Publications

July 2005 (Revised July 2006)
Case

Icebreaker: The US Entry Decision

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Dan Heath

Jeremy Moon, CEO of Icebreaker, merino wool, outdoor apparel manufacturer, believed the company could be a big hit in the United States, despite the presence of entrenched rivals. But Icebreaker clearly needed a new distribution approach. One option was to position... View Details

Keywords: Market Entry and Exit; Distribution Channels; Product Launch; Product Development; Brands and Branding; Manufacturing Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry; New Zealand; United States

03 Oct 2005
Research & Ideas

The Truck Driver Who Reinvented Shipping

states adopted a new series of weight restrictions and levying fees. Truck trailers passing through multiple states could be fined for excessively heavy loads. It became a... View Details

Keywords: by Anthony J. Mayo & Nitin Nohria; Manufacturing; Transportation; Aerospace

03 Sep 2013
First Look

First Look: September 3

Initiative "The New Carolina Initiative" explores the process of fostering competitiveness in the subnational region, South Carolina, one of the poorest states in the United States. The case has... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Sep 2023
News

Money Does Grow on (Family) Trees

behalf of the deceased. To assist its members in their research, the Genealogical Society established a library. By 1912, it proudly boasted a collection of 2,000 genealogical volumes, primarily from New England and the mid-Atlantic... View Details

Keywords: April White; Illustrations by Fabio Consoli; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information

18 Nov 2008
First Look

First Look: November 18, 2008

publicly traded firms in the United States under scrutiny. This case examines perceived excessive pay and severance packages at several firms implicated in the credit crisis of 2008, the executive compensation provisions in the Emergency... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

03 May 2010
Research & Ideas

What Is the Future of MBA Education?

new book, Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads. Employing a wealth of interviews and quantitative data, their book takes the first comprehensive approach in decades to examine the evolving MBA marketplace and its threats... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

01 Sep 2023
News

Action Plan: In Context

New Guinea, Taiwan, Britain, and the United States. She had already been dispensing advice informally to Chinese acquaintances who wanted to know, for instance, what would happen at an American breakfast meeting. Despite this desire for... View Details

Keywords: April White; communication; manners; business; entrepreneurship; China; human behavior

March 2018 (Revised September 2019)
Case

Chewy.com (A)

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble

In late 2013, Ryan Cohen, cofounder and CEO of online pet products retailer Chewy.com, faces a “bet the company decision”—whether to stay with a third-party logistics provider (3PL) for all of its e-commerce fulfillment or to take the function in house. Cohen worries... View Details

Keywords: Pet Food; Pet Products; Retail; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Operations; Decision Choices and Conditions; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Service Industry; Florida; United States

20 Sep 2016
First Look

September 20, 2016

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51607 Designing Online Marketplaces: Trust and Reputation Mechanisms By: Luca, Michael Abstract—Online marketplaces have proliferated over the past decade, creating new markets where none... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 1989 (Revised May 1993)
Case

Rossin Greenberg Seronick & Hill, Inc. (A)

By: John A. Quelch

Rossin Greenberg Seronick & Hill (RGSH), a New England advertising agency, was keen to secure the account of Microsoft Corp. The case describes the bid for the account, which included the submission of a "flier" referring to knowledge of a competitor's plans, as a... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Marketing; Advertising; Advertising Industry; New England

October 2016 (Revised April 2018)
Case

DataXu: Selling Ad Tech

By: Frank V. Cespedes, John Deighton, Lisa Cox and Olivia Hull

DataXu served marketers by buying digital advertising for brands using its demand-side platform. It sought a way to build a more predictable revenue stream in the very transactional media marketplace, and hoped that two new marketing analytics products would give it a... View Details

Keywords: Sales Management; Pricing; Programmatic Ad Buying; ＂Marketing Analytics＂; Advertising Technology; Sales; Digital Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Advertising Campaigns; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Media; Technology Industry; Advertising Industry; Boston; Massachusetts

Web

Drivers of Competitiveness - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

HOW, NOT WHAT It is not what a location competes in that determines its prosperity, but how productively it competes. What Determines Competitiveness? Microeconomics Competitiveness Quality of the Business Environment State of Cluster... View Details

01 Nov 2017
What Do You Think?

What Are the Real Lessons of the Wells Fargo Case?

several years ago to encourage frontline employees to develop “deeper” relationships—defined by the number of the bank’s services utilized--with existing customers. However, the goals on which the incentives were based were so daunting that they raised the temptation... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Banking

Web

Technology & Innovation - Faculty & Research

and Maturation ; Competition ; Business Strategy ; Technology Industry ; United States Citation Educators Purchase Related Srinivasan, Suraj, Sudhanshu Nath Mishra, and Radhika Kak. "Windsurf and the AI Code Assistant Market." Harvard... View Details

June 2003 (Revised May 2004)
Exercise

The Pacific Sentinel: Role for Alex Martinez

By: Kathleen L. McGinn and Dina R. Pradel

A new publishing company has just purchased the Pacific Sentinel, a fictional West Coast newspaper. The new publisher is willing to invest $1 million in the future success of the paper and has asked the executive editor and advertising manager to develop a joint plan... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Acquisition; Business Strategy; Publishing Industry; Western United States

February 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Buddy Valastro: Cake Boss

By: Boris Groysberg, Evan M.S. Hecht and Katherine Connolly Baden

Buddy Valastro, celebrity baker and business owner, inherited his father’s bakery—Carlo’s Bake Shop of Hoboken, New Jersey—at the age of seventeen. He had willed the shop to survive and gone on to fame through his television show, “Cake Boss”—the name most people now... View Details

09 May 2018
Research & Ideas

A Simple Way for Restaurant Inspectors to Improve Food Safety

Restaurant inspectors can be the last line of defense between you and moldy bread. (HighLaZ) Simple tweaks to the schedules of food safety inspectors could result in hundreds of thousands of currently overlooked violations being discovered and cited across the United... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Food & Beverage; Service

September 2018
Supplement

King Arthur Flour Video Supplements

By: Paul D. McKinnon and Michael Norris

These video supplements update the King Arthur Flour case on the latest news and events at the company. View Details

Keywords: B-Corp; Benefit Corp; Co-CEO; Food and Beverage Industry; Vermont

July 2023
Case

Honeycomb

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Kumba Sennaar

Honeycomb, an audio app enabling seniors to record stories and save family memories, suddenly draws interest from a younger user demographic. The co-founders consider pivoting to better serve this new user demographic. How should they think about strategy, brand, and... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Operations; Business Startups; Customer Focus and Relationships; Age; Brands and Branding; Technology Industry; United States