Publications

Find at Harvard

2015
Government Testimony

Price Coherence in Online Platforms — Impact and Responses

By: Benjamin Edelman and Julian Wright

We examine the role of price coherence in shaping market structure and offer policy recommendations to advance both efficiency and equity. View Details

Keywords: Price Coherence; Price Parity; MFN; Distribution Channels; Market Design; Travel Industry; Financial Services Industry

January 2016
Teaching Note

Accor: Strengthening the Brand with Digital Marketing

By: Jill Avery, Chekitan S. Dev and Peter O'Connor

Teaching Note for Accor: Strengthening the Brand with Digital Marketing case View Details

Keywords: Digital; Hospitality; Marketing; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Distribution Channels; Distribution; