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What Companies Still Get Wrong About Layoffs, Spanish Version
Organizational Development Digital ArticleMany cling to the idea that reducing staff is the fastest, easiest way to cut costs. But there are smarter, more humane approaches. -
Layoffs That Don't Break Your Company
Organizational Development Magazine ArticleToday layoffs have become companies' default response to the challenges created by advances in technology and global competition. Yet research shows that... -
Downsizing Lost Its Bad Rap
Downsizing Magazine ArticleBig companies formerly took a reputational hit when they laid off massive numbers of workers. But according to E. Geoffrey Love and Matthew Kraatz, of the University of Illinois, U.S. business culture norms gradually changed from 1985 to 1994 as new ideas about boosting shareholder value took hold in executive suites and boardrooms. At the […] -
Hollow Ring of the Productivity Revival
Global Business Magazine ArticleThe U.S. economy has been on the upswing for more than four years. Inflation is low, corporate profits are up, and the stock market has risen beyond anyone's... -
Prepare Your Workforce for the Automation Age
Strategy & Execution Digital ArticleThe transition is coming sooner than you think. -
Look Before You Lay Off
Organizational Development Magazine ArticleConventional wisdom says that layoffs are a necessary evil during economic downturns, but new research shows that shareholders tend to punish companies... -
What Can CEOs Do for Displaced Workers?
Human resource management Magazine ArticleIn 1978, before restructuring was a common boardroom term, Jewel sold its Turn-Style discount department store business to the May Department Store Company. Because May could not immediately use many of the Turn-Style stores outside metropolitan Chicago, Jewel closed them. This meant that almost 3,000 full-and part-time employees were no longer needed. We in Jewel’s […] -
Helping Employees Navigate the Future, French Version
When implementing a major organizational decision, empower your employees through effective communication. -
After the Layoffs, What Next? (HBR Case Study and Commentary)
Organizational Development Magazine ArticleHarry Denton, the CEO in this fictional case study, has been caught off guard. As the head of Delarks, a venerable department-store chain in the Midwest,... -
The Right Way to Close an Operation
Technology & Operations Magazine ArticleMany managers have never before had to shrink their operations or workforces drastically. Now, as they struggle to weather the storm of recession, they... -
How to Protect Your Job in a Recession
Leadership & Managing People Magazine ArticleAs the economy softens, corporate downsizing appears almost inevitable. Don't panic yet, though. While layoff decisions might seem beyond your control,... -
Incredibly Unproductive Shareholder
Leadership & Managing People Magazine ArticleAlthough CEOs are cast as the bad guys when they lay off staff or move operations overseas, they are simply serving their masters--the shareholders. This... -
Halting the Exodus After a Layoff
Organizational Development Magazine ArticleA new study shows that downsizing often prompts demoralized survivors to quit, which hinders efficiency and costs companies money. To add insult to irony,... -
Cutting Costs Without Drawing Blood
Finance & Accounting Magazine ArticleWhen looking for ways to cut costs, most managers reach for the head-count hatchet, and the markets usually roar with approval. But a company can almost... -
The Post-Hierarchical Organization, Chinese Version
The future of work is flatter. -
The Layoff (HBR Case Study and Commentary)
Organizational Development Magazine ArticleAstrigo is in trouble. The home improvement chain has missed its earnings forecast badly and sales are falling. A 10% reduction in staff looks like the... -
Gilded and Gelded: Hard-Won Lessons from the PR Wars
Business communication Magazine ArticleA wounded-but-wiser AT&T veteran recounts how one of the world’s biggest and best-known companies became one of its most battered—and explains how others can avoid that fate. -
How to Downsize Your Sales Force
Sales & Marketing Digital ArticleFive common mistakes to avoid. -
Moving Upward in a Downturn (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
Strategy & Execution Magazine ArticleDrawing on extensive research of Fortune 500 companies that have lived through industry downturns and economic recessions over the past two decades, Darrell... -
When Lean Isn't Mean
Organizational Development Magazine ArticleThe trend is to downsize corporate headquarters--but sometimes a bigger HQ is better.
