wouldn't Have Google

Thu, 07 Jan 2016 08:03:49 -0500

In light of the tragedies in Paris and San Bernadino, a number of politicians, following in the footsteps of Donald Trump, have urged this country to respond by barring immigrants, refugees, and Muslims from our shores. Such a "solution" is perhaps emotionally cathartic for some at the moment, but...

Authentic Leadership Rediscovered

Thu, 12 Nov 2015 10:41:02 -0500

In the last 10 years, authenticity has become the gold standard of leadership. This is a sea change from 2003 when I wrote Authentic Leadership. Back then, many people asked what it meant to be authentic. Authentic Leadership was intended as...

Financing Innovation

Wed, 07 Jan 2015 08:30:38 -0500

There is growing consensus that well-functioning financial markets play a central role in driving economic growth through their ability to spur technological innovation. In this paper for the Annual Review of Financial Economics, the authors ask how financial markets might actively shape the nature of R&D that is undertaken. They also examine how this may impact technological innovation and growth through the shaping of the ideas that are developed across firms. Drawing on a new but growing literature on the role that capital markets and financial intermediaries play in impacting firm-level innovation,...

Making The Numbers? 'Short Termism' & The Puzzle Of Only Occasional Disaster

Tue, 09 Dec 2014 09:28:34 -0500

Steady and reliable earnings bring many advantages to the firms that deliver them. Share prices rise, capital costs decline, and bonuses become both bigger and more likely. Such firms grow faster and attract more talented people to manage that growth. Despite these benefits, however, scholars and practitioners have long been critical of the short-term focus that often characterizes western managers. In this paper the authors develop and describe a model suggesting that the solution to this seeming paradox lies in the fact that earnings management, above a given threshold, is relatively harmless, but below this threshold it can be disastrous. The results have important implications for understanding managerial incentives and the internal processes that create sustained advantage. Key concepts include:...

Is Too Much Focus A Problem?

Tue, 04 Nov 2014 10:48:50 -0500

What Are the Antidotes to Too Much Focus? Individuals and organizations suffer from too much focus much of the time. That was the sense of the majority of responses to this month's column. Respondents didn't stop there. They described why it happens and what to do about it. In the process, they provoked a new round of questions. David Physick teed up the discussion nicely by commenting, "The wonderful American motor racing driver, Mario Andretti, who was as focused an individual as any racer, remarked he'd stop driving when his peripheral vision reduced." Like race cars, he continued,...

Apple Pay's Technology Adoption Problem

Thu, 23 Oct 2014 10:28:50 -0400

Apple wants to convert your iPhone into a digital wallet with Apple Pay. Professors Benjamin Edelman and Willy Shih assess its chances for success and wonder if consumers have a compelling reason to make the switch...

A Value Creator

Mon, 20 Oct 2014 09:55:00 -0400

As a young teacher at Harvard Business School, Brian J. Hall called on longtime professor James Cash for a favor: Hall wanted to study the inner workings of General Electric, and he needed Cash's help to get in touch with top-level executives who could provide insights for his research. Later,...

The Strategic Way To Hire A Sales Team

Tue, 14 Oct 2014 11:40:42 -0400

The equivalent of an entire sales force is replaced at many firms every four years, so it's critical that go-to-market initiatives remain tied to strategic goals. Frank Cespedes explains how in his book, Aligning Strategy and Sales. Too often,...

Innovation Is Magic

Thu, 18 Sep 2014 10:40:57 -0400

When Stefan Thomke teaches students how to manage innovation and creativity, he turns to an unexpected source: Magician Jason Randal. When business executives create innovative products or services, they often look to impress their customers by delivering an experience more meaningful, more delightful, than possibly expected. A true "wow!" moment. And Harvard Business School Professor Stefan Thomke knows just whom to consult to create such a spellbinding experience:...

Starbucks Reinvented

Thu, 11 Sep 2014 11:41:58 -0400

Nancy Koehn's new case on the rebirth of Starbucks under Howard Schultz "distills 20 years of my thinking about the most important lessons of strategy, leadership, and managing in turbulence." Harvard Business School Professor and historian Nancy Koehn has studied Starbucks and its leader, Howard Schultz, for close to 20 years. For her, the company represents much more than a phenomenal success story. In a recently published case,...

Fixing The 'I Hate Work' Blues

Thu, 11 Sep 2014 11:18:47 -0400

Many employees report they are overworked and not engaged-a recent New York Times article on the phenomenon was titled, "Why You Hate Work." The problem, says Bill George, is that the way we design work stifles engagement. Here's the fix...