Publications

13 Mar 2019
News

Washington banks try to lure customers with stylish branches

01 May 2009
What Do You Think?

Do Innovation and Entrepreneurship Have to Be Incompatible with Organization Size?

Summing Up Where are the leaders that can help elephants avoid a stall? Like a good case study, this month's question divided respondents nearly down the middle on the question of whether or not organizations naturally "stall"... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

09 Nov 2022
Blog Post

Building Community: Meet the HBS Latino Student Organization Leadership

The Latino Student Organization (LASO) proudly promotes and supports Harvard Business School’s Latino students and works alongside the Latino Alumni Association (HBSLAA). Representing a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, interests,... View Details

Teaching Interest

Managing Human Capital: Keeping Hope Alive in Organizations (Not offered 2013-2014)

Managing Human Capital has been specifically designed to teach practical skills for the general manager who seeks to manage both other people and his or her own career with optimal effectiveness. Any and all students who believe they will need to effectively manage... View Details

16 May 2016
HBS Case

Food Safety Economics: The Cost of a Sick Customer

Chipotle Mexican Grill’s ongoing struggle to win customers back months after a contaminated food crisis highlights the challenges companies face with keeping food safe. Chipotle has seen its shares tumble and recently reported its... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Food & Beverage

2006
Article

The Long-Term Value of M&A Activity to Enhance Learning Organizations

Viewing the automobile industry as being made up of independent learning-organisations may reveal some tie-ups that can generate value not easily revealed by traditional financial metrics. The key question to be answered when considering M&A activity between automakers... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Processes; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry

Research Summary

Overview

By: Eva Ascarza

Professor Ascarza’s research primarily focuses on providing researchers and marketers a better understanding of how to manage customer retention so as to reduce churn and increase firm’s profitability. She addresses these issues by building empirical models of customer... View Details

August 2013
Article

Lords of the Harvest: Third-party Influence and Regulatory Approval of Genetically Modified Organisms

By: Shon R. Hiatt and Sangchan Park

Little is known about the factors that influence regulatory-agency decision making. We posit that regulatory agencies are influenced by the firms they regulate, but not exclusively via dyadic exchanges as is traditionally argued in the regulatory capture and... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Government and Politics; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; United States

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13 Dec 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Acting Globally but Thinking Locally? The Influence of Local Communities on Organizations

Keywords: by Christopher Marquis & Julie Battilana

10 Oct 2018
Research & Ideas

The Legacy of Boaty McBoatface: Beware of Customers Who Vote

public. Boaty blowback highlights the potential danger of giving consumers the power to vote, even though customer engagement is a primary goal of almost every social media strategy. The problem: Even though NERC never explicitly promised... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising

February 2006
Case

Millions of Customers and the Search for a Business: the Challenge of IRC-Hispano

Like many online services, IRC-Hispano, the world's largest Spanish-language chat organization, has many customers but sees few revenues. As an association, its structure presents many limitations and hurdles to overcome involving investing in technology platform... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Decision Choices and Conditions; Digital Platforms; Technology Adoption; Internet and the Web; Organizational Structure; Technological Innovation; Revenue; Web Services Industry; Technology Industry; Spain

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2011
Other Unpublished Work

Lords of the Harvest: Third-Party Signaling and Regulatory Approval of Genetically Modified Organisms

By: Shon R. Hiatt and Sangchan Park

Little is known about the factors that influence regulatory agencies' decision making. We posit that regulatory agencies are influenced by the firms they regulate, but not exclusively via political influence as is argued in the traditional regulatory-capture... View Details

Keywords: Genetics; Decision Choices and Conditions; Reputation; Agribusiness; Power and Influence; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; United States

August 2014
Case

Opening the Valve: From Software to Hardware (A)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats

Valve, one of the world's top video game software companies, has also become an iconic example of an organization with virtually no hierarchy. A 400-person organization, Valve's unique organizational form (described in detail in the case and accompanying employee... View Details

Article

Fighting Bias on the Front Lines

By: Alexandra C. Feldberg and Tami Kim

Most companies aim for exceptional customer service, but too few are attentive to the subtle discrimination by frontline employees that can alienate customers, lead to lawsuits, or even cause lasting brand damage by going viral.
This article presents research... View Details

Keywords: Customer Service; Customer Focus and Relationships; Service Delivery; Diversity; Prejudice and Bias; Organizational Change and Adaptation

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March 2021 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Seeding and Selling Asana

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Susie Ma and Amram Migdal

In December 2019, Oliver Jay, Asana’s Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), was reconsidering his go-to-market (GTM) strategy. Asana was cloud-based work management software that enabled users to break up projects into discrete tasks that could be assigned, scheduled, and... View Details

Keywords: SaaS; Customer Journey; Business Model; Business Organization; Change Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Technology Industry; United States

October 2020 (Revised March 2021)
Case

Pete Carroll: Building a Winning Organization through Purpose, Caring, and Inclusion

By: Ranjay Gulati, Matthew Breitfelder and Monte Burke

Competing at the highest levels of the National Football League (NFL) requires tremendous skill, dedication and persistence. The most successful coaches in the NFL know how to draw out a higher level of performance and consistency from their players. This is typically... View Details

Keywords: National Football League; Leadership Style; Organizational Culture; Mission and Purpose; Relationships; Performance; Success; Sports; Sports Industry