Working Knowledge
Business Research for Business Leaders
Filter Results: (14) Arrow Down

Ramarajan, LakshmiRemove Ramarajan, Lakshmi →

Page 1 of 14 Results

Reunited and It Feels (Not) So Good: Tips for Managing a Rocky Return

by Kristen Senz

For many companies, returning to the office has felt like a rollercoaster of worry, excitement, and uncertainty. Members of the Harvard Business School faculty offer advice to help managers restore calm. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Managers, Your Employees Don’t Want to Be Facebook ‘Friends’

by Rachel Kim Raczka

Want your colleagues to see your Vegas vacation photos? Research by Lakshmi Ramarajan and colleagues offers reasons to think twice about connecting with people you manage on social media. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The New Rules for Remote Work: Pandemic Edition

by Dina Gerdeman

Welcome to the new world of remote work, where employees struggle to learn the rules, managers are unsure how to help them, and organizations get a glimpse into the future. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The Little Understood Problem Confronting Diverse Workplaces

by Julia Hanna

Knitting together a diverse workforce into a common fabric is a difficult challenge for managers—and even more difficult for the workers themselves, say Lakshmi Ramarajan and Erin Reid. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

How Does a Social Startup Decide to Commercialize? It May Depend on the Founder's Gender

by Carmen Nobel

How does the founder of a social venture decide to create a "hybrid" business rather than a traditional nonprofit organization? The decision has a lot to do with the founder’s gender, according to new research by Stefan Dimitriadis, Matthew Lee, Lakshmi Ramarajan, and Julie Battilana. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The 10 Most Popular 'Cold Call' Podcasts

Re: Multiple Faculty

As the year comes to a close, we revisit the Cold Call podcasts that attracted the most listeners in 2016. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

June 14, 2016

Sean Silverthorne

Turning off the 'always available' office ... The good ideas from shareholders that managers ignore ... Who owns the whale?

Hold on to Your Complexity: Bringing Multiple Identities to Work

Re: Lakshmi Ramarajan

Striking a careful balance between professional image and personal passion is difficult, as a case study on high-profile banker and gospel singer Carla Ann Harris underscores. Professor Lakshmi Ramarajan discusses the case in this Cold Call podcast. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

A Company’s Evolving View of Gender Equity

by Martha Lagace

Looking at the evolution of gender in US society over nearly 20 years, a new study by Lakshmi Ramarajan, Kathleen L. McGinn, and Deborah Kolb traces how one prominent professional-service firm internalized the shifting concerns. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Marissa Mayer Should Bridge Distance Gap with Remote Workers

by Lakshmi Ramarajan

Marissa Mayer's decision to bring work-at-home Yahoo! employees back to the office has set off a firestorm. Lakshmi Ramarajan writes on how to mitigate the problem. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

An Outside-Inside Evolution in Gender and Professional Work

by Lakshmi Ramarajan, Kathleen McGinn & Deborah Kolb

How do organizations adapt to social transformation? In the US, one of the most visible changes in employment since the 1980s—the growing representation of highly educated women—has challenged widely held understandings about gender and professional work. Although much is known about social institutions and social issues at the institutional and organizational levels, researchers still know very little about how individual organizations experience and internalize gradual shifts in deeply held social understandings. To bridge the gap, this study analyzes nearly 20 years of data to explore the adaptation of one professional service firm to an increase in women in the professional workforce and the shifting discourse around gender and work. Findings show that the firm internalized shifts in the social institution of gender through iterated cycles of analysis and action, integrating external pressures from the changing social institution of gender into its beliefs, structure, policies, programs, and practices. Overall, the study reveals how the interplay between activities and beliefs directs the pace and course of organizational change over time. Key concepts include: This paper examines how a social institution like gender plays out across multiple levels of analysis-organization and environment-over time. The authors' model sheds light on the ways in which internal and external forces are paired to propel the internalization of social discourse over time. At the firm level, analysis and action are separate but linked activity phases with transitions between them triggered by changes in beliefs and a growing awareness of discrepancies between beliefs and outcomes. Outside scrutiny and recognition drive accountability, while real changes in the firms' activities and outcomes drive internal buy-in. Sustainable change at the organizational level may require periodic monitoring of the fit between outcomes and assumptions, and intermittent periods of analysis relatively free of new activities. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Finding the Right Jeremy Lin Storyline

by Lakshmi Ramarajan

New York Knicks sensation Jeremy Lin is confounding every stereotype we have about modern day basketball stars. Professor Lakshmi Ramarajan suggests that Lin's complex storylines can help us put our own prejudices in focus. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Taking the Fear out of Diversity Policies

by Carmen Nobel

Workplace policies regarding race, gender, and sexual orientation often are borne of studies that focus on the problem of discrimination—rather than on the benefits of a diverse workforce. HBS professors Lakshmi Ramarajan and David Thomas argue that focusing on the benefits of a diverse organization will lead to workplace policies that embrace diversity, instead of grudgingly accepting it or dancing around it. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

A Positive Approach to Studying Diversity in Organizations

by Lakshmi Ramarajan & David Thomas

Considering that the topic of workplace diversity often garners unhappy discussions of prejudice, isolation, and conflict, it's not surprising that many researchers avoid the topic altogether. Only 5 percent of articles published in management journals from 2000-2008 included race or gender in their keywords. In this paper, Harvard Business School professors Lakshmi Ramarajan and David Thomas propose a positive approach to studying diversity, with hopes that this will lead managers to feel more positive about adopting diversity policies in the workplace. Key concepts include: Most workplace policies governing issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation come out of traditional studies that focus on discrimination. Because these policies are borne of these traditional studies, they often yield negative consequences--such as a manager refraining from honest discourse for fear of a discrimination lawsuit. A positive approach to diversity research could lead to policies that feel more organically productive and less threatening to managers. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.