675 Posts found for Source: Harvard Business Review

To provide a full view of marketing’s impact, the authors suggest creating a marketing road map that illustrates: the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing campaigns, the role of marketing programs in driving sales and satisfaction, the value of the brand and capabilities, and the impact of marketing-related activities in other functions.

Content: Article | Authors: Christine Moorman, Paul Magill | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Marketing / Sales

A big thrust of managerial accounting is to determine the costs of production, which are broken into subcategories, such as variable, fixed, overheads, direct, or indirect costs. Managerial accounting then determines the optimal mix of resources to lower production costs. Those concepts become less and less applicable as digital companies operate largely on a fixed cost structure with very few variable costs. A future challenge … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Anup Srivastava, Vijay Govindarajan | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Accounting

Corporate finance defines the boundary of a company based on physical assets: land, buildings, warehouses, factories, machines, inventory, and patents. Based on expected risks and returns, it then determines the optimal way of financing from those assets, using a mix of debt and equity. Planning is based on measures such as return on assets, payback period, and internal rate of return.

A new framework is required … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Anup Srivastava, Vijay Govindarajan | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Finance

Strategy is a competitive game, which always evolves in response to competition. But the magnitude of the changes in the technological, social, and natural environment are such that corporate strategy will need to be qualitatively reinvented again for new circumstances. This article discusses six factors are driving these changes: 1) dynamism, 2) uncertainty, 3) contingency, 4) connectedness, 5) contextuality, and 6) cognition.

Content: Article | Authors: Annelies O’Dea, Martin Reeves | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Strategy

If you’re worried that your employees are eyeing the door, it’s time to start having some important career-defining conversations. In this piece, executive coach Susan Peppercorn outlines five questions to start asking your direct reports so that you can get a better sense of how they’re feeling about their positions: 1) How would you like to grow within this organization? 2) Do you feel a sense of … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Susan Peppercorn | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Human Resources

Climate change, sustainability, and ESG considerations are increasingly taking center stage in corporate boardrooms across the world. When measuring and communicating corporate sustainability performance through sustainability reports or ratings, executives face a rapidly evolving and complex set of choices. As a result, companies are at risk of falling behind or choosing inappropriate reports and ratings that don’t drive sustainability performance and open the door to … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Karim El-Jisr, Tim Rogmans | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Social Responsibility (ESG)

In science the key question is “Is it true?” In management the key question is “Does it work?” But context is critical: Just because an idea works in a particular case does not mean it is a universal truth.

If you set a stretch goal, make sure that the organization has some stretch in it, or it will break. To execute a strategy, you need a … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Stephen Bungay | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

When it comes to gender equity in the workplace, many organizations focus largely on hiring more women. But to achieve more equitable representation, it’s also critical to examine disparities in how employees are evaluated and promoted once they’re on board. In this piece, the authors discuss their recent research on this topic, which found that competitive evaluation systems in which employees are ranked against one … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Klarita Gërxhani | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Diversity, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior, Women in Business

The MBA has been the quintessential managerial education program and has supplied more ready and trained managers to U.S. corporations than any other graduate program. While MBA curricula are evolving to meet the changing needs of corporations, the authors assert that the pace of change must accelerate to keep the MBA degree future-proof. Otherwise, the danger is what Scott Cook, founder of Intuit, described: “When … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Anup Srivastava, Vijay Govindarajan | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, MBA Related

There are two camps on the most effective way to frame an innovative idea. One contends you should emphasize why the idea is desirable. The other says you should focus on how to implement the idea. Which one is right? A research project found that the answer depends on your audience. If you’re making a pitch to novices, focus on why. If you’re making it … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Denise Falchetti, Gino Cattani, Simone Ferriani | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Communication, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Organizational Behavior

A great deal of career advice, while given with the best of intentions, is often not based on verified evidence and is anecdotal, hackneyed, contradictory, or outdated. We now have more clear evidence of what constitutes good advice in terms of which mindsets to hold while navigating one’s career. According to the evidence, some is powerful and effective, some is at best unhelpful, whereas some … [ Read more ]

Content: Career Information | Authors: Christina S. Li, Daniel D. Goering | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Career, Career Info

The most important relationship to get right when starting a new job is the one with your boss. How do you build trust right from the beginning? And how do you get the feedback you need to succeed? The author offers seven questions to try. You will accelerate your career success if you can manage your boss better, which requires you to understand them better, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Career, Work

Managers must take proactive steps to increase employee engagement, or risk losing their workforce. Engaged employees perform better, experience less burnout, and stay in organizations longer. The authors created this Employee Engagement Checklist: a distilled, research-based resource that practitioners can execute on during this critical period of renewed uncertainty. Use this checklist to boost employee engagement by helping them connect what they do to what … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Ashley Whillans, Daniel Stein, Jon M. Jachimowicz, Nick Hobson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Motivation, Organizational Behavior

Are you ready to look for a new job? This comprehensive article covers everything from how to update your resume and write a cover letter to how to ace your interview and follow up. The piece also includes sample language to try and links to resources in the HBR archive.

Content: Career Information | Author: Amy Gallo | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Career, Cover Letters, Interviewing, Job Search, Resumes

Middle managers have long had reputations as ineffective or weak supervisors. But research shows that, in fact, they’re often the people that make an organization run smoothly between hierarchies. Especially today, as companies become more reliant on virtual modes of management and communication, investing in these managers as “connecting leaders” is vital. To do so, focus on four key types of connecting leaders and their … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Zahira Jaser | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

At their core, strategy maps and scorecards describe causal chains up and down an organization, charting the stages through which final outcomes are achieved. The cause-and-effect linkages start with how the organization’s intangible assets of people, information, and culture, described within the learning and growth perspective, drive improvement in the critical processes that create the value proposition for the organization’s customers. Customer success, in turn, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: David McMillan, Robert S. Kaplan | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Many companies track KPIs as a way of predicting performance.  To really exploit the predictive power of KPIs, though, you need to map how the KPIs for your key stakeholders feed into each other and ultimately into financial performance.

Content: Article | Author: Graham Kenny | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Management

The lockdown that we’ve all just lived through created a period during which a lot of people had the opportunity to reflect on plans for a career change. But reflection alone doesn’t get people very far. Those who are mostly likely to act during this kind of period are those who actively engage in a three-part cycle of transition — one that consists of separation, liminality and reintegration. The author … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Herminia Ibarra | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Career, Personal Development

Research shows that only 35% of the projects undertaken worldwide are successful—which means we’re wasting an extravagant amount of time, money, and opportunity. To take advantage of the new project economy, companies need a new approach to project management: They must adopt a project-driven organizational structure, ensure that executives have the capabilities to effectively sponsor projects, and train managers in modern project management.

Content: Article | Author: Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Project Management

In an era where companies are paying more and more attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), inclusion remains the most difficult metric to track. From new research, Gartner developed the Gartner Inclusion Index to measure what true inclusion looks like across an organization. The authors outline how to use the Gartner Inclusion Index to measure employee perceptions of inclusion, what effective action looks like … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Kartik Deo, Katie Brown, Lauren Romansky, Mia Garrod | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Diversity, Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior