532 Posts found for Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge

Many companies get stuck on a plateau, unable to grow and burning through cash at a frightening rate. Frank V. Cespedes discusses how focusing on the right customers can generate growth again.

Content: Article | Authors: Frank V. Cespedes, Sean Silverthorne | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Entrepreneurship

Everyone comes to the table with some amount of “altruistic capital,” a stock of intrinsic desire to serve, says professor Nava Ashraf. Her research includes a study of what best motivates hairdressers in Zambia to provide HIV/AIDS education in their salons.

Content: Article | Author: Carmen Nobel | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Telling the board that the sales pipeline grew by $X should not qualify as a good answer if the board and founders are serious about good governance and profitable growth. How did the pipeline grow? Did we add lower- or higher-profit and lifetime value customers? Are we targeting shorter or longer selling-cycle prospects? What are the implications for the “center of gravity” in the venture’s … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Frank V. Cespedes | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Marketing / Sales

Entrepreneurs usually find that, until they are out there selling, they really don’t know the crucial differences between early adopters and others along the relevant spectrum of opportunities.

Content: Quotation | Author: Frank V. Cespedes | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Customer Related, Entrepreneurship

Done right, companies competing as a multi-sided platform often win with higher percentage profit margins than those enjoyed by traditional resellers. The problem is that a winning strategy is far from self-evident. Professor Andrei Hagiu explains the potential and the pitfalls for life as an MSP.

Content: Article | Author: Julia Hanna | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Strategy

Women hold only 14 percent of the board seats at S&P 1500 companies. Why is that, and what—if anything—should business leaders and policymakers do about the gender disparity? Research by Professor Boris Groysberg and colleagues shows that male and female board members have very different takes on the issue.

Content: Article | Author: Carmen Nobel | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Women in Business

Harvard-Newcomen Fellow Caitlin C. Rosenthal studies the meticulous records kept by southern plantation owners for measuring the productivity of their slaves, some of which were forerunners of modern management techniques.

Content: Article | Author: Katie Johnston | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: History

n her new Harvard Business School course, Creative High-Impact Ventures: Entrepreneurs Who Changed the World, professor Mukti Khaire looks at ways managers can team with creative talent in six “culture industries”: publishing, fashion, art-design, film, music, and food.

Content: Article | Author: Mukti Khaire | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Management

A new book about the wit and wisdom of Harvard Business School Professor Howard Stevenson, written by longtime friend Eric C. Sinoway, examines life’s “inflection points” and how to use them to best advantage.

Content: Article | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Career, Personal Development

Technologies seldom change culture by themselves; they might enable change in significant ways, yet without new ideas that question our sense of right and wrong they matter less. …The very act of creating a market […] of these products that go against conventions and norms of what we value, and of what we think is appropriate, means that you have to change what we think … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Mukti Khaire | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Culture, IT / Technology / E-Business

Commentary influences culture, which influences what we consume, which is influenced by what is actually out there in the market. If you can shift one of these elements you can actually create a new market.

Content: Quotation | Author: Mukti Khaire | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Innovation, Marketing / Sales, Miscellaneous

Many companies are at a loss about how to fund innovation successfully. In his new book, The Architecture of Innovation, Professor Josh Lerner starts with this advice: get the incentives right. Also, read an excerpt of the book.

Content: Article | Author: Carmen Nobel | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Innovation

Leaders rarely make a lasting impact on their organizations—even the really, really good ones. Then out of the blue comes a Churchill. Gautam Mukunda discusses his new book, Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter.

Content: Article | Author: Kim Girard | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Leadership

Noam Wasserman, author of the recently released book “The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup,” discusses ill-advised entrepreneurial behavior. Also, an excerpt of the book.

Content: Article | Authors: Garry Emmons, Noam Wasserman | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Entrepreneurship

HBS professor Matthew Rhodes-Kropf sets out to discover why public companies dominate some M&A waves while private equity firms win others.

Content: Article | Author: Kim Girard | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Finance, Mergers & Acquisitions

New research by Associate Professor Shawn A. Cole, Martin Kanz, and Leora Klapper explores how various compensation incentives affect lending decisions among bank loan officers. They find that incentives have the power to change not only how we make decisions, but how we perceive reality.

Content: Article | Author: Carmen Nobel | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Corporate strategy has become the bailiwick of consultants and business analysts, so much so that it is no longer a top-of-mind responsibility for many senior executives. Professor Cynthia A. Montgomery says it’s time for CEOs to again become strategists.

Content: Article | Author: Carmen Nobel | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Strategy

In The Future of Boards: Meeting the Governance Challenges of the Twenty-First Century, Professor Jay Lorsch brings together experts to examine the state of boards today, what lies ahead, and what needs to change.

Content: Article | Authors: Jay W. Lorsch, Julia Hanna | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Corporate Governance

Maarten Bos investigates how unconscious processes improve decision-making. Conscious deliberation, it turns out, does not always lead to the best outcomes.

Content: Article | Authors: Maarten Bos, Martha Lagace | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Learning to collaborate creatively with people from other cultures is a vital skill in today’s business environment, says professor Roy Y.J. Chua, whose research focuses on a key measure psychologists have dubbed “cultural metacognition.”

Content: Article | Author: Michael Blanding | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Organizational Behavior