Leadership

Most Popular Articles of 2013

What topics intrigued Harvard Business School Working Knowledge readers in 2013? Dive into our Top 10 most-read stories and faculty working papers, then tell us your candidate for most significant business issue of the year.

Most Popular Articles 2013

How to Spot a Liar

Key linguistic cues can help reveal dishonesty during business negotiations, whether it's a flat-out lie or a deliberate omission of key information, according to research by Lyn M. Van Swol, Michael T. Braun, and Deepak Malhotra.

How to Demotivate Your Best Employees

Many companies hand out awards such as "employee of the month," but do they work to motivate performance? Not really, says Ian Larkin. In fact, they may turn off your best employees altogether.

Power Posing: Fake It Until You Make It (2010)

Nervous about an upcoming presentation or job interview? Holding one's body in "high-power" poses for short time periods can summon an extra surge of power and sense of well-being when it's needed, according to Amy J.C. Cuddy.

Why Unqualified Candidates Get Hired Anyway

Why do businesses evaluate candidates solely on past job performance, failing to consider the job's difficulty? Why do university admissions officers focus on high GPAs, discounting influence of easy grading standards? Francesca Gino and colleagues investigate the phenomenon of the "fundamental attribution error."

First Minutes are Critical in New-Employee Orientation

Employee orientation programs ought to be less about the company and more about the employee, according to new research by Daniel M. Cable, Francesca Gino, and Bradley R. Staats.

Why Isn't 'Servant Leadership' More Prevalent?

After plowing through an unusually full inbox of reader e-mails, Jim Heskett wonders whether the term "servant leadership" is an oxymoron?

Clay Christensen's Milkshake Marketing

About 95 percent of new products fail. The problem often is that their creators are using an ineffective market segmentation mechanism, according to Clayton Christensen. It's time for companies to look at products the way customers do: as a way to get a job done.

Is Your iPhone Turning You Into a Wimp?

The body posture inherent in operating everyday gadgets affects not only your back, but your behavior. According to a new study by Maarten Bos and Amy Cuddy, operating a relatively large device inspires more assertive behavior than working on a small one.

Hiding From Managers Can Increase Your Productivity

Ethan S. Bernstein explains why decreasing workplace transparency can increase productivity.

Creating a Positive Professional Image (2006)

In today's diverse workplace, your actions and motives are constantly under scrutiny. Time to manage your own professional image before others do it for you. An interview with Laura Morgan Roberts.

Most Popular Faculty Working Papers 2013Do Display Ads Influence Search? Attribution and Dynamics in Online Advertising

Authors Pavel Kireyev, Koen Pauwels, and Sunil Gupta find that popular Web metrics do not adequately capture consumer behavior online and lead marketers to create less effective marketing budgets.

Organizational Factors that Contribute to Operational Failures in Hospitals

Hospital productivity and quality of care can be increased by uncovering organizational factors associated with operational failures so that hospitals can reduce the frequency with which these failures occur. Research by Anita L. Tucker and colleagues.

Managing Churn to Maximize Profits

Research by Aurélie Lemmens and Sunil Gupta provides a novel method for determining which customers to target in order to maximize the profit of a retention campaign.

The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Market

Yongwook Paik and Feng Zhu investigate the effect of escalated patent litigations on firm strategy.

Increased Speed Equals Increased Wait: The Impact of a Reduction in Emergency Department Ultrasound Order Processing Time

This study of ultrasound test orders in hospital emergency departments shows that, paradoxically, increasing capacity in a service setting may not alleviate congestion, and can actually increase it. Research by Jillian Berry Jaeker, Anita L. Tucker, and Michael H. Lee.

Applying Random Coefficient Models to Strategy Research: Testing For Firm Heterogeneity, Predicting Firm-Specific Coefficients, and Estimating Strategy Trade-Offs

Juan Alcácer and colleagues discuss how Random Coefficient Models (RCMs) can close the gap between theoretical and empirical research in strategy.

The Impact of Conformance and Experiential Quality on Healthcare Cost and Clinical Performance

This study by Anita L. Tucker and colleagues examines the relationship between a hospital's focus on both conformance and experiential dimensions of quality and their impact on financial and clinical outcomes.

Imperfect Information, Patent Publication, and the Market for Ideas

Hong Luo and a colleague study the effects of an important disclosure mechanism, the publication of patent applications, on facilitating transactions in the market for ideas.

Standard-Essential Patents

Josh Lerner builds a framework for the analysis of standard-essential patents and suggests a policy reform.

Playing Favorites: How Firms Prevent the Revelation of Bad News

Firms control information flow to the market through their specific organization and choreographing of earnings conference calls, report Lauren Cohen, Dong Lou, and Christopher Malloy.

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