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Faculty & Research

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    • HBS Book

    Productive Tensions: How Every Leader Can Tackle Innovation's Toughest Trade-Offs

    By: Chris Bingham and Rory McDonald

    Why is leading innovation in nascent business environments so distressingly hit-or-miss? More than 90% of high-potential ventures don’t reach their projected targets. Surveys show that 80% of executives consider innovation crucial to their growth strategy, but only 6% are satisfied with their innovation performance. Should leaders aim for Steve Jobs-level genius, shower their projects with resources, or lean in to luck and embrace uncertainty? Drawing on cutting-edge inductive research and probing interviews with hundreds of leaders across three continents, we propose that the most effective leaders and successful innovators embrace the tensions that arise from competing aims: efficiency or flexibility? consistency or change? product or purpose?

    • HBS Book

    Productive Tensions: How Every Leader Can Tackle Innovation's Toughest Trade-Offs

    By: Chris Bingham and Rory McDonald

    Why is leading innovation in nascent business environments so distressingly hit-or-miss? More than 90% of high-potential ventures don’t reach their projected targets. Surveys show that 80% of executives consider innovation crucial to their growth strategy, but only 6% are satisfied with their innovation performance. Should leaders aim for Steve...

    • Accounting, Organizations and Society 105 (February 2023).

    The Effect of Systems of Management Controls on Honesty in Managerial Reporting

    By: Aishwarrya Deore, Susanna Gallani and Ranjani Krishnan

    While budgetary controls with capital rationing are optimal in theory and widespread in practice, empirical research documents their association with higher employee dishonesty compared to budgetary controls without rationing. In this study, we examine whether combining budgetary controls with mission statements in a system of management controls decreases employee dishonesty. We predict that the system’s effect on dishonesty depends on the interaction of the social norms conveyed by each control instrument within the system. We study two types of budgetary controls that differ in whether they include budget rationing and two types of mission statements that differ in whether they emphasize integrity or financial values.

    • Accounting, Organizations and Society 105 (February 2023).

    The Effect of Systems of Management Controls on Honesty in Managerial Reporting

    By: Aishwarrya Deore, Susanna Gallani and Ranjani Krishnan

    While budgetary controls with capital rationing are optimal in theory and widespread in practice, empirical research documents their association with higher employee dishonesty compared to budgetary controls without rationing. In this study, we examine whether combining budgetary controls with mission statements in a system of management controls...

    • Social Enterprise Initiative

    Social Networks, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship

    By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Priyank Narayan

    Founded by the husband and wife team of Anshu and Meenakshi Gupta in 1999, Goonj had quickly emerged as one of the leading disaster relief and rural development organizations in India. Their main mode of development was through providing a clothing kit to the village families in return for development work (Cloth for Work). As Covid-19 struck India in March 2020, the organization pivoted its operational model to considerably broaden its set of activities in the field. In 2022 after nearly 70% of the country had been vaccinated against Covid-19, and with a semblance of normalcy returning, Anshu Gupta had to consider the future of the organization and its strategy, having raised twice the amount of funds ($20 million) as in the previous years.

    • Social Enterprise Initiative

    Social Networks, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship

    By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Priyank Narayan

    Founded by the husband and wife team of Anshu and Meenakshi Gupta in 1999, Goonj had quickly emerged as one of the leading disaster relief and rural development organizations in India. Their main mode of development was through providing a clothing kit to the village families in return for development work (Cloth for Work). As Covid-19 struck...

    • Featured Case

    Enstitute

    By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Kumba Sennaar and Sarah Mehta

    Case on a social venture that could not scale beyond the founder, despite significant investment enthusiasm.

    • Featured Case

    Enstitute

    By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Kumba Sennaar and Sarah Mehta

    Case on a social venture that could not scale beyond the founder, despite significant investment enthusiasm.

    • Featured Case

    Colette Phillips and GetKonnected!: Creating Inclusive Ecosystems

    By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Amy Chiu and Joyce Kim

    Colette Phillips’ marketing firm had just won the City of Boston’s 2nd largest contract in history to a Black-owned company. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Get Konnected!, the networking organization for people of color that she founded 15 years earlier and led to prominence, had evolved into a portfolio of 5 ventures, including executive recruiting and a VC fund, to remove systemic barriers to equity and inclusion in business and wealth creation in a long-racially-troubled region where she had also experienced discriminatory barriers. A strong commitment to partnerships, some controversial, had extended her reach, and Boston was changing, including its first elected female mayor of color. How could Phillips assess her impact as a leader, given the magnitude of the problems?

