Publications

2001
Dissertation

A Dilemma in Response: Examining the Newspaper Industry's Response to the Internet

By: Clark Gilbert

17 May 2004
Research & Ideas

Why We Don’t Study Corporate Responsibility

to their ethical conduct. Scholarly attention to ethics and values does indeed have an impact on business leaders' self-conception and resulting behavior. Q: Corporate social View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

October 2009 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Zappos.com 2009: Clothing, Customer Service, and Company Culture

By: Frances X. Frei, Robin J. Ely and Laura Winig

On July 17, 2009, Zappos.com, a privately held online retailer of shoes, clothing, and other soft line retail categories, learned that Amazon.com, a $19 billion multinational online retailer, had won its board of directors' approval to offer to merge the two companies.... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Internet and the Web; Valuation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

February 2024
Case

SundaySky: Changing Customer Experiences through Personalized Video

By: David C. Edelman and James Barnett

In June 2023, SundaySky CEO Jim Dicso considers growth strategies. The software-as-a-service company provided software to create advertising videos, customer service videos, and other videos, like employee training modules, and had begun to pilot a new generative... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Strategy; Technology Adoption; AI and Machine Learning; Applications and Software; Growth and Development Strategy; Advertising Industry; Technology Industry; United States

2013
Book

The Good Struggle: Responsible Leadership in an Unforgiving World

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.

The question of how to lead successfully and responsibly is crucially important in our uncertain, high-pressure, turbulent world. In this book, Joseph Badaracco answers this question in practical and, at times, provocative ways. View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Leadership Style

Article

The Cost Structure, Customer Profitability, and Retention Implications of Self-Service Distribution Channels: Evidence from Customer Behavior in an Online Banking Channel

By: Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei

This paper uses the context of online banking to investigate the consequences of employing self-service distribution channels to alter customer interactions with the firm. Using a sample of retail banking customers observed over a 30-month period at a large U.S. bank,... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Service Operations; Distribution Channels; Consumer Behavior; Internet and the Web; Banks and Banking; Technology Adoption; Service Delivery; Market Transactions; Market Participation; Profit; Retail Industry; Banking Industry; United States

July 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Supplement

Managing Customer Retention at Teleko

By: Eva Ascarza

This exercise aims to teach students about 1)Targeting Policies; and 2)Algorithmic decision making, 3) Retention management. View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Telecommunications Industry; Technology Industry; United States

30 Sep 2002
Research & Ideas

Your Crisis Response Plan: The Ten Effective Elements

organization's crisis response plans. Effective crisis response plans include the following ten elements: 1. A representative set of planning scenarios. It's essential to... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Watkins

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

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03 Feb 2016
Research & Ideas

The State of Customer Service Leadership

Breakthrough Service is Different.” What is your definition of breakthrough service, and why is it different? Sasser: Breakthrough services are those that provide extraordinary results and a high-quality experience for customers and... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner; Retail

March 2001 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Sustainable Development & Socially Responsible Investing: ABB in 2000

By: Forest L. Reinhardt

Several investment firms and mutual funds position themselves as providers or facilitators of opportunities for socially responsible investment. This case addresses the impact of these firms on publicly traded companies. Focuses on managers at ABB, a large... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Social Enterprise; Corporate Governance; Business Strategy; Capital Markets; Management Teams; Business and Community Relations; Trade; Electronics Industry; Switzerland

12 Jun 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Corporate Resilience and Response During COVID-19

Keywords: by Alex Cheema-Fox, Bridget LaPerla, George Serafeim, and Hui (Stacie) Wang

September 2022
Background Note

On CUE: The Quest for Optimal Customer Unit Economics

By: Elie Ofek, Barak Libai and Eitan Muller

Startups are often evaluated by how well they perform on unit economics, defined as the ratio of a customer’s lifetime value (LTV) to acquisition costs (CAC). A common target for unit economics, advocated by many VCs and analysts, is 3:1 (i.e., LTV/CAC=3). While there... View Details

Keywords: Unit Economics; Business Startups; Performance Evaluation; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Relationship Management; Analysis

4 Apr 1998
Conference Presentation

Responding to Changing Customer Needs: The Design of a Flexible Development Process

By: Alan MacCormack

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Design; Production

July 2017
Article

Business Responsibilities for Human Rights: A Commentary on Arnold

By: Nien-hê Hsieh

Human rights have come to play a prominent role in debates about the responsibilities of business. In the business ethics literature, there are two approaches to the question of whether businesses have human rights obligations. The “moral” approach conceives of human... View Details

Keywords: Rights; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Moral Sensibility; Society

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17 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Let Customers Call the Shots

technologies could be used to create a captive one-to-one relationship between firms and consumers, so that customers could literally be viewed as assets. We should start to... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

2014
Chapter

Customer Experience and Service Design

By: Uday S. Karmarkar and Uma R. Karmarkar

While services already dominate economic activity in all major economies in the world, there has been curiously little investigation into many aspects of service management. For example, while product design and development have received a great deal of attention, the... View Details

Keywords: Service Design; Service Management; Product Design; Service Operations; Customer Satisfaction; Service Industry