Social Psychology →
- 06 Jun 2008
- What Do You Think?
Why Don’t Managers Think Deeply?
Online forum closed. Summing Up. According to Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman, nearly all research techniques commonly used today probe humans only at their conscious level, though it is the subconscious level that really determines behavior. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 02 Jun 2008
- Research & Ideas
Spending on Happiness
Money can't buy love but it can buy happiness—as long as it's spent on someone else. Research by Michael I. Norton and colleagues looks into how and why spending on others promotes happiness. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 14 May 2008
- Research & Ideas
Getting Down to the Business of Creativity
Business leaders must manage and support creativity just as they would any other asset. Harvard Business School professors Teresa Amabile, Mary Tripsas, and Mukti Khaire discuss where creativity comes from, how entrepreneurs use it, and why innovation is often a team sport. From the HBS Alumni Bulletin. Key concepts include: People have their best days and do their best work when they are allowed to make progress. Whenever a firm introduces a truly novel product, suppliers, complementary producers, distribution channels, and consumers must often develop new capabilities, beliefs, and behaviors for the product to succeed, creating a challenge for the innovator. The perception exists that creative businesses can just start up, when in fact it takes a while for an entire ecosystem to actually generate an industry. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 05 May 2008
- Research & Ideas
Connecting with Consumers Using Deep Metaphors
Consumer needs and desires are not entirely mysterious. In fact, marketers of successful brands regularly draw on a rich assortment of insights excavated from research into basic frames or orientations we have toward the world around us, according to HBS professor emeritus Gerald Zaltman and Lindsay Zaltman, authors of Marketing Metaphoria. Here's a Q&A and book excerpt. Key concepts include: Deep metaphors are powerful predictors of what customers think and how they react to new or existing goods and services. The seven deep metaphors discussed in Marketing Metaphoria appear across a variety of products. Recent advances in various disciplines are providing concepts and techniques enabling marketers to dig into what consumers don't know they know. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 21 Apr 2008
- Research & Ideas
The New Math of Customer Relationships
Harvard Business School professor emeritus James L. Heskett has spent much of his career exploring how satisfied employees and customers can drive lifelong profit. Heskett and his colleagues will soon introduce a new concept into the business management literature: customer and employee "owners." Key concepts include: Service profit chain concepts are global, subject only to local cultural practices. Businesses are experimenting with the idea of creating "owners" out of both customers and employees, who create the highest lifetime value to the organization. During times of economic stress, relationships between customer and employee satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity become more critical. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 10 Mar 2008
- Research & Ideas
Encouraging Entrepreneurs: Lessons for Government Policy
Who you know and how much money is in your pocket have always been significant contributors to entrepreneurial success. New research by Harvard Business School professor Ramana Nanda explores new wrinkles in this age-old formula—and how government policy may impact entrepreneurship. Key concepts include: Policymakers can benefit from understanding how peer networks and the financing environment impact the kinds of people who become entrepreneurs. People with a higher fraction of co-workers who have been entrepreneurs are more likely to try it themselves. Moreover, peer effects substitute for an individual's own background—those whose parents have been entrepreneurs benefit less from exposure to entrepreneurial peers. Not everyone who wants money to start a new business necessarily deserves it. Wealthy people are often able to start inadvisable businesses because they don't need to undergo the reality check of an investor's approval for funding. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 15 Feb 2008
- Working Paper Summaries
Embracing Commitment and Performance: CEOs and Practices Used to Manage Paradox
How do chief executives establish strategic practices around their visions and intents? How do such practices make it possible to create both high commitment and high performance? The central puzzle for HBS professor emeritus Michael Beer and colleagues is not the creation of high commitment per se, but the kind of commitment that is useful for the implementation of strategy and sustainable performance. Beer et al. sought out major companies in North America and Europe that had a history of sustainable, above-average financial performance, and where there were indications of the companies being high-commitment organizations. They then conducted in-depth interviews with 26 CEOs of such companies, asking about activities and practices that help create commitment and performance. Key concepts include: The CEOs did not frame choices as "either-or" but rather "both-and." They argued that seemingly conflicting outcomes cannot be made the subject of choice, nor can they be balanced. It is the role of a CEO to embrace paradoxes and at least at the espoused level try to reconcile them. The research team found 5 groups of interrelated managerial practices that characterize this kind of strategic management. The practices engage employees emotionally and rationally, and facilitate strategic change, rather than implement it top-down. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 11 Jan 2008
- Working Paper Summaries
See No Evil: When We Overlook Other People’s Unethical Behavior
Even good people sometimes act unethically without their own awareness. This paper explores psychological processes as they affect the ethical perception of others' behavior, and concludes with implications for organizations. First, there is a tendency for people to overlook unethical behavior in others when recognizing such behavior would harm them. Second, people might readily ignore unethical behavior when others have an agent do their dirty work for them. Third, gradual moral decay leads people to grow comfortable with behavior to which they would otherwise object. Fourth, the tendency to value outcomes over processes can lead us to accept unethical processes for far too long. Key concepts include: Most people value ethical decisions and behavior, and strive to be good. Yet psychological processes sometimes lead them to engage in questionable behaviors that are inconsistent with their own values and beliefs. It is common to fail to notice or act on information when dealing with ethically relevant decisions. Organizational leaders must understand these processes and make the structural changes necessary to reduce the harmful effects of human psychological and ethical limitations. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 03 Jan 2008
- What Do You Think?
