Education
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- 27 Jun 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Negotiating a Better Future: How Interpersonal Skills Facilitate Inter-Generational Investment
For many girls in developing countries, early adolescence is a time of key challenges: school dropout rates rise, and social and economic pressures increase for marriage and motherhood. This randomized control trial involving Zambian adolescent girls finds that negotiation skills can help them navigate these challenges. Girls taught negotiation skills had significantly better educational outcomes over the next three years.
- 20 Apr 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Executive Education in the Digital Vortex: The Disruption of the Supply Landscape
The competitive landscape of executive education is feeling a tectonic shift even as demand grows for managerial skills. This study maps and analyzes the major providers of executive education programs, including business schools, consultancies, and corporate universities, to better understand and explain the industry’s present and future dynamics.
- 07 Jun 2017
- Research & Ideas
How an African History Scholar Became a Modern Righter of Wrongs
A scholar of colonial-era African history, Caroline M. Elkins had dramatic success turning prior knowledge into real-world action—namely, with a groundbreaking lawsuit against the British government, which revealed a chillingly bureaucratic process for destroying evidence of torture. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 03 Nov 2016
- Op-Ed
Forget About Making College Affordable; Make it a Good Investment
Making college affordable is a popular campaign topic this year, but Joseph Fuller argues the real debate should be over increasing the returns for students. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 03 Oct 2016
- Working Paper Summaries
Executive Development Programs Enter the Digital Vortex: I. Disrupting the Demand Landscape
The informational and computational “tectonic shifts” of the past decade—enabling sharing, transacting, collaborating, and learning online—have created new challenges for executive development programs, in part by making visible to both buyers and sellers the specific objectives of participants and their organizations. Drawing on interviews with sponsoring organizations and participants in executive education at Harvard Business School, this study examines what learners and organizations want from executive development and maps the sources of value and drivers of demand for executive development.
- 03 Oct 2016
- Working Paper Summaries
The Skills Gap and the Near-Far Problem in Executive Education and Leadership Development
An increasingly obvious and costly gap has emerged between the skills that executives need in order to cope with the volatile, uncertain, ambiguous, and complex business landscape and the skills being imparted by executive development programs. Providers of these programs need to focus on cultivating skills least susceptible to digital distributed delivery in ways that will make them most relevant to the greatest number of contexts. In addition, skills that are difficult to articulate and translate into formulas will benefit from focused, heavily social learning environments supported by constant reinforcement from savvy facilitators and motivated peers.
- 11 Aug 2016
- Cold Call Podcast
Why College Rankings Keep Deans Awake at Night
Can parents and prospective students trust college rankings? Bill Kirby unpacks this complex system, including what “world-class” actually means, what rankings don’t take into account, and how schools are learning to game an imperfect system. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 03 Aug 2016
- What Do You Think?
How Can We Hold the “Leadership Industry” Accountable?
SUMMING UP This month’s reader comments provide little hope that the leadership-development industry can achieve its goals, says James Heskett. So why does the leadership industry continue to thrive? Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 25 Jul 2016
- Research & Ideas
Who is to Blame for 'The Great Training Robbery'?
Companies spend billions annually training their executives, yet rarely realize all the benefit they could, argue Michael Beer and colleagues. He discusses a new research paper, The Great Training Robbery. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 19 Apr 2016
- Working Paper Summaries
The Great Training Robbery
There is a widely held assumption in corporate life that well trained, even inspired individuals can change the system. This article explains why training fails and discusses why the “great training robbery” persists. The authors offer a framework for integrating leadership and organization change and development, and discuss implications for the corporate HR function.
- 09 Mar 2016
- Lessons from the Classroom
In This Classroom, Beer Can Improve Your Grade
The Strategic Brew computer simulation puts MBAs in charge of their own breweries, rising or sinking based on the popularity of their pseudo suds. Ramon Casadesus-Masanell explains lessons learned from a beer game Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 24 Feb 2016
- Research & Ideas
Why It's Best to Take Tests Early in the Day
New research by Francesca Gino and colleagues finds students perform best on standardized tests at the start of the school day. The findings also provide insight into how workers can avoid cognitive fatigue in the office. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 20 Jan 2016
- Cold Call Podcast
The Power of Presence at the Podium
Running for office requires a lot of public speaking. But often, it’s what candidates aren’t saying that can make or break their campaigns. Take the case of Dan Silver, an experienced congressional candidate that leaves voters cold despite his eminent qualifications. With the help of KNP Communications, Silver is forced to watch himself at the podium and makes some profound discoveries. Professor Amy Cuddy delves into this fascinating case and the importance of body language, believing in your own story, and how to put your best self forward. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 17 Dec 2015
- Working Paper Summaries
Are the 'Best and Brightest' Going into Finance? Skill Development and Career Choice of MIT Graduates
Pian Shu finds that MIT students who self-select into finance are less academically accomplished than those who choose science and technology.
- 16 Dec 2015
- Research & Ideas
What Happens When Zambian Schoolgirls Receive Negotiation Training
Research by Kathleen McGinn and colleagues shows how teaching negotiation skills to young Zambian women can greatly improve their health and educational outcomes. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 08 Sep 2015
- Research & Ideas
Knowledge Transfer: You Can't Learn Surgery By Watching
Learning to perform a job by watching others and copying their actions is not a great technique for corporate knowledge transfer. Christopher G. Myers suggests a better approach: Coactive vicarious learning. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 24 Jun 2015
- HBS Case
Upgrading School with a Startup Mentality
A case study by John Kim explores a new breed of "microschools" focused on reducing costs, enhancing educational impact, prioritizing customer satisfaction, and using technology to create continuous improvement. Open for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.
- 17 Jun 2015
- Lessons from the Classroom
Excellence Comes From Saying No
In a new course designed by Frances Frei and Amy Schulman, business and law students help each other define and achieve their own interpretations of success. Lesson one: You can't be great at everything. Open for comment; 17 Comment(s) posted.
- 12 Mar 2015
- Working Paper Summaries
What Courses Should Law Students Take? Harvard’s Largest Employers Weigh In
An online survey of 124 practicing attorneys at major law firms suggests possible new directions for educating and training Harvard Law School students. The most salient result from the survey is that students should learn accounting and financial statement analysis, as well as corporate finance. These two subject areas are viewed as particularly valuable both for lawyers in litigation and lawyers working in corporate/transactional practice areas. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.
The Creative Consulting Company
Management theories cannot be tested in laboratories; they must be applied, tested, and extended in real organizations. For this reason the most creative consulting companies balance conflicting demands between short‐term business development and long‐term knowledge creation.