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New research on training from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including "the great training robbery," and the most effective ways to learn on the job.
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Walmart's Workforce of the Future

by Julia Hanna

A case study by William Kerr explores Walmart's plans for future workforce makeup and training, and its search for opportunities from digital infrastructure and automation. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

The Comprehensive Effects of Sales Force Management: A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Selection, Compensation, and Training

by Doug J. Chung, Byungyeon Kim, and Byoung G. Park

When sales forces are well managed, firms can induce greater performance from them. For this study, the authors collaborated with a major multinational firm to develop and estimate a dynamic structural model of sales employee responses to various management instruments like compensation, training, and recruiting/termination policies.

Learning or Playing? The Effect of Gamified Training on Performance

by Ryan W. Buell, Wei Cai, and Tatiana Sandino

Games-based training is widely used to engage and motivate employees to learn, but research about its effectiveness has been scant. This study at a large professional services firm adopting a gamified training platform showed the training helps performance when employees are already highly engaged, and harms performance when they’re not.

Managerial Quality and Productivity Dynamics

by Achyuta Adhvaryu, Anant Nyshadham, and Jorge Tamayo

Which managerial skills, traits, and practices matter most for productivity? This study of a large garment firm in India analyzes the integration of features of managerial quality into a production process characterized by learning by doing.

The Creative Consulting Company

by Robert S. Kaplan, Richard Nolan, and David P. Norton

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.

Who is to Blame for 'The Great Training Robbery'?

by Roberta Holland

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.

The Great Training Robbery

by Michael Beer, Magnus Finnstrom, and Derek Schrader

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.

Knowledge Transfer: You Can't Learn Surgery By Watching

by Michael Blanding

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.

How ‘Hybrid’ Nonprofits Can Stay on Mission

by Carmen Nobel

As nonprofits add more for-profit elements to their business models, they can suffer mission drift. Associate Professor Julie Battilana says hybrid organizations can stay on target if they focus on two factors: the employees they hire and the way they socialize those employees. Key concepts include: In order to avoid mission drift, hybrid organizations need to focus on whom they hire and whether their employees are open to socialization. Because early socialization is so important, hybrid firms may be better off hiring new college graduates with no work background rather than a mix of seasoned bankers and social workers. The longer their tenure in a hybrid organization, the more likely top managers may be to hire junior people. Closed for comment; 14 Comment(s) posted.