Showing results by author "Harvard Business Review" in All Categories

The authors write that studies of corporate performance reveal a growing link between certain kinds of technology investments and intensifying competitiveness.

If you want to know why so many organizations sink into chaos, look no further than their leaders' mouths. Over and over, leaders present grand, overarching - yet fuzzy - notions of where they think the company is going. The result is often sloppy behavior and misalignment that can cost a company dearly. Effective communication is a leader's most critical tool for doing the essential job of leadership.

New research shows how to attract and retain the best employees in developing countries.

In this special edition of Harvard Business Review, a look back at the best articles on motivating employees: from 1968, Frederick Herzberg's research about what motivates people at work; how your own expectations of your employees will shape what they can accomplish; develop a fair and transparent system so that your employees will learn to trust you; and more.

Even as loyalty programs are launched left and right, many are being scuttled. How can that be? These days, everyone knows that an old customer retained is worth more than a new customer won. What is so hard about making a simple loyalty program work? Quite a lot, Joseph C. Nunes and Xavier Dreze say in this complete article from the April 2006 The Harvard Business Review.

The seven strategies that account for failed businesses

In order for creative business ideas to be generated, breakthrough innovators must be fiercely tested and wisely deployed.

You depend on your mid-career employees. They make up more than half your workforce and work longer hours than anyone else in your company. But, many of these solid performers between the ages of 35 and 55 are not happy. In fact, they're burned out, bored, and bottlenecked, new research reveals. Welcome to middlescence. Like adolescence, it can be a time of frustration, confusion, and alienation. But it can also be a time of self-discovery, new direction, and fresh beginnings.

Attitudes toward privacy have been shifting � leading to a greater appreciation for privacy protection.

When corporate leaders or the organizations they represent mess up, they face the difficult decision of whether to apologize publicly. A public apology is a risky move. It's highly political, and every word matters. Refusal to apologize can be smart, or it can be suicidal. Readiness to apologize can be seen as a sign of character or one of weakness. Because the stakes are so high, Barbara Kellerman says, leaders should not extend public apologies often or lightly.

Advertising has always targeted a powerful consumer alter ego: that hip, attractive, incredibly popular person just waiting to emerge from an all-too-normal self. Now, in cyberspace, consumers are taking the initiative and adopting alter egos that are anything but under wraps. These online personae, called avatars, represent a huge population of "shadow" customers who can be analyzed, segmented, and targeted.

You'll hear what projects some of the top business and management leaders have planned for the New Year.

Anyone in sales will tell you that social networks are critical. The more contacts you have, the more leads you'll generate and, ultimately, the more sales you'll make. But that's a vast oversimplification. Different configurations of networks produce different results, and the salesperson who develops a nuanced understanding of social networks will outshine competitors.

Usually, individuals and organizations go to great lengths to avoid errors. Companies are designed for optimum performance rather than for learning, and mistakes are seen as defects. But as an example from Bell System shows, making mistakes - correctly - is a powerful way to accelerate learning and increase competitiveness.

Companies should globalize from the moment they go into business, but first - there are obstacles that must be overcome.

We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help your company persevere through economic challenges and continue to grow while your competitors stumble. This book will inspire you to: harness your resources to pull through a pandemic; learn the right lessons from previous recessions; minimize pain while cutting costs and managing risk; foster a healthy culture during anxious times; make smart moves to protect your own job; and seize the opportunity to innovate and reinvent your business.

What is the nature of human happiness, and how do we achieve it in the course of our professional lives? And is it even worth pursuing? This book explores answers to these questions with research into how happiness is measured, frameworks for personal behaviors, management techniques that build happiness in the workplace - and warnings that highlight where the happiness hype has been overblown.

Management Tips 2: From Harvard Business Review puts the best management practices and insights, from top thinkers in the field, right at your fingertips. Listen to it any time you have a few minutes to spare, and you'll have a fresh, powerful idea you can immediately put into action. With this handy book as your guide, you'll stand the best chance of succeeding in your role as a manager.