    • Featured Case

    Colette Phillips and GetKonnected!: Creating Inclusive Ecosystems

    By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Amy Chiu and Joyce Kim

    Colette Phillips’ marketing firm had just won the City of Boston’s 2nd largest contract in history to a Black-owned company. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Get Konnected!, the networking organization for people of color that she founded 15 years earlier and led to prominence, had evolved into a portfolio of 5 ventures, including executive...

    • Working Paper

    Senior Team Emotional Dynamics and Strategic Decision Making at a Platform Transition

    By: Timo O. Vuori and Michael L. Tushman

    Based on an inductive case study, we develop an emotional-temporal process model of an incumbent’s strategic decision making at a platform transition. We describe the senior team’s emotional response to this transition and the impact of these emotions on their strategic decision making process. During a turbulent five-month period, we describe exhausting ambiguity and painful loss leading to an unbalanced evaluation process and eventually to a quasi-analytical strategic platform choice: top managers perceived they made an analytical choice, but the premises of the choice were substantially shaped by their emotional reactions and consequent micro-behaviors. Our findings extend theory on strategic decision making at platform transitions and illustrate the impact of emotions on strategic decision making.

    • Working Paper

    Senior Team Emotional Dynamics and Strategic Decision Making at a Platform Transition

    By: Timo O. Vuori and Michael L. Tushman

    Based on an inductive case study, we develop an emotional-temporal process model of an incumbent’s strategic decision making at a platform transition. We describe the senior team’s emotional response to this transition and the impact of these emotions on their strategic decision making process. During a turbulent five-month period, we describe...

    • HBS Working Paper

    Outcome-Driven Dynamic Refugee Assignment with Allocation Balancing

    By: Kirk Bansak and Elisabeth Paulson

    This study proposes two new dynamic assignment algorithms to match refugees and asylum seekers to geographic localities within a host country. The first, currently implemented in a multi-year pilot in Switzerland, seeks to maximize the average predicted employment level (or any measured outcome of interest) of refugees through a minimum-discord online assignment algorithm. Although the proposed algorithm achieves nearoptimal expected employment compared to the hindsight-optimal solution (and improves upon the status quo procedure by about 40%), it results in a periodically imbalanced allocation to the localities over time. This leads to undesirable workload inefficiencies for resettlement resources and agents. To address this problem, the second algorithm balances the goal of improving refugee outcomes with the desire for an even allocation over time.

    • HBS Working Paper

    Outcome-Driven Dynamic Refugee Assignment with Allocation Balancing

    By: Kirk Bansak and Elisabeth Paulson

    This study proposes two new dynamic assignment algorithms to match refugees and asylum seekers to geographic localities within a host country. The first, currently implemented in a multi-year pilot in Switzerland, seeks to maximize the average predicted employment level (or any measured outcome of interest) of refugees through a minimum-discord...

Initiatives & Projects

U.S. Competitiveness

The U.S. Competitiveness Project is a research-led effort to understand and improve the competitiveness of the United States. The project is committed to identifying practical steps that business leaders can take to strengthen the U.S. economy.
→All Initiatives & Projects

Seminars & Conferences

Mar 22
  • 22 Mar 2023

Emily Falk, U Penn

Mar 23
  • 23 Mar 2023

Jamillah Williams , BiGS

→More Seminars & Conferences

Recent Publications

The New-Collar Workforce

By: Colleen Ammerman, Boris Groysberg and Ginni Rometty
  • March–April 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Harvard Business Review
Many workers today are stuck in low-paying jobs, unable to advance simply because they don’t have a bachelor’s degree. At the same time, many companies are desperate for workers and not meeting the diversity goals that could help them perform better while also reducing social and economic inequality. All these problems could be alleviated, the authors say, if employers focused on job candidates’ skills instead of their degree status. Drawing on their interviews with corporate leaders, along with their own experience in academia and the business world, the authors outline a “skills-first” approach to hiring and managing talent. It involves writing job descriptions that emphasize capabilities, not credentials; creating apprenticeships, internships, and training programs for people without college degrees; collaborating with educational institutions and other outside partners to expand the talent pool; helping hiring managers embrace skills-first thinking; bringing on board a critical mass of non­degreed workers; and building a supportive organizational culture. IBM, Aon, Cleveland Clinic, Delta Air Lines, Bank of America, and Merck are among the companies taking this approach—and demonstrating its benefits for firms, workers, and society as a whole.
Citation
Related
Ammerman, Colleen, Boris Groysberg, and Ginni Rometty. "The New-Collar Workforce." Harvard Business Review 101, no. 2 (March–April 2023): 96–103.

