Publications

October 2002 (Revised July 2009)
Case

Dr. John's Products, Ltd.

By: William A. Sahlman

Describes an entrepreneur's attempts to invent, manufacture, and distribute an inexpensive electric toothbrush. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Intellectual Property; Product

December 1994 (Revised December 1994)
Case

Physician Sales and Service, Inc. (A): June 1992

A medical products distribution company faces strategic opportunities and challenges in a rapidly changing market. Physician Sales and Service (PSS), founded by Patrick Kelly in 1983, operates in 20 states in the United States and intends to expand to 50 states by... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Distribution Industry; Distribution Industry

07 Sep 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Decision-Making by Precedent and the Founding of American Honda (1948–1974)

Keywords: by Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and John Heilbron; Auto

Spring 2016
Article

Performance Responses to Competition Across Skill-Levels in Rank Order Tournaments: Field Evidence and Implications for Tournament Design

By: Kevin J. Boudreau, Karim R. Lakhani and Michael E. Menietti

Tournaments are widely used in the economy to organize production and innovation. We study individual contestant-level data from 2,796 contestants in 774 software algorithm design contests with random assignment. Precisely conforming to theory predictions, the... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Innovation Strategy

Find at Harvard

Read Now

February 1990 (Revised August 2001)
Case

Merloni Elettrodomestici SpA: The Transit Point Experiment

By: Janice H. Hammond and Maura G Kelly

Merloni Elettrodomestici is a leading Italian manufacturer of domestic appliances. In 1986, an exposition for Merloni customers is scheduled at its Milano regional warehouse. During the two-month period preceding the event, when the warehouse must be free of inventory,... View Details

Keywords: Logistics; Marketing Channels; Planning; Time Management; Distribution Channels; Competitive Advantage; Customer Relationship Management; Information Technology; Consumer Products Industry; Italy

July 2009
Case

Arcor: Global Strategy and Local Turbulence (Abridged)

Argentine confectionery manufacturer, Arcor Group, seeks to implement an international strategy but in 2003, while recovering from the Argentine financial crisis, globalization plans are thwarted. Already Latin America's leading candy producer and an exporter to over... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Currency; Global Strategy; Expansion; Balance and Stability; Food and Beverage Industry; Latin America; Argentina

November 2003 (Revised November 2005)
Case

Arcor: Global Strategy and Local Turbulence

Argentine confectionery manufacturer, Arcor Group, seeks to implement an international strategy but in 2003, recovering from the Argentine financial crisis, thwarts globalization plans. Already Latin America's leading candy producer and an exporter to over 100... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Decision Making; Global Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Argentina

February 2005 (Revised April 2011)
Case

Haier's U.S. Refrigerator Strategy

By: Pankaj Ghemawat, Thomas M. Hout and Jordan I. Siegel

Haier, the first Chinese consumer durable brand in the United States, succeeded in the compact refrigerator, freezer, and air conditioner markets and then built a U.S. factory to enter the full-size market. Issues include the value of a local entrepreneur to the Asian... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants; Global Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Market Entry and Exit; Competitive Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; China; United States

2016
Chapter

Luxury Branding Research: New Perspectives and Future Priorities

By: Anat Keinan, Sandrine Crener and Silvia Bellezza

Several major trends have changed the landscape for luxury brands. These shifts include the increasing role of technology (digital and mobile) as well as the use by consumers of alternative signals of status, such as wearing less prominently branded apparel, being less... View Details

Keywords: Luxury; Brands and Branding

Register to Read

Read Now

12 Jun 2006
Research & Ideas

The Promise of Channel Stewardship

Rewards Of Channel Stewardship The concept of channel stewardship is meant to appeal to any organization in the distribution channel that wants to bring a disciplined approach to channel strategy. As mentioned, a channel steward might be... View Details

Keywords: by V. Kasturi Rangan & Marie Bell; Consumer Products

December 2007
Article

Learning to Live with Governments: Unilever in India and Turkey, 1950-1980

By: G. Jones

A noteworthy characteristic of the contemporary global economy is the uneven distribution of world foreign direct investment (FDI). In 2007 three-quarters of world FDI was located in developed countries. The residual was concentrated in a small number of emerging... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Ethics; Foreign Direct Investment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Consumer Products Industry; India; Turkey

Find at Harvard

June 1989 (Revised January 1992)
Case

Ingersoll-Rand (A): Managing Multiple Channels--1985

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and E. Raymond Corey

James Clabough, marketing vice president at Ingersoll-Rand, has to decide on the distribution policy for a new product. The decision has marketing as well as organizational ramifications. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Leadership Style; Marketing Channels; Product Launch; Distribution

March 2005
Case

Henkel Iberica (A)

By: Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez, V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem

In 2002, Esteban Garriga, customer service director at Henkel Iberica, questions whether Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR) would help manage retail promotions and limit their impact on the stock-outs and obsolete inventory. Describes the... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Forecasting and Prediction; Price; Distribution Channels; Strategic Planning; Commercialization; Valuation; Rail Industry; Germany; Spain

Research Summary

Overview

My work examines the social and economic processes that generate innovation and distribute its rewards in society, in the context of the United States over the past twenty years. For isntance, I have shown that in recent decades product innovations have... View Details

April 2003 (Revised October 2004)
Case

Novartis: The Challenge of Success (A)

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Stacy McManus

Preliminary results from Phase 1 clinical trials of a newly developed compound, STI571, showed that 31 out of 31 patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) had their blood counts return to normal. In the world of oncology, this was unheard of. This was the... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Health Testing and Trials; Innovation and Invention; Markets; Distribution; Product Development; Production; Problems and Challenges; Research; Research and Development; Complexity; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

23 Oct 2007
First Look

First Look: October 23, 2007

unequal initial endowments. As a result, with respect to efficiency, the initially more unequal economy fares worse in the short run but better in the long run, and the disparity of wealth distributions across economies mitigates over... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Teaching Interest

Supply Chain Management

By: Kris Johnson Ferreira

The Supply Chain Management (SCM) course builds on aspects of the first-year Technology and Operations Management (RC TOM) course. However, whereas RC TOM focuses primarily on developing and producing products and services, SCM emphasizes managing... View Details

August 1993 (Revised April 1994)
Case

Flanders of Springfield

By: Arthur Schleifer Jr.

Flanders is a catalog merchandiser. Various decisions on catalog distribution policy, ordering and inventory policy, and catalog format design are considered. This was a final examination, and serves as a review for a number of topics in the course. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Policy; Distribution; Product Design; Supply Chain; Mathematical Methods; Consumer Products Industry