Does Judgment Trump Experience?
It's a question as relevant for business as for the U.S. presidential campaign, says HBS professor Jim Heskett. If "judgment capability" is a function of experience, what kind of experience is important? Does plenty of experience really improve judgment? Online forum now CLOSED. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 30 Nov 2007
- What Do You Think?
What Is Management’s Role in Innovation?
Online forum closed. It's an open question whether management, as it is currently practiced, contributes much to creativity and innovation, says HBS professor Jim Heskett. What changes will allow managers, particularly in larger organizations, to add value to the creative process? What do you think? Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 19 Nov 2007
- Lessons from the Classroom
Teaching The Moral Leader
In The Moral Leader course at Harvard Business School, students exchange their business management case studies to discuss some of the great protagonists in literature. Sandra Sucher discusses how we all can find our own definition of moral leadership. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 13 Nov 2007
- Research & Ideas
Six Steps for Reinvigorating America
In the early stages of the 21st century, America has lost its way both at home and in the world, argues Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter. In her new book, America the Principled, she details 6 opportunities for America to boost its economic vitality and democratic ideals. Q&A plus excerpt. Key concepts include: America at the start of the 21st century has lost its way both as a beacon to the world and as a can-do nation. Six opportunities should be pursued that widen prosperity, creates fair and flexible workplaces, motivates values-based capitalism, restores trust in government, empowers "citizen diplomats", and develops an ethos of community. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 04 Oct 2007
- What Do You Think?
Has Managerial Capitalism Peaked?
Summing Up. Professor Jim Heskett considers his reader's comments on the growing imbalance between what John Bogle terms managerial capitalism and owners' capitalism. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 03 Oct 2007
- Research & Ideas
Dealing with the ‘Irrational’ Negotiator
"Negotiators who are quick to label the other party 'irrational' do so at great potential cost to themselves," say HBS professors Deepak Malhotra and Max H. Bazerman. Their new book, Negotiation Genius, combines expertise in psychology with practical examples to show how anyone can improve dealmaking skills. In this excerpt, Malhotra and Bazerman describe what to do when the other party's behavior does not make sense. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 01 Oct 2007
- Research & Ideas
Encouraging Dissent in Decision-Making
Our natural tendency to maintain silence and not rock the boat, a flaw at once personal and organizational, results in bad—sometimes deadly—decisions. Think New Coke, The Bay of Pigs, and the Columbia space shuttle disaster, for starters. Here's how leaders can encourage all points of view. Key concepts include: All organized human groups are susceptible to suppression of views deemed contentious or disruptive to an organization's foundational beliefs. Decisions are seldom better for silence, and overcoming that is a key task for the leader of any organization. Candor should be rewarded and incentives designed to encourage opposing points of view. An aware, open, and inquiring senior team is critical to sound decision-making. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 10 Sep 2007
- Research & Ideas
High Note: Managing the Medici String Quartet
As one of the top ensembles in classical music, the Medici String Quartet has enjoyed a long and creative collaboration. But it hasn't always been harmonious. HBS professor Robert Austin explains what innovative businesses can learn about managing creative people. Key concepts include: Businesses emphasize technical mastery and the creation of predictable patterns. The Medici String Quartet aimed for more. The goal of each performance was never to render a piece exactly as the composer intended, but to interpret it in fresh and new ways. Financial pressures for the quartet could be intense. Among musicians, it's an old (but good) joke: How do you become a millionaire as a classical musician? Start as a billionaire. Businesses enjoy the notion that innovation happens when everyone is happy and satisfied. As the quartet proved, harmony comes in unexpected ways. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 02 Aug 2007
- What Do You Think?
How Will Millennials Manage?
Gen Yers or "millennials"—those born beginning in the late 1970s—are generally bright, cheery, seemingly well-adjusted, and cooperative, says Jim Heskett. Their work styles are sometimes confounding, though. As managers, how will they shape organizations of the future? Online forum now closed. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 10 Jul 2007
- What Do You Think?
How Much of Leadership Is About Control, Delegation, or Theater?
Forum now closed. Summing up the many responses, Jim Heskett says that the mix of control, delegation, and theater employed by successful leaders depends on timing and circumstances. "The strongest messages I received were that if leadership involves control, it is only over setting an organization's course and priorities." Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 25 Jun 2007
- Research & Ideas
HBS Cases: Beauty Entrepreneur Madam Walker
She may have been the first self-made African American millionaire. Born of emancipated slaves, Madam C.J. Walker traveled from the cotton fields to business fame as a purveyor of hair-care products that offered beauty and dignity. Harvard Business School's Nancy F. Koehn and Katherine Miller explain what motivated her triumph. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
Innovative Ways to Encourage Personal Savings
Saving money doesn't need to be so difficult. According to HBS professor Peter Tufano, "The most interesting ideas—indeed the oldest—try to make savings a fun or satisfying experience." As Tufano describes in this Q&A, different solutions appeal to different people. Here's what government policy, the private sector, and nonprofits can do. Key concepts include: A variety of levers can be used to support people who want to save (not to force someone to save who doesn't want to). Some levers are simple changes that make the process of savings easier. Other levers involve providing various incentives, be they financial or sociological. The oldest and most interesting ideas try to make savings a fun or satisfying experience. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.