The Subjective Expected Utility Approach and a Framework for Defining Project Risk in Terms of Novelty and Feasibility—A Response to Franzoni and Stephan (2023), ‘Uncertainty and Risk-Taking in Science’

By: Jacqueline N. Lane
  • April 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Research Policy
In their Discussion Paper, Franzoni and Stephan (F&S, 2023) discuss the shortcomings of existing peer review models in shaping the funding of risky science. Their discussion offers a conceptual framework for incorporating risk into peer review models of research proposals by leveraging the Subjective Expected Utility (SEU) approach to decouple reviewers’ assessments of a project’s potential value from its risk. In my Response, I build on F&S’s discussion and attempt to shed light on three additional yet core considerations of risk in science: 1) how risk and reward in science are related to assessments of a project’s novelty and feasibility; 2) how the sunk cost literature can help articulate why reviewers tend to perceive new research areas as riskier than continued investigation of existing lines of research; and 3) how drawing on different types of expert reviewers (i.e., based on domain and technical expertise) can result in alternative evaluation assessments to better inform resource allocation decisions. The spirit of my Response is to sharpen our understanding of risk in science and to offer insights on how future theoretical and empirical work—leveraging experiments— can test and validate the SEU approach for the purposes of funding more risky science that advances the knowledge frontier.
Citation
Related
Lane, Jacqueline N. "The Subjective Expected Utility Approach and a Framework for Defining Project Risk in Terms of Novelty and Feasibility—A Response to Franzoni and Stephan (2023), ‘Uncertainty and Risk-Taking in Science’." Art. 104707. Research Policy 52, no. 3 (April 2023).

The Traits of Entrepreneurs

By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
  • March 2023 |
  • Technical Note |
  • Faculty Research
Entrepreneurship has the potential for extreme success but also comes with high risks. Given this risk-reward profile, we might wonder why individuals choose to become entrepreneurs. Are there personality traits that lead someone to become an entrepreneur? Can you predict entrepreneurial success? Although many questions still remain, there has been significant research on the “entrepreneurial personality.” This note provides an overview of the most frequently studied entrepreneurial traits, including the Big-5, need for achievement, locus of control, innovativeness, and risk tolerance. Where data exist, we chronicle what is correlated with a desire to be an entrepreneur and what is associated with actual success as an entrepreneur.
Citation
Educators
Related
Tango, Jo, and Alys Ferragamo. "The Traits of Entrepreneurs." Harvard Business School Technical Note 823-099, March 2023.

OneTen at Delta Air Lines: Catalyzing Family-Sustaining Careers for Black Talent (A)

By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag
  • March 2023 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
It was December 10, 2020, and Ed Bastian, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Delta Air Lines (Delta), had just finished a meeting with Joanne Smith, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer, and Keyra Lynn Johnson, the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer. The objective of this meeting was to review Delta’s first public communication about Bastian’s decision to join the OneTen coalition, where he and 36 other CEOs committed to recruiting, hiring, training, and advancing 1 million Black Americans over the next ten years into family-sustaining jobs. For months, Bastian had been in continual dialogue with his colleagues about how to respond to the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Black and Brown people and an increase in racially motivated violence, including the murder of George Floyd. Bastian had committed Delta to being the “Atlanta City Lead” of OneTen. Although Delta had been “bulldozed by the pandemic,” he had signed onto OneTen with no hesitation. Smith and Johnson had raised many questions when first learning of OneTen, but they too had agreed that the initiative was consistent with Delta’s own anti-discriminatory action plan. He agreed with his colleagues that Delta’s approach to OneTen be strategic and sustainable. He recalled his response at the time: “I [don’t] know what this will turn into,” but “we have got to start somewhere.”
Citation
Educators
Related
Hill, Linda A., and Lydia Begag. "OneTen at Delta Air Lines: Catalyzing Family-Sustaining Careers for Black Talent (A)." Harvard Business School Case 423-072.

