Publications

05 Jun 2009
What Do You Think?

What Does Slower Economic Growth Really Mean?

Summing Up If not useful growth, what are we measuring? And why? This column does not thrive on general agreement. And this past month discussants came close to general agreement on the proposition that economic growth is not measured... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Financial Services; Construction; Real Estate

October 1987 (Revised January 1999)
Case

Microsoft Corporation: The Introduction of Microsoft Works

Microsoft must decide how to design a new software product for global markets, identify the timing for entry into different countries, and position the product around the world. View Details

Keywords: Product Positioning; Applications and Software; Product Design; Product Launch; Globalized Markets and Industries; Information Technology Industry; United States

July 2003 (Revised October 2018)
Case

Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service

By: Youngme Moon and John Quelch

Starbucks, the dominant specialty-coffee brand in North America, must respond to recent market research indicating that the company is not meeting customer expectations in terms of service. To increase customer satisfaction, the company is debating a plan that would... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Profit; Recruitment; Marketing Strategy; Service Operations; Performance Improvement; Planning; Food and Beverage Industry

October 2007 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Dove: Evolution of a Brand

By: John A. Deighton

Examines the evolution of Dove from functional brand to a brand with a point of view after Unilever designated it as a masterbrand, and expanded its portfolio to cover entries into a number of sectors beyond the original bath soap category. The development causes the... View Details

Keywords: History; Expansion; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Digital Marketing; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

July 1993 (Revised August 1994)
Supplement

Sears Auto Centers (B)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Michael Santoro

Sears's CEO responds to the allegations. View Details

Keywords: Auto Industry

04 Nov 2015
HBS Seminar

Christian Fons-Rosen, Assistant Professor, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Department of Economics

Research Summary

Anti-Competitive Financial Contracting

Joint work with Giacinta Cestone, Institut d'Analisi Economica, Barcelona

This paper presents the first model where entry deterrence takes place through financial rather than product-market channels. In standard models of the interaction between product and... View Details

07 Mar 2017
News

UK prices rising faster after Brexit vote

03 Nov 2020
Working Paper Summaries

An Executive Order Worth $100 Billion: The Impact of an Immigration Ban’s Announcement on Fortune 500 Firms’ Valuation

Keywords: by Dany Bahar, Prithwiraj Choudhury, and Britta Glennon

27 Mar 2018
News

In The Wake Of The Cambridge Analytica Scandal, Should Mark Zuckerberg Resign?

17 Sep 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Input Constraints and the Efficiency of Entry: Lessons from Cardiac Surgery

Keywords: by David M. Cutler, Robert S. Huckman & Jonathan T. Kolstad; Health

2012
Article

Do Voters Demand Responsive Governments? Evidence from Indian Disaster Relief

By: Shawn Cole, Andrew Healy and Eric Werker

Using rainfall, public relief, and election data from India, we examine how governments respond to adverse shocks and how voters react to these responses. The data show that voters punish the incumbent party for weather events beyond its control. However, fewer voters... View Details

Keywords: Political Elections; System Shocks; Natural Disasters; Policy; Motivation and Incentives; Public Opinion; India

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September 1990 (Revised January 1992)
Case

Procter & Gamble Japan (A)

By: Michael Y. Yoshino

Ten years after entering Japan, P&G had accumulated over $250 million in operating losses on declining annual sales of $120 million by 1983. The decision facing the president of P&G International: exit, retrench or rebuild the operation? Ironically, the initial entry... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Change Management; Profit; Market Entry and Exit; Market Participation; Sales; Competition; Technology; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Japan

20 Nov 2019
Video

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed

Sir Fazle Abed, the founder of Bangladesh-based BRAC, the world’s largest NGO, narrates BRAC’s entry into the seed business as a way to provide better quality seeds to poor vegetable cultivators, emphasizing... View Details

December 2022
Article

Competition, Contracts, and Creativity: Evidence from Novel Writing in a Platform Market

By: Yanhui Wu and Feng Zhu

A growing number of people today are participating in the gig economy, working as independent contractors on short-term projects. We study the effects of competition on gig workers' effort and creativity on a Chinese novel-writing platform. Authors produce and sell... View Details

Keywords: Gig Workers; Platform-based Markets; Novel Writing; Creative Production; Platform Bias; Employment; Digital Platforms; Creativity; Books; Competition; Contracts

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2012
Working Paper

Componential Theory of Creativity

By: Teresa M. Amabile

The componential theory of creativity is a comprehensive model of the social and psychological components necessary for an individual to produce creative work. The theory is grounded in a definition of creativity as the production of ideas or outcomes that are both... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Theory; Social Psychology; Organizational Culture

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August 2010 (Revised October 2010)
Case

Patagonia

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Hyunjin Kim and Forest L. Reinhardt

Patagonia was deeply committed to the environment. This commitment, at times, conflicted with the company's goal to create the most innovative products in its industry. Patagonia's founder and executives welcomed imitation of both its environmental commitment and its... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Environmental Sustainability; Business Model; Business Strategy; Expansion; Consumer Products Industry