Publications

February 1992 (Revised September 2003)
Case

Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation (A-1)

By: Lynn S. Paine

The CEO of Beech-Nut Nutrition Corp. must decide what to do when he receives information that the company's supply of apple juice concentrate may be adulterated. The concentrate is used in many of the company's juice products. It appears that others in the company may... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Law; Ethics; Nutrition; Management Teams; Decisions; Business or Company Management; Communication; Governance Compliance; Information Management; Corporate Finance; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

November 2006 (Revised December 2006)
Case

Pitney Bowes Inc.

By: Clayton M. Christensen and Ho Howard Yu

Pitney Bowes, the world's dominant maker of equipment used in generating and handling mail, is facing flattening growth in its core businesses and needs to create new growth products and businesses. Describes how a group of employees use state-of-the-art techniques for... View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Distribution Channels; Growth and Development Strategy; Manufacturing Industry

2022
Working Paper

Human-Computer Interactions in Demand Forecasting and Labor Scheduling Decisions

By: Caleb Kwon, Ananth Raman and Jorge Tamayo

We empirically analyze how managerial overrides to a commercial algorithm that forecasts demand and schedules labor affect store performance. We analyze administrative data from a large grocery retailer that utilizes a commercial algorithm to forecast demand and... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Human Capital; Performance; Applications and Software; Management Skills; Management Practices and Processes; Retail Industry

SSRN

July 1990 (Revised August 1995)
Case

Symantec--1982-90

By: Nitin Nohria

As Symantec grew from a small, upstart software development company to a major player in the software development industry, the channels of information flow and the internal communication needs of the company became more complex. The geographically-dispersed structure... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Communication Technology; Communication; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Employee Relationship Management; Growth and Development; Knowledge Dissemination; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Management; Information Technology Industry; United States

Research Summary

(formerly Leonard-Barton) Creating and Exploiting Knowledge-Based Assets

By: Dorothy A. Leonard

For the past decade, Dorothy Leonard's research has focused on how companies develop and exploit strategically advantageous knowledge assets. In her 1995 book Wellsprings of Knowledge (HBS Press), she identified and described in depth, activities that create and... View Details

The Business of Entertainment, Media, and Sports

In the business of entertainment, digital technologies are dramatically disrupting the way products are developed, marketed, and distributed. As a result of this paradigm shift, entertainment executives and content producers are challenged to effectively allocate... View Details

April 1993 (Revised July 1994)
Case

MathSoft, Inc. (A)

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

MathSoft's VP of sales has doubled the size of the company's direct field sales force to support the launch of a new, high-end workstation software product priced at almost $9,000. However, sales of the new product are far below plan. At the same time, the VP of... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Applications and Software; Communication Strategy; Salesforce Management; Marketing Channels; Advertising; Product Launch; Information Technology Industry; Industrial Products Industry; United States

August 2014
Case

Netflix in 2011

By: Willy Shih and Stephen Kaufman

Reed Hastings founded Netflix to provide a home movie service that would do a better job satisfying customers than the traditional retail rental model. But as it encountered challenges it underwent several major strategy shifts, ultimately developing a business model... View Details

Research Summary

Overview

By: Antonio Moreno

One major theme of Professor Moreno’s research has been retail channel integration and so-called “omnichannel retail.” In omnichannel retail, retailers provide their customers with a shopping experience that may involve different channels in a way that aims to be... View Details

Profile

Jason A. Kilar

Such praise emanates from Kilar’s experience ingesting the countless business lessons he said he learned from Bezos. “I was so lucky to have him as my manager and I did my best to observe and listen and soak up the many lessons he... View Details

2019
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 9 Organizing to Rationalize

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The purpose of this chapter is to explain what the technologies of flow production with stochastic bottlenecks require and reward in organizations. I argue that organizations successfully implementing these technologies are likely to have unified governance and... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Organizational Design; Management Teams; Business History

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September 1992 (Revised July 1994)
Case

MEM Company, Inc.: English Leather

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Laura Goode

In 1992, the president of MEM (a producer of personal care products, including men's fragrances) considered a redeployment of field sales efforts and changes in sales compensation policies. Any changes, moreover, must consider the context of strategic decisions... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Brands and Branding; Product Positioning; Consumer Behavior; Distribution Channels; Business Strategy; Consumer Products Industry

July 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Case

XM Satellite Radio (A)

By: David B. Godes and Elie Ofek

XM Satellite Radio is a radically new way to listen to radio. Management must develop a marketing strategy to launch the firm and the category. A crucial aspect of the strategy is to determine which of two business models the company will pursue. Should it focus... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Cost Management; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Partners and Partnerships; Sales; Competitive Strategy; Communications Industry

November 2000 (Revised May 2002)
Case

FleetBoston Financial: Online Banking

By: Frances X. Frei and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar

As the ninth largest bank holding company in the United States in 2000, FleetBoston Financial Corp. provided a myriad of financial services, including retail banking, loan origination, and brokerage accounts. This case explores how FleetBoston responded to the Internet... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Borrowing and Debt; Cost Management; Banks and Banking; Consumer Behavior; Service Operations; Competition; Online Technology; Banking Industry; United States

September 2012 (Revised July 2014)
Case

Blackstone's Investment in Intelenet

By: Josh Lerner, Sandeep Bapat and Rachna Tahilyani

Three years had passed since Blackstone's investment in Intelenet Global Services, their third largest investment in India. Great progress had been made, but now a new challenge loomed. Globank, a large global bank, was Intelenet's largest customer. Intelenet's... View Details

Keywords: India; Blackstone; Private Equity; Financial Services Industry; India