Research & Ideas

  • Being the Boss: 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader

    January, 2010 - Harvard Business Publishing

    Linda Hill, Kent Lineback

    Becoming an effective manager is a painful, difficult journey. It's trial and error, endless effort, and slowly acquired personal insight. Many managers never complete the journey. At best, they just learn to get by. At worst, they become terrible bosses. This new book explains how to avoid that fate by mastering three imperatives: 1) Manage yourself: Learn that management isn't about getting things done yourself. It's about accomplishing things through others; 2) Manage a network: Understand how power and influence work in your organization and build a network of mutually beneficial relationships to navigate your company's complex political environment; and 3) Manage a team: Forge a high-performing "we" out of all the "I"s who report to you.

  • Seven Strategy Questions: A Simple Approach for Better Execution

    December, 2010 - Harvard Business Publishing

    Robert Simons

    To stay ahead of the pack, you must translate your organization's competitive strategy into the day-to-day actions carried out in your company. That means channeling resources into the right efforts, achieving the right balance between innovation and control, and getting everyone pulling in the same direction. How to keep all this on track?

  • The Squam Lake Report: Fixing the Financial System

    July, 2010 - Princeton University Press

    David Scharfstein (as a member of the Squam Lake Working Group)

    In the fall of 2008, 15 of the world's leading economists-representing the broadest spectrum of economic opinion-gathered at New Hampshire's Squam Lake. Their goal: the mapping of a long-term plan for financial regulation reform. The Squam Lake Report distills the wealth of insights from the ongoing collaboration that began at these meetings and provides a revelatory, unified, and coherent voice for fixing our troubled and damaged financial markets. As an alternative to the patchwork solutions and ideologically charged proposals that have dominated other discussions, the Squam Lake group sets forth a clear nonpartisan plan of action to transform the regulation of financial markets-not just for the current climate-but for generations to come.

  • Winning in Emerging Markets

    June, 2010 - Harvard Business Publishing

    Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu

    Tarun Khanna and Krishna Palepu outline a practical framework for developing emerging market strategies based not on broad categorical definitions like geography, but on a structural understanding of these markets. Their framework describes how "institutional voids" - the absence of intermediaries like market research firms and credit card systems to efficiently connect buyers and sellers - create daunting obstacles for companies trying to operate in emerging markets. Understanding these voids - and learning how to work with them in specific markets - is the key to success. This work has also been featured in HBS Working Knowledge.

  • Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd

    April 6, 2010 - Random House

    Youngme Moon

    Eye-catching colors and gee-whiz features aren't enough for successful products and services today. To rise above the "sea of sameness," companies need to be different in a way that is elemental and game changing.

  • Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads

    April, 2010 - Harvard Business Publishing

    Srikant M. Datar, David Garvin, Patrick Cullen

    "Business Schools Face Test of Faith." "Is It Time to Retrain B-Schools?" As these headlines make clear, business education is at a major crossroads. For decades, MBA graduates from top-tier schools set the standard for cutting-edge business knowledge and skills. Now the business world has changed, say the authors of "Rethinking the MBA", and MBA programs must change with it.

  • One Report: Better Strategy Through Integrated Reporting

    March, 2010 - John Wiley & Sons

    Robert Eccles, Michael P. Krzus

    In the post-financial-collapse business world, companies are being held to a higher standard of transparency--not only about financial performance, but also about non-financial performance regarding environmental, social, and governance issues. For both internal and external stakeholders, transparency and corporate responsibility are the orders of the day. This publication has also been profiled in HBS Working Knowledge.

  • Denial: Why Business Leaders Fail to Look Facts in the Face---and What to Do About It

    March, 2010 - Penguin Group

    Richard Tedlow

    Richard S. Tedlow tackles two essential questions: Why do sane, smart leaders often refuse to accept the facts that threaten their companies and careers? And how do we find the courage to resist denial when facing new trends, changing markets, and tough new competitors?

  • Reorganize for Resilience

    January, 2010 - Harvard Business Press

    Ranjay Gulati

    In an era of raging commoditization and eroding profit margins, survival depends on resilience: staying one step ahead of your customers. Sure, most companies say they're "customer-focused," but they don't deliver solutions to customers' thorniest problems. Why? Because they're stymied by the rigid "silos" they're organized around. In Reorganize for Resilience, Ranjay Gulati reveals how resilient companies prosper both in good times and bad, driving growth and increasing profitability by immersing themselves in the lives of their customers. This book shows how resilient organizations cut through internal barriers that impede action, build bridges between warring divisions, and transform former competitors into collaborators. Based on more than a decade of research in a variety of industries, and filled with examples from companies including Cisco Systems, La Farge, Starbucks, Best Buy, and Jones Lang LaSalle, Gulati explores the five levers of resilience: Coordination: Connect, eradicate, or restructure silos to enable swift responses. Cooperation: Foster a culture that aligns all employees around the shared goals of customer solutions. Clout: Redistribute power to "bridge builders" and customer champions. Capability: Develop employees' skills at tackling changing customer needs. Connection: Blend partners' offerings with yours to provide unique customer solutions.

