Personal Development and Career
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- 23 Apr 2018
- Research & Ideas
Sponsorship Programs Could Actually Widen the Gender Gap
Companies increasingly provide sponsors to help women get ahead. But certain aspects of sponsorship programs can hinder women instead, according to experimental research by Nancy R. Baldiga and Katherine B. Coffman. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 19 Mar 2018
- Sharpening Your Skills
8 Ways To Be An Environmentally Conscious Manager
What does it mean to bring your individual environmental values to work every day? Here's how eco-friendly managers can practice what they preach. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 10 Jan 2018
- Research & Ideas
Working for a Shamed Company Can Hurt Your Future Compensation
People who work for a company guilty of malfeasance may see their future compensation curtailed, even if they are guilty of nothing, according to research by Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin, and George Serafeim. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 11 Dec 2017
- Book
'Don’t Show Up Empty-handed' and Other Tips for Finding the Right Job at a Startup
Finding a job at a startup is not the same process as hunting employment at an established business. Titles? Who needs titles?! Jeffrey Bussgang's new book, Entering StartUpLand, is an essential guide for getting a job and being productive at a new company. Includes book excerpt. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 06 Dec 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Does Financial Misconduct Affect the Future Compensation of Alumni Managers?
Analyzing data from an executive search firm, this paper explains how former employees who are free from wrongdoing still pay a price in stigma after incidents of corporate financial misconduct. The finding is potentially disquieting for all managers, because it suggests that one’s human capital can be impaired even long after one moves on and suggests the need for developing a human capital strategy for reacting to misconduct of past employers.
- 27 Nov 2017
- Research & Ideas
Beware the Lasting Impression of a 'Temporary' Selfie
Some social media apps promise to delete your messages after they are read. The problem: The memory of your uninhibited behavior lingers. Research by Leslie K. John and colleagues. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 30 Oct 2017
- Research & Ideas
Asking Questions Can Get You a Better Job or a Second Date
Knowing how to keep a conversation going can improve your career as well as your social life, according to research by Alison Wood Brooks and colleagues. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 13 Oct 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Shopping for Confirmation: How Disconfirming Feedback Shapes Social Networks
Managers who use feedback processes often assume that employees will respond to them with dutiful efforts to improve. This study finds that negative feedback instead causes employees to reshape their networks in order to shore up their professional and personal identity. This reshaping lowers performance—a result at odds with the goal of performance feedback.
- 06 Sep 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Class Matters: The Role of Social Class in High-Achieving Women's Career Narratives
This analysis of interviews with 40 female executives and entrepreneurs highlights five distinct types of career narratives that high-achieving women employ to explain their own career success. These narratives vary with the women’s family-of-origin social class. Among its contributions to practice, the study sheds light on the diversity of approaches possible in a successful career.
- 07 Aug 2017
- Research & Ideas
'Be Yourself (Within Reason)' and Other Job Search Survival Tips
In some professions, successful job hunting depends as much on a healthy body and cleared mind as it does on a well-performed interview, says Ethan Rouen. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 03 Aug 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
The Accounting Rookie Job Market: A Practitioner’s Guide
Aimed at accounting PhD students but potentially useful to other new academics and job seekers, this first-person essay offers suggestions for the dissertation process and subsequent job search. The writer tries to relieve some of the stress and confusion that inevitably comes with completing a PhD and finding a first academic job.
- 20 Feb 2017
- Research & Ideas
Having No Life is the New Aspirational Lifestyle
It used to be that we equated power and prestige with a leisurely, luxurious lifestyle. Today, lack of leisure time is the real status symbol. Anat Keinan discusses what that means for consumer marketing. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 07 Feb 2017
- Research & Ideas
The Right Way to Cry in Front of Your Boss
Crying at work can be more than embarrassing—it can hurt your career. Elizabeth Baily Wolf discusses a technique to reframe distress as passion. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 22 Nov 2016
- Working Paper Summaries
Explaining the Persistence of Gender Inequality: The Work-Family Narrative as a Social Defense against the 24/7 Work Culture
A common explanation for women’s stalled advancement into high-level positions is that women’s family obligations conflict with the long hours of these jobs. Work-family accommodations have done little to help women advance, however. And men also experience work-family conflict yet nevertheless advance. This study argues that women’s advancement is slowed because of social defenses at the organizational level, along with wider cultural beliefs that are resistant to change. These findings concur with scholars’ observations that progress toward gender equality is slowed to the extent that efforts are focused exclusively on women. Expanding efforts to include a thorough-going reconsideration of gender at work and at home, such that both women and men can freely pursue lives in which one domain need not take precedence over the other, may be more effective.
- 18 Nov 2016
- Sharpening Your Skills
Sharpening Your Skills: Making a Fast Start on a New Job
Everyone has to begin a new job—even presidents! We look to the archives for what Harvard Business School experts have recommended for making a splashy start. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 09 Jun 2016
- Cold Call Podcast
Hold on to Your Complexity: Bringing Multiple Identities to Work
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; Comment(s) posted.
- 15 Feb 2016
- Research & Ideas
Want Your Employees to Plan Better for Retirement? Don't Do This
Will people plan more for retirement if they know how their peers are progressing on the same goal? Research by John Beshears and colleagues finds that sharing retirement data can sometimes backfire on employers. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 10 Feb 2016
- Sharpening Your Skills
Sharpening Your Skills: New Insights into Career Development
When is a job promotion a bad thing? Does networking leave an oily substance on your clothing? From our archives we look at career change in the twenty-first century, where researchers are offering fresh insights into our dynamic workplaces.
- 02 Feb 2016
- Working Paper Summaries
Commuting with a Plan: How Goal-Directed Prospection Can Offset the Strain of Commuting
Employees often say commuting is the least desirable time period of the day. Those who use the time to think about the future in terms of goals to pursue can turn the daily hassle of commuting into something useful and meaningful. While to some extent commuting time may be outside employees’ control, they are nonetheless in charge of their commute.
Kids of Working Moms Grow into Happy Adults
In earlier research, Kathleen McGinn and colleagues discovered that adult kids of working moms are high achievers at work. Now it turns out they are happy, too. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.