Publications

18 Oct 2018
Research & Ideas

How to Use Free Shipping as a Competitive Weapon

ablokhin Free shipping is an increasingly important tool in the online retailer's marketing arsenal, but few sellers understand the intricacies of the strategy and are leaving significant profits on the table, new research suggests.... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Retail

June 2001
Case

Competitive Dynamics in Home Video Games (I): The Sony PlayStation

Describes Sony's entry into the home video-game market and its strategy for gaining market share. A rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details

Keywords: Competition; Market Entry and Exit; Video Game Industry

March 2025 (Revised May 2025)
Case

ING Türkiye: Flexible Work in a Competitive Banking Environment

By: Ashley Whillans and Nico Schaefer

This case explores ING Türkiye’s journey toward workplace flexibility within the traditionally conservative Turkish banking sector. Beginning with early remote work experiments in 2015 and culminating in the FlexING model, by 2024 ING Türkiye had positioned itself as a... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Employee Relationship Management; Working Conditions; Business or Company Management; Adaptation; Competition; Organizational Culture; Banking Industry; Turkey

07 Nov 2007
Op-Ed

How Marketing Hype Hurt Boeing and Apple

Editor's Note: Harvard Business School professor John Quelch writes a blog on marketing issues, called Marketing Know: How, for Harvard Business Online. It is reprinted on HBS Working Knowledge. Last month,... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Aerospace; Consumer Products

February 2000 (Revised June 2003)
Case

Pepcid AC: Racing to the OTC Market

By: Charles King III, Alvin J. Silk, Ernst R. Berndt and Lisa R. Klein

Pepcid management must decide whether to risk all in a race to be first in the over-the-counter market with a new heartburn remedy. View Details

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Product Positioning; Markets; Research; Marketing Strategy; Product Development; Decision Choices and Conditions; Pharmaceutical Industry

February 23, 2022
Article

Can WEB3 Bring Back Competition to Digital Platforms?

By: Christian Catalini and Scott Duke Kominers

Like the early Internet, blockchain and Web3 applications promise a new wave of decentralization and competition—yet at the same time, it is unclear which of the dynamics that drove concentration in online platforms and services will remain in force under the Web3... View Details

Keywords: Web3; Blockchain; Interoperability; Internet and the Web; Technological Innovation; Competition; Digital Platforms

26 Aug 2013
Lessons from the Classroom

Built for Global Competition from the Start

Thanks to the Internet, entrepreneurs are no longer confined to a local geography when building a new business—the world can be their market from day one. But building a startup as a global business requires managers with skills and... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Education

January 2002 (Revised March 2011)
Case

Finland and Nokia: Creating the World's Most Competitive Economy

By: Michael E. Porter and Orjan Solvell

Finland, with a special language and culture, has developed as a country in between the west (the Nordic region and Europe) and the east (especially its neighbor Russia). In the 1980s, a process started of moving out of an investment-driven economy into an... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Economic Growth; Growth and Development Strategy; Industry Clusters; Business and Government Relations; Competitive Strategy; Telecommunications Industry; Finland

27 Oct 2002
Research & Ideas

Want a Happy Customer? Coordinate Sales and Marketing

service lines, market segments, and competitive positioning. Marketing did the thinking, managed the brand and consumer franchise in consumer goods companies, and provided... View Details

Keywords: by Benson Shapiro

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

2006
Chapter

Competitiveness in Developing Economies: The Role of Clusters and Cross-Cutting Policies

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

Competitiveness is high up on the policy agenda for countries around the world and at all stages of development. But while there is little disagreement that countries need to "upgrade their competitiveness"—even more so as the level of globalization is increasing—there... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Framework; Globalization; Policy; Growth and Development; Industry Clusters; Competitive Strategy

September 2024 (Revised October 2024)
Case

River Remedy: Navigating Mississippi’s Medical Marijuana Market

By: Robin Greenwood, Richard S. Ruback and Robert Ialenti

MBA student William Chism, the founder of a fully integrated medical marijuana company based in Mississippi, must respond to a significant disruption in the fledgling industry. In late 2023, Rapid Analytics, one of two active licensed testing facilities, has its... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Business Growth and Maturation; Forecasting and Prediction; Microeconomics; Local Range; Government Legislation; Demand and Consumers; Supply and Industry; Competitive Strategy; Governance Controls; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Mississippi

October 2004 (Revised July 2013)
Case

Making China Beautiful: Shiseido and the China Market

By: Geoffrey G. Jones, Akiko Kanno and Masako Egawa

Describes the multinational growth of Shiseido, the world's fourth-largest cosmetics company, with a focus on its strategy in China since 1981. Explores the challenges facing firms in the globalization of a culturally specific industry such as cosmetics. The Japanese... View Details

Keywords: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Globalized Firms and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Resource Allocation; Competition; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; China; Japan

August 2022
Article

The U.S. Approach to Antitrust Policy in Technology Markets

By: Shane Greenstein

This report illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. approach to antitrust policy by drawing lessons from three cases: United States v. AT&T, United States v. Microsoft, and United States v. Google. The cases against AT&T and Microsoft are historical cases,... View Details

Keywords: Antitrust; Lawsuits and Litigation; Information Technology; Competition

21 Jun 2010
Research & Ideas

Strategy and Execution for Emerging Markets

key questions: In this particular market, which market institutions are working, and which institutions are missing? Which parts of our business model can be adversely affected by these institutional voids? How can we build View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

April 2011 (Revised May 2011)
Class Lecture

Winning in Emerging Markets (FSS)

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Tarun Khanna

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Competitive Strategy

Research Summary

"Pricing Practices and Market Power in International Cellular Telephone Markets" (with Dana Nunn)

As the cellular telephone market continues to grow throughout the globe, countries must determine how to best promote market growth and innovation while protecting consumers and ensuring competitive rates. The conventional wisdom has been that introducing competition... View Details

February 2018
Article

Auctions versus Posted Prices in Online Markets

By: Liran Einav, Chiara Farronato, Jonathan Levin and Neel Sundaresan

Auctions were very popular in the early days of internet commerce, but today online sellers mostly use posted prices. We model the choice between auctions and posted prices as a trade-off between competitive price discovery and convenience. Evidence from eBay fits the... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Auctions; Price

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