  • Government and Markets: Toward a New Theory of Regulation

    January, 2010 - Cambridge University Press

    David Moss and Edward Balleisen (eds.)

    After two generations of emphasis on governmental inefficiency and the need for deregulation, we now see growing interest in the possibility of constructive governance, alongside public calls for new, smarter regulation. Yet there is a real danger that regulatory reforms will be rooted in outdated ideas. As the financial crisis has shown, neither traditional market-failure models nor public-choice theory, by themselves, sufficiently inform or explain our current regulatory challenges. Regulatory studies, long neglected in an atmosphere focused on deregulatory work, is in critical need of new models and theories that can guide effective policy-making. This interdisciplinary volume points the way toward the modernization of regulatory theory. Its essays by leading scholars move past predominant approaches, integrating the latest research about the interplay between human behavior, societal needs, and regulatory institutions. The book concludes by setting out a potential research agenda for the social sciences.

  • Too Big to Save?

    November, 2009 - John Wiley & Sons

    Robert Pozen

    Too Big To Save? provides a comprehensive review of the financial crisis, explaining not only the factors causing the crisis but also evaluating the government responses to date and suggesting practical reforms for the future.

  • Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Why Public Efforts to Boost Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed--and What to Do About It

    September, 2009 - Princeton University Press

    Josh Lerner

    Silicon Valley, Singapore, Tel Aviv--the global hubs of entrepreneurial activity--all bear the marks of government investment. Yet, for every public intervention that spurs entrepreneurial activity, there are many failed efforts that waste untold billions in taxpayer dollars. When has governmental sponsorship succeeded in boosting growth, and when has it fallen terribly short? Should the government be involved in such undertakings at all? Boulevard of Broken Dreams is the first extensive look at the ways governments have supported entrepreneurs and venture capitalists across decades and continents. Josh Lerner provides valuable insights into why some public initiatives work while others are hobbled by pitfalls, and he offers suggestions for how public ventures should be implemented in the future.

  • New Perspectives on Regulation

    2009 - The Tobin Project

    David Moss and John Cisternino (eds.)

    This publication collects seven viewpoints on the role of government in regulation, in light of the recent economic crisis. David Moss authors a chapter, "Government as Risk Manager" which explains the four basic ways to manage risk: prevention, risk shifting, risk spreading, and loss control.

  • A Sense of Urgency

    2008 - Harvard Business Publishing

    John P. Kotter

    Urgency can be a positive force in companies, says leadership expert and HBS professor emeritus John P. Kotter. His book, A Sense of Urgency , makes that conviction clear. Kotter shines the spotlight on creating a sense of urgency by getting people to actually see and feel the need for change. Why focus on urgency? Without it, any change effort is doomed.

  • Moral Gray Zones: Side Productions, Identity, and Regulation in an Aeronautic Plant

    2008 - Princeton University Press

    Michael Anteby

    Anyone who has been employed by an organization knows not every official workplace regulation must be followed. When management consistently overlooks such breaches, spaces emerge in which both workers and supervisors engage in officially prohibited, yet tolerated practices--gray zones. When discovered, these transgressions often provoke disapproval; when company materials are diverted in the process, these breaches are quickly labeled theft. Yet, why do gray zones persist and why are they unlikely to disappear? In Moral Gray Zones, Michel Anteby shows how these spaces function as regulating mechanisms within workplaces, fashioning workers' identity and self-esteem while allowing management to maintain control.

  • Revisiting Rental Housing

    2008 - Brookings Institution Press

    Nicolas Retsinas, Eric S. Belsky

    Rental housing is increasingly recognized as a vital housing option in the United States. Yet government policies and programs continue to grapple with widespread problems, including affordability, distressed urban neighborhoods, poor-quality housing stock, concentrated poverty, and exposure to health hazards in the home. These challenges can be costly and difficult to address. The time is ripe for fresh, authoritative analysis of this important yet often overlooked sector.

  • When All Else Fails: Government as the Ultimate Risk Manager

    2002 - Harvard University Press

    David Moss

    One of the most important functions of government—risk management--is one of the least well understood. Moving beyond the most familiar public functions—spending, taxation, and regulation—When All Else Fails spotlights the government's pivotal role as a risk manager. It reveals, as never before, the nature and extent of this governmental function, which touches almost every aspect of economic life.

Faculty Interests