Remove Human Resources Remove Merchandising Remove Operations
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Breaking the Rules

You're Not the Boss of Me

They are also imposed to provide structure in organizational settings that support the work and build a broad framework within which individuals are free to operate and contribute. As they often say in retail stores about handling merchandise, “ If you break it you own it”.

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How to Innovate When You're Not the Big Boss

Harvard Business Review

Usually, if you search, there are opportunities in your current job and at your current level to display your ability to drive change, even if you are in a support function like finance or human resources.

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3 Changes Retailers Need to Make to Survive

Harvard Business Review

By incorporating these disruptors into its own operations, a retailer can more easily pose challenging questions and embrace change more quickly. So they are more likely to recognize, for example, when a company’s legacy IT system has become a stumbling block to progress – a common affliction in retail operations.

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An Insider’s Account of the Yahoo-Alibaba Deal

Harvard Business Review

By mid-2004, however, the operation was mired in conflict over control and differences in management style. Zhou reportedly felt that the original Yahoos were overpaid and lazy, whereas the Yahoo team felt bullied and believed Zhou wasn’t focused on the Yahoo operations. Those issues slowed us down on the product side as well.

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Case Study: When Two Leaders on the Senior Team Hate Each Other

Harvard Business Review

Lance Best, the CEO of Barker Sports Apparel, was meeting with Nina Kelk, the company’s general counsel, who also oversaw human resources. The next morning, Lance was in his office when he got a text from Jhumpa, the head of product and merchandising: Can you talk? “Unfortunately, I think we’re beyond that.”

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4 Reasons Retail Jobs Are About to Get Better

Harvard Business Review

If retailers want to thrive by offering better jobs, they will need to change their operations strategy from one that uses people as interchangeable parts to one that is human-centered. As we all know by now, Toyota’s human-centered operations strategy allowed the company to produce higher-quality cars at lower costs.

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A New Way to Rate Retailers on Providing Good Jobs

Harvard Business Review

Executives have a choice in how they run their operations. In my research, I’ve found that retailers using an employee-centered operations strategy, which I call the good jobs strategy , have two strategic advantages. There are also differences in the merchandise mix of different companies. Both ways can be profitable.

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