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Taking the Fear out of Diversity Policies [HBS Working Knowledge]
Taking the Fear out of Diversity Policies [HBS Working Knowledge]
January 31, 2011 – 4:38 am | Comments Off

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 pussyfooting around it.

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Reversing the Queue: Performance, Legitimacy, and Minority Hiring [Working Paper]
September 1, 2010 – 8:38 am | No Comment

With Andrew Hill. Studies of minority hiring have found that poor-performing firms or firms in highly competitive contexts are more likely to hire minority candidates. However, most work has examined hiring for entry and mid-level positions, not senior management. Management positions differ in terms of the amount of uncertainty in identifying candidates qualified for the job; in the intensity of external evaluations of both managerial and firm performance; and in the level of accountability for that performance. Furthermore, the influence of senior minority managers on hiring practices may differ substantially, depending on where a manager sits in the firm’s hierarchy. Examining hiring practices on coaching staffs of teams in America’s National Football League, from 1970-2007, we find that better-performing teams are less likely to hire minorities to fill lower-level and mid-level coaching positions (as predicted by prior literature on labor queues), but that such teams are more likely to hire minorities into leadership positions. We also find that minority head coaches hire more minorities for subordinate coaching jobs, but that the presence of a minority offensive or defensive coordinator (with a white head coach) is a significant, negative predictor of minority hiring in junior and mid-level positions.

A Positive Approach to Studying Diversity in Organizations [Working Paper]
September 1, 2010 – 8:34 am | No Comment

With Lakshmi Ramarajan. In this article, we distinguish between positive findings in diversity research and a positive approach to studying diversity. We first review and integrate research on diversity from organizational behavior, social psychology and sociology from 1998-2010 that has already documented positive findings in relation to diversity. We discuss this research using two broad categories: (1) What is positively affected by diversity? (Positive for what)? This category consists of ..read more

Sonoco Products Company (A): Building a World-Class HR Organization (Abridged) [HBS Case]
March 11, 2010 – 7:19 am | No Comment
Sonoco Products Company (A): Building a World-Class HR Organization (Abridged) [HBS Case]

by David A. Thomas, Boris Groysberg 10 pages. Publication date: Mar 11, 2010. Prod. #: 410082-PDF-ENG

Describes the steps the vice-president of human resources takes in revamping an HR function that was noncooperative and, at times, competitive and introducing the company to the notion of HR as a strategic business partner. Explores changes made to the company’s compensation, performance management, and succession planning processes.

Harvard Business School Faculty on the World Economic Forum
February 10, 2010 – 10:01 am | No Comment

BOSTON, Feb. 10, 2010 — Leaders from a wide array of backgrounds, including government, business, and academia, recently gathered in Davos, Switzerland, to attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. Among them were an array of Harvard Business School professors. Some perspectives on their experience follow.

Meeting the Diversity Challenge at PepsiCo: The Steve Reinemund Era [HBS Case]
August 17, 2009 – 6:39 am | No Comment

This case profiles PepsiCo’s diversity journey under the leadership of former chairman and CEO Steve Reinemund who instituted diversity as one of the company’s strategic imperatives. It demonstrates the ways in which Reinemund partnered with his leadership team and employees throughout the organization to make diversity a key factor in PepsiCo’s culture and performance. It also reveals how, regardless of the success, PepsiCo employees were openly speculating what it would mean for the ..read more

Harvard program targets diversity at highest levels [The Boston Globe]
July 21, 2009 – 10:06 am | No Comment

Last week, Thomas and his colleagues at Harvard kicked off Next Generation Executive, a program aimed at improving that track record in corporate America. Nearly 30 minority executives from around the country were invited to be part of the first class and spend a week attending intensive sessions at the school aimed at helping them advance even higher.

HBS Offers Custom Program for Multicultural Executives [Boston Globe]
July 1, 2009 – 10:04 am | No Comment

One of the additions to Harvard Business School’s portfolio of custom Executive Education offerings is making news. An article in today’s Boston Globe focuses on an intensive one-week program called Next Generation Executive (NGE), developed in coordination with The Partnership, Inc., a Boston-based firm focusing on the development of multicultural professionals of color.

Mapping Your Network [Exercise]
May 18, 2009 – 6:43 am | No Comment

This exercise is designed to help students and professionals map their professional networks and to identify areas of strength and weakness in their networks. “Network” refers to the set of relationships that is critical to someone’s ability to learn new skills and competencies, get things done, advance in his or her career, and develop personally and professionally. The exercise takes 15-20 minutes to complete.

Keeping Google “Googley” (Abridged) [HBS Case]
April 24, 2009 – 6:45 am | No Comment

This case, set in 2008, examines how Google has worked to avoid potential negative byproducts of rapid growth such as: bureaucracy, slow decision-making, lack of visibility and organizational inconsistency. When the case protagonist, Kim Scott, started with Google in 2004, she wondered if she would still be there in several years as she liked small, entrepreneurial companies. In 2008, she was pleased that Google still had the same entrepreneurial energy that ..read more

Harvard Business School Students Immersed in Experiential Learning
January 21, 2009 – 8:26 am | No Comment

January 21, 2009-More than 320 first- and second- year Harvard MBA students participated in this year’s Immersion Experience Program (IXP), which maximizes participant-centered learning by integrating HBS’s distinctive case method of instruction with field-based learning. Each IXP group is anchored by the expertise of one or more faculty members who develop the program content and lead the various activities.

Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers [HBS Case]
January 13, 2009 – 6:47 am | No Comment

Explores how two senior Wall St. executives created a successful commercial opportunity for Lehman Brothers that focused on building relationships with minority- and women-owned financial services firms. Illustrates how Patricia Miller Zollar and Nadja Fidelia aligned the Partnership Solutions Groups’ activities with Lehman Brothers’ “one firm” strategy in ways that created economic value for the firm. Delves into the challenges of developing this business in an industry that tends to view ..read more