Customer Focus and Relationships - Publications - Faculty & Research

06 Jun 2005
Research & Ideas

Don’t Listen to “Yes”

how to manage conflict constructively, and they must attend to hurt feelings and damaged relationships that may not have been apparent during the process itself. Keeping... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

19 Dec 2012
Research & Ideas

How to be Extremely Productive

and maintained rewarding relationships with his wife and their two children. “It takes a lot more than organizing your schedule to be productive.” In a widely read Harvard... View Details

Keywords: by Deborah Blagg

22 Aug 2011
Research & Ideas

Getting to Eureka!: How Companies Can Promote Creativity

motivated state, focusing on the deadline, the profitability goals," she says. "Ideally, they will still be passionate about the work, but it's important at that point to focus in and to make sure... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

03 Dec 2012
HBS Case

HBS Cases: Against the Grain

weaknesses that underlie corruption everywhere. As an emerging professional he must also weigh the trust value of the personal relationships he is forming; his own comfort zone for ethical trade-offs; and... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Food & Beverage

25 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Should You Sell Your Digital Privacy?

in a recent working paper, Market Solutions to Privacy Problems? And what would consumers get in return for their personal information? Money perhaps, or price discounts, better customer service, maybe... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls & Sean Silverthorne; Advertising

21 Apr 2020
Research & Ideas

7 Successful Battle Strategies to Beat COVID-19

to solve challenges for customers quickly without a supervisor's approval. This capability is one reason why an analyst on Bloomberg recently opined that Southwest might be the airline best prepared to adapt View Details

Keywords: by Euvin Naidoo

15 Aug 2005
HBS Case

Classic Cases Live On at HBS

reading in a trade publication about Benihana's innovative and efficient use of labor and layout to lower costs and facilitate customer... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons

26 Aug 2008
First Look

First Look: August 26, 2008

b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=808033 The Home Depot, Inc. Harvard Business School Case 608-093 For its first 20 years, Home Depot was known for its entrepreneurial spirit and focus on View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

23 May 2019
Book

These Entrepreneurs Take a Pragmatic Approach to Solving Social Problems

In 1908, Harvard Business School’s first dean, Edwin Francis Gay, welcomed the School’s inaugural class of 59 students by saying that HBS was challenged with encouraging its students to have the “intellectual respect for business as a profession, with the social... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Green Technology

05 Dec 2007
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Managing Marketing

store; simultaneously, new customers are attracted to the direct channels, perhaps due to a branding effect stemming from the publicity surrounding the new store, which makes customers more aware of View Details

24 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

Who Sets Your Benchmarks?

pursuing your goals accordingly. In this excerpt, he discusses the unfortunate and all-too-common tendency to focus on extrinsic rather than intrinsic motivators. Who Sets Your Benchmarks? From, What You're... View Details

07 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Market Investors Pay More for Resilient Companies

The steep market drop in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis is being used as a laboratory to study the importance of companies investing in stakeholder relations with their employees, suppliers, and customers, and how those investments could be strategic resources... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Financial Services

07 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

How the U.S. Army Develops Leaders

focus on professional identity—the BE component—we turned to the literature on adolescent and adult identity development. Our work was grounded in the constructive-developmental theory of Harvard... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Value Judgments: Business Ethics Across Borders

the CEO of this collective enterprise was the need to focus the attention of the work force on performance issues. "His task was to create a value system that favors personal accountability, emphasizes product quality, View Details

Keywords: by Judith A. Ross

16 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Confronting the Reality of Web Services

challenge comes as all stakeholders get together and hammer out common definitions. This might not seem like the kind of work that leads to disputes, but it is. In most companies, questions like the following would lead to heated... View Details

Keywords: by Sara Grant

31 Mar 2002
Research & Ideas

You’re Wasting Your Employees! What You Can Do About It

definition, competency-based strategies are dependent on people: Scarce knowledge and expertise drive new-product development, and personal relationships with key clients are... View Details

Keywords: by Christopher A. Bartlett & Sumantra Ghoshal

19 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

Funding Innovation: Is Your Firm Doing it Wrong?

But it also details VC's shortcomings: a narrow focus on certain industries and geographies, volatile feast-or-famine funding cycles, the expectation of quick returns, and a... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

03 Mar 2014
HBS Case

Decommoditizing the Canned Tomato

long-running family agricultural businesses: emphasizing high-quality raw materials, building close relationships with farmers, and spending on vigorous marketing and... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Agriculture & Agribusiness; Food & Beverage; Retail

04 Mar 2015
What Do You Think?

Can a Laissez-Faire Approach Fix Labor Market Inequality?

effect of the move on Walmart's average wage levels is quite small. What is more significant is Walmart's announcement that it will provide more regular work schedules, increased opportunities for advancement, and a View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

18 Apr 2019
Research & Ideas

Open Innovation Contestants Build AI-Based Cancer Tool

relationship and rapidly incorporated the expertise and perspectives of Dr. Raymond Mak, a radiation oncologist who became an important member of the team for this study. In... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Health; Medical Devices & Supplies

Publications