2011 Top 10 Stories from Harvard Business School
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 3:09PM 1. What CEOs Do, and How They Can Do it Better
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6665.html
Published: April 25, 2011
A CEO's schedule is especially important to a firm's financial success, which raises a few questions: What do they do all day? Can they be more efficient time managers? HBS professor Raffaella Sadun and colleagues set out to find some answers.
2. Being the Boss
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6573.html
Published: January 17, 2011
Striking the right balance between good management and good leadership is a daunting but necessary challenge for anyone endeavoring to be a good boss. In Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader, Harvard Business School professor Linda A. Hill and former executive Kent Lineback discuss the steps to take and the roadblocks to avoid in order to meet that challenge.
3. Is Groupon Good for Retailers?
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6600.html
Published: January 10, 2011
For retailers offering deals through the wildly popular online start-up Groupon, does the one-day publicity compensate for the deep hit to profit margins? A new working paper, "To Groupon or Not to Groupon," sets out to help small businesses decide. Harvard Business School professor Benjamin G. Edelman discusses the paper's findings.
4.Teaching a 'Lean Startup' Strategy
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6659.html
Published: April 11, 2011
Most startups fail because they waste too much time and money building the wrong product before realizing too late what the right product should have been, says HBS entrepreneurial management professor Thomas R. Eisenmann. In his new MBA course, Launching Technology Ventures, Eisenmann introduces students to the idea of the lean startup—a methodology that has proven successful for many young high-tech companies.
5. Clay Christensen's Milkshake Marketing
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6496.html
Published: February 14, 2011
About 95 percent of new products fail. The problem often is that their creators are using an ineffective market segmentation mechanism, according to HBS professor Clayton Christensen. It's time for companies to look at products the way customers do: as a way to get a job done.
6. Are You a Level-Six Leader?
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6752.html
Published: July 6, 2011
Asking the question, whom do you serve? is a powerful vector on which to build a useful typology of leadership. Visiting professor Modesto Maidique offers a six-level Purpose-Driven Model of Leadership ranging from Sociopath to Transcendent.
7. HBS Cases: Lady Gaga
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6812.html
Published: September 26, 2011
What goes into creating the world's largest pop star? Before her fame hit, Lady Gaga's manager faced decisions that could have derailed the performer's career. A new case by Associate Professor Anita Elberse examines the strategic marketing choices that instead created a global brand.
8. Why Leaders Lose Their Way
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6741.html
Published: June 6, 2011
Dominique Strauss-Kahn is just the latest in a string of high-profile leaders making the perp walk. What went wrong, and how can we learn from it? Professor Bill George discusses how powerful people lose their moral bearings. To stay grounded executives must prepare themselves to confront enormous complexities and pressures.
9. It's Not Nagging: Why Persistent, Redundant Communication Works
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6629.html
Published: April 18, 2011
Managers who inundate their teams with the same messages, over and over, via multiple media, need not feel bad about their persistence. In fact, this redundant communication works to get projects completed quickly, according to new research by Harvard Business School professor Tsedal B. Neeley and Northwestern University's Paul M. Leonardi and Elizabeth M. Gerber.
10. The Most Powerful Workplace Motivator
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6792.html
Published: October 31, 2011
When evaluating compensation issues, economists often assume that both an employer and an employee make rational, albeit self-interested choices while working toward a goal. The problem, says Assistant Professor Ian Larkin, is that the most powerful workplace motivator is our natural tendency to measure our own performance against the performance of others.