Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Working Knowledge
Business Research for Business Leaders
  • Browse All Articles
  • Popular Articles
  • Cold Call Podcast
  • Managing the Future of Work Podcast
  • About Us
  • Book
  • Leadership
  • Marketing
  • Finance
  • Management
  • Entrepreneurship
  • All Topics...
  • Topics
    • COVID-19
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Finance
    • Gender
    • Globalization
    • Leadership
    • Management
    • Negotiation
    • Social Enterprise
    • Strategy
  • Sections
    • Book
    • Podcasts
    • HBS Case
    • In Practice
    • Lessons from the Classroom
    • Op-Ed
    • Research & Ideas
    • Research Event
    • Sharpening Your Skills
    • What Do You Think?
    • Working Paper Summaries
  • Browse All
    Filter Results: (12) Arrow Down
    Filter Results: (12) Arrow Down Arrow Up
    • Popular
    • Browse All Articles
    • About Us
    • Newsletter Sign-Up
    • RSS
    • Popular
    • Browse All Articles
    • About Us
    • Newsletter Sign-Up
    • RSS

    Bernstein, Ethan S.Remove Bernstein, Ethan S. →

    Page 1 of 12 Results
    • 08 Sep 2020
    • Sharpening Your Skills

    Capitalism Works Better When I Can See What You're Doing

    by Sean Silverthorne

    Lower prices. More innovation. Better government. Transparency fuels the basic principles of competitive business and open government. Well, most of the time. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 12 Nov 2018
    • Research & Ideas

    'Always On' Isn't Always Best for Team Decision-Making

    by Roberta Holland

    Is it possible for teams to communicate too frequently? Research by Ethan Bernstein and colleagues suggests that groups that meet less often may be better at problem-solving. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 23 Jul 2018
    • Research & Ideas

    The Open Office Revolution Has Gone Too Far

    Re: Ethan S. Bernstein

    When Ethan Bernstein used wearable technology to track workers around their open office, he discovered many who were trying to avoid collaboration rather than engage in it. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 04 Jan 2018
    • Cold Call Podcast

    How to Monetize Happiness

    Re: Ethan S. Bernstein

    Is there a business model around happiness? Hitachi believes that a happy employee is a productive one, and is investing in "happiness sensors" to prove the connection. Ethan Bernstein explains why in this podcast. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 03 Jan 2018
    • Sharpening Your Skills

    5 Career-Related New Year’s Resolutions (and 5 Tips for Keeping Them)

    by Carmen Nobel

    Here are well-researched tips from Harvard Business School faculty to help you keep your career-related resolutions this year. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 03 Oct 2017
    • First Look

    First Look at Research and Ideas, October 3, 2017

    by Sean Silverthorne

    How management feedback can backfire ... Hospitals that overbill as a financial strategy ... Using artificial intelligence to gauge human intelligence.

    • 04 Jul 2016
    • Research & Ideas

    Is Your Org Chart Stuck in a Rut? Try a Scientific Experiment

    by Carmen Nobel

    Harvard Business School’s Organizational Lab helps businesses solve operational problems by changing the way their company is organized. Ethan Bernstein and Clayton Christensen explain how academics and business leaders can work together to create a better org chart. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 26 May 2015
    • Research & Ideas

    Corporate Field Researchers Share Tricks of the Trade

    by Carmen Nobel

    In a panel discussion, several professors shared practical findings and tricks-of-the-trade from recent field research. Among the discoveries: how to prompt employees to get a flu shot. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 04 May 2015
    • Research & Ideas

    Need to Solve a Problem? Take a Break From Collaborating

    by Carmen Nobel

    Organizations spend a lot of money enabling employees to solve problems collectively. But inducing more collaboration may actually hinder the most important part of problem-solving: actually solving the problem. Research by Jesse Shore, Ethan Bernstein, and David Lazer. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 14 Apr 2014
    • Working Paper Summaries

    Facts and Figuring: An Experimental Investigation of Network Structure and Performance in Information and Solution Spaces

    by Jesse Shore, Ethan Bernstein & David Lazer

    How can managers create organizations that bring people together to successfully solve problems? One increasingly popular managerial tactic to improve problem-solving performance is to increase the connectedness, or what academics call clustering, of the organization. Using everything from transparent, open offices to open social collaboration platforms, connecting everyone and everything, the theory goes, will produce better solutions. True or false? In the lab, the authors randomly assigned individuals to 70 sixteen-person organizations—some more clustered than others—and asked each organization to solve a complex problem: divine the who, what, where, and when of an impending terrorist attack (akin to the famous Clue® whodunit game). They did so using a platform not unlike real intelligence problem-solving environments: Through their computers, individuals could search for information, share information with each other, and share theories about the solutions, while the platform tracked all behavior. The results? Connectedness had different effects on the "facts" and "figuring" stages of problem solving. Search for information (facts) was, indeed, more efficient the more connected the organization. But performance in interpreting the information (figuring) to develop solutions was undermined by too much connectedness. The same connections that helped individuals coordinate their search for information also encouraged individuals to reach consensus on less-than-perfect solutions, making connectedness a true double-edged sword. The authors conclude with a discussion of implications for both theory and practice in our increasingly connected 'small world' and suggest directions for future research. Key concepts include: Problem solving requires two important and complementary forms of search: searching for information (for the facts that may be important pieces of the puzzle) and searching for solutions (for theories that combine puzzle pieces into an answer). The same network structure can promote or inhibit knowledge diversity, depending on whether that knowledge consists of information, or interpretations of information. 'Good' communication structures may only be good for parts of the process of collective problem solving: structures that are good now may be bad later. Organizations might be wise to adopt different communications structures for different phases of collective problem solving. Rather than allow the march of technology to dictate organizational performance, it is possible to imagine how technology could be harnessed to achieve different performance goals. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 04 Mar 2014
    • Sharpening Your Skills

    Sharpening Your Skills: Managing Innovation

    Re: Multiple Faculty

    Sharpening Your Skills curates a wide range of Harvard Business School's research and ideas around vital topics in business management. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 25 Nov 2013
    • Research & Ideas

    Hiding From Managers Can Increase Your Productivity

    by Carmen Nobel

    Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Ethan S. Bernstein explains why decreasing workplace transparency can increase productivity. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

    • 1
    ǁ
    Campus Map
    Harvard Business School Working Knowledge
    Baker Library | Bloomberg Center
    Soldiers Field
    Boston, MA 02163
    Email: Editor-in-Chief
    →Map & Directions
    →More Contact Information
    • Make a Gift
    • Site Map
    • Jobs
    • Harvard University
    • Trademarks
    • Policies
    • Accessibility
    • Digital Accessibility
    Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College