Walmart’s Live Better U

By: Boris Groysberg, Annelena Lobb and Kerry Herman
  • March 2023 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Walmart’s LBU program, which allowed its frontline employees and managers to attend college at Walmart’s expense, had expanded and changed over the course of five years. How could Walmart better develop the program for its associates and use it to meet the company’s own talent needs?
Citation
Educators
Purchase
Related
Groysberg, Boris, Annelena Lobb, and Kerry Herman. "Walmart’s Live Better U." Harvard Business School Case 423-057, March 2023.

Deeply Responsible Business: A Global History of Values-Driven Leadership

By: Geoffrey Jones
  • 2023 |
  • Book |
  • Faculty Research
Corporate social responsibility has entered the mainstream, but what does it take to run a successful purpose-driven business? This book examines leaders who put values alongside profits to showcase the challenges and upside of deeply responsible business. Should business leaders play a role in solving society’s problems? For decades, CEOs have been told that their only responsibility is to the bottom line. But consensus is growing that companies―and their leaders―must engage with their social, political, and environmental contexts. Jones distinguishes deep responsibility, which can deliver radical social and ecological responses, from corporate social responsibility, which is often little more than window dressing. Deeply Responsible Business provides a historical perspective on the social responsibility of business, going back to the Quaker capitalism of George Cadbury and the worker solidarity of Edward Filene and carrying us through to impact investing and the B-corps. Jones profiles exemplary business leaders from around the world who combined profits with social purpose to confront inequality, inner-city blight, and ecological degradation, while navigating restrictive laws and authoritarian regimes. The business leaders profiled in this book were motivated by bedrock values and sometimes driven by faith. They chose to operate in socially productive fields, interacted with humility with stakeholders, and felt a duty to support their communities. While far from perfect, each one showed that profit and purpose could be reconciled. Many of their businesses were wildly successful―though financial success was not their only metric of achievement. As many companies seek to coopt more ethically sensitized consumers, Jones gives us a new perspective to tackle tough questions and envisions a future in which companies and entrepreneurs can play a key role in healing our communities and protecting the natural world.
Citation
Purchase
Related
Jones, Geoffrey. Deeply Responsible Business: A Global History of Values-Driven Leadership. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023. Electronic.

Can Twitter Be a Force for Good? Social Media Helps Curb Corporate Misconduct

By: Jonas Heese and Joseph Pacelli
  • March 20, 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Promarket
Citation
Related
Heese, Jonas, and Joseph Pacelli. "Can Twitter Be a Force for Good? Social Media Helps Curb Corporate Misconduct." Promarket (March 20, 2023).

Azenta Life Sciences: The Road to Transformation

By: Gary P. Pisano and Catherine Piner
  • March 2023 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Citation
Educators
Related
Pisano, Gary P., and Catherine Piner. "Azenta Life Sciences: The Road to Transformation." Harvard Business School Case 623-066, March 2023.
More Publications

In The News

    • 16 Mar 2023
    • Insead Knowledge

    Bringing DEI into the Core of Our Institutions

    Re: Michael Norton
    • 14 Mar 2023
    • Against the Rules with Michael Lewis

    On Background: White-Collar Crime and Punishment

    Re: Eugene Soltes
    • 14 Mar 2023
    • TIME

    Maybe Americans Don’t Mind High Prices Anymore

    Re: Alexander MacKay
    • 14 Mar 2023
    • HR Leaders Podcast

    Better, Simpler Strategy: A Value-Based Guide to Exceptional Performance

    Re: Felix Oberholzer
→More Faculty News

The Case Method

Introduced by HBS faculty to business education in 1925, the case method is a powerful interactive learning process that puts students in the shoes of a leader faced with a real-world management issue and challenges them to propose and justify a resolution.
Today, HBS remains an authority on teaching by the case method. The School is also the world’s leading case-writing institution, with HBS faculty members contributing hundreds of new cases to the management curriculum a year via the School’s unique case development and writing process.
→Browse HBS Case Collection
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Faculty Positions

Harvard Business School seeks candidates in all fields for full time positions. Candidates with outstanding records in PhD or DBA programs are encouraged to apply.
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