Publications

April 1989 (Revised October 2005)
Case

James Burke: A Career in American Business (A)

By: Richard S. Tedlow and Wendy Smith

Presents an historical overview of the professional career of James E. Burke, chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson. Examines the corporation's handling of three major occurrences--the Tylenol poisonings in 1982 and 1986 and the acquisition and subsequent sale of... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Marketing Strategy; Ethics; Personal Development and Career; Crisis Management; Consumer Products Industry; Health Industry; United States

January 2008 (Revised September 2009)
Case

Financing American Housing Construction in the Aftermath of War

By: David Moss and Cole Bolton

At the start of WWI, the United States faced a significant housing shortage. Public officials feared the spread of disease—and even communism—in the nation's cramped urban centers where vacancy rates held near zero and families often "doubled up" in single-housing... View Details

Keywords: Central Banking; Bonds; Mortgages; Government Legislation; Business History; Housing; Banking Industry; United States

December 2005 (Revised March 2010)
Case

William Levitt, Levittown and the Creation of American Suburbia

By: Nitin Nohria, Anthony Mayo and Mark Benson

Demand for low-cost housing after World War II far exceeded supply. Was this a profitable new market? New York developer William Levitt had to decide. During World War II, Levitt was eager to build basic housing for the working class—otherwise, Levitt & Sons would have... View Details

Keywords: Demographics; Construction; Business History; Housing; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Development; Business and Government Relations; Construction Industry; Real Estate Industry; United States; New York (state, US)

February 2001 (Revised August 2001)
Case

Henry Heinz: Making Markets for Processed Foods

By: Nancy F. Koehn

Outlines many of the supply-side innovations, such as improved transportation, communication, and technological developments, that greatly expanded the productive capacity of the United States in the late 19th century. Explores a range of demand-side shifts, including... View Details

Keywords: Demand and Consumers; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Supply and Industry; Innovation and Invention; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

25 Oct 2010
HBS Case

Tesco’s Stumble into the US Market

hours. Do you have advice for companies about revisiting original assumptions? Do companies new to the American market have to do this reassessment more frequently or look for different things? A: Tesco has... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

May 2008
Teaching Note

Subprime Meltdown: American Housing and Global Financial Turmoil

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

Teaching Note for [708042]. View Details

Keywords: Mortgages; Debt Securities; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Markets; Financial Crisis; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Central Banking; Policy; United States; Europe

July 2013
Case

Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate?

By: John A. Quelch and Diane Badame

Andrea Torres, director of new product development at a high-end chocolate confectionery company, leads her team through a carefully sequenced program of market research to support the development and launch of a new product, healthy dark chocolate with fruit. This is... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Food; Consumer Behavior; Nutrition; Product Launch; Product Development; Food and Beverage Industry; Switzerland; United States

December 2004 (Revised February 2005)
Case

Exporting Spanish Olive Oil to the U.S. Market

By: Ray A. Goldberg, Hal Hogan and Miguel Angel Llano Irusta

Spain is the largest olive oil producer, yet it sells much of its product to Italy, where it is repackaged as Italian olive oil. The decision maker in the case wants to develop Spain as the olive oil leader not just in production but in quality and value added. He... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Trade; Goods and Commodities; Demand and Consumers; Supply and Industry; Brands and Branding; Decisions; Customization and Personalization; Product Design; Product Development; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Spain; United States; Italy

16 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Researchers Contribute Globalization of Markets Papers

Twenty years has provided time to judge the success or failure of Theodore Levitt's predictions of a global economy populated by standardized products and marketing approaches. For the colloquium, a number of Harvard Business School and... View Details

Keywords: by Working Knowledge editors

09 Nov 2016
Op-Ed

6 Lessons from Donald Trump's Winning Marketing Manual

Donald Trump's victory may be a surprise—but not to astute marketers. Here are six important lessons from Trump's brand marketing playbook: Give consumers a job. The best marketing campaigns always call on... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch

30 Jul 2007
Research & Ideas

Repugnant Markets and How They Get That Way

there already is a market for kidney sales, but it is illegal and dangerous. A lot of abuses happen in the illegal kidney markets. For example, in China they get organs from executed prisoners. They defend it. They say, "You View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

21 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

Will American Brands Be a Casualty of War?

to recruit the best distributors, and to capture market share from weaker, local competitors. Selling the American dream has paid off handsomely. Eight of the ten most valuable brands in the world, according... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

03 Sep 2020
Op-Ed

Why American Health Care Needs Its Own SEC

Commission. Why health care needs an SEC equivalent For more than eight decades, the SEC has brought transparency to the financial system, policing the market to ensure robust disclosure that complies with Generally Accepted Accounting... View Details

Keywords: by Regina E. Herzlinger; Health

2016
Working Paper

Patent Publication and the Market for Ideas

By: Deepak Hegde and Hong Luo

In this paper, we study the effect of invention disclosure through patent publication on the market for ideas. We do so by analyzing the effects of the American Inventor's Protection Act of 1999 (AIPA)—which required US patent applications to be published 18 months... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Biotechnology Industry