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Cat Is Out of the Bag: KANA and the Layoff Gone Awry (A)
Organizational Development Case Study6.95View Details Vicki Amon-Higa, vice president of KANA, a publicly traded, midsize development company, was working with Bryan Kettle, KANA's CFO, to plan a layoff in... -
Vector (A): Labour Negotiations at Maxime Platform
Strategy & Execution Case Study8.95View Details This series of three sequential cases recounts the story of labour negotiations. The Maxime Platform, France, built in 1916 to accommodate the increasing... -
Bradley Marquez: Reduction in Force (A), Spanish Version
Organizational Development Case Study8.95View Details The Bradley Marquez advertising agency had created a successful niche delivering ethnic markets to their clients, corporate giants like Compaq, Sprint,... -
Vector (B): Labour Negotiations at Maxime Platform
Strategy & Execution Case Study5.00View Details Case B covers the period between May and October 2001. It describes the change and effects of a new leadership style on the negotiation process. It shows... -
HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing in a Downturn, Expanded Edition (with bonus article "Preparing Your Business for a Post-Pandemic World' by Carsten Lund Pedersen and Thomas Ritter)
How do the most resilient companies survive--and even thrive--during a slowdown? If you read nothing else on surviving a tough economy and coming back... -
HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing in a Downturn, Expanded Edition (Paperback + Ebook)
Leadership & Managing People Special Offer34.95View Details How do the most resilient companies survive--and even thrive--during a slowdown? If you read nothing else on surviving a tough economy and coming back... -
Hexcel Turnaround--2001 (B)
Leadership & Managing People Case Study5.00View Details Supplements the (A) case. -
Hexcel Turnaround--2001 (A)
Leadership & Managing People Case Study8.95View Details Hexcel's new CEO is faced with deciding how to "take out" $60 million in cash costs in fiscal 2002, as two of the company's end markets--electronics and... -
Navistar International
Finance & Accounting Case Study8.95View Details As a consequence of laying off half its workforce in a massive downsizing program, the company--a large manufacturer of medium and heavy trucks--struggles... -
HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing in a Downturn (with bonus article "Reigniting Growth" By Chris Zook and James Allen)
24.95View Details How do the most resilient companies survive--and even thrive--during a slowdown? If you read nothing else on preparing for a tough economy and coming... -
British Petroleum (B): Focus on Learning
Strategy & Execution Case Study5.00View Details British Petroleum (BP) had very profitable years in 1996 and l997. However, CEO John Browne knew that BP could not rest on its laurels. In Browne's view,... -
WeaveTech: High Performance Change
Leadership & Managing People Case Study1.00View Details WeaveTech, formerly Johnson-Ware, is a clothing company that produces jackets, coats, overalls, coveralls, and fire-resistant clothing for the military.... -
Cat Is Out of the Bag: KANA and the Layoff Gone Awry (B)
Organizational Development Case Study5.00View Details Supplements the (A) case. -
Vector (C): Labour Negotiations at Maxime Platform
Strategy & Execution Case Study5.00View Details Case C gives an account of the last three months of negotiations. Negotiations lead to a win-win conclusion of the project for all stakeholders as activity... -
Levi Strauss & Co. (A)
Organizational Development Case Study8.95View Details "Levi Strauss & Co." explores the decision by the famed jeans maker to close a manufacturing facility in San Antonio, Texas in early 1990. The case follows... -
Cambridge Cooling Systems: Global Operations Strategy
Technology & Operations Case Study8.95View Details The chief operating officer (CEO) at Cambridge Cooling Systems (CCS), an industrial cooling system manufacturer, has been asked for his recommendations... -
LiuGong: Integration Challenges in Poland (A)
Organizational Development Case Study8.95View Details This case series tells a story of post-merger integration, depicting a string of challenges faced by Guangxi LiuGong Machinery Co., Ltd. during its cross-border... -
Sun Hydraulics Corp. (A)
Organizational Development Case Study8.95View Details Involves the design and creation of a company with no formally-defined hierarchy. Describes the steps the founder takes to avoid the organizational politics... -
Internal Branding at Yahoo!: Crafting the Employee Value Proposition
Organizational Development Case Study8.95View Details In 2001, Libby Sartain, chief people officer, arrived at Yahoo! to find a demoralized Internet company without a well-defined culture, a coordinated method... -
Nick Fiore: Healer or Hitman? (A)
Strategy & Execution Case Study8.95View Details Many general managers face this predicament at one time or another: if I don't deliver the numbers, senior management won't invest in our growth. But...
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What Companies Still Get Wrong About Layoffs, Spanish Version
Organizational Development Digital ArticleMany cling to the idea that reducing staff is the fastest, easiest way to cut costs. But there are smarter, more humane approaches. -
Layoffs That Don't Break Your Company
Organizational Development Magazine ArticleToday layoffs have become companies' default response to the challenges created by advances in technology and global competition. Yet research shows that... -
Cat Is Out of the Bag: KANA and the Layoff Gone Awry (A)
Organizational Development Case Study6.95View Details Vicki Amon-Higa, vice president of KANA, a publicly traded, midsize development company, was working with Bryan Kettle, KANA's CFO, to plan a layoff in... -
Downsizing Lost Its Bad Rap
Downsizing Magazine ArticleBig companies formerly took a reputational hit when they laid off massive numbers of workers. But according to E. Geoffrey Love and Matthew Kraatz, of the University of Illinois, U.S. business culture norms gradually changed from 1985 to 1994 as new ideas about boosting shareholder value took hold in executive suites and boardrooms. At the […] -
Hollow Ring of the Productivity Revival
Global Business Magazine ArticleThe U.S. economy has been on the upswing for more than four years. Inflation is low, corporate profits are up, and the stock market has risen beyond anyone's... -
Vector (A): Labour Negotiations at Maxime Platform
Strategy & Execution Case Study8.95View Details This series of three sequential cases recounts the story of labour negotiations. The Maxime Platform, France, built in 1916 to accommodate the increasing... -
Bradley Marquez: Reduction in Force (A), Spanish Version
Organizational Development Case Study8.95View Details The Bradley Marquez advertising agency had created a successful niche delivering ethnic markets to their clients, corporate giants like Compaq, Sprint,... -
Vector (B): Labour Negotiations at Maxime Platform
Strategy & Execution Case Study5.00View Details Case B covers the period between May and October 2001. It describes the change and effects of a new leadership style on the negotiation process. It shows... -
Prepare Your Workforce for the Automation Age
Strategy & Execution Digital ArticleThe transition is coming sooner than you think. -
HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing in a Downturn, Expanded Edition (with bonus article "Preparing Your Business for a Post-Pandemic World' by Carsten Lund Pedersen and Thomas Ritter)
How do the most resilient companies survive--and even thrive--during a slowdown? If you read nothing else on surviving a tough economy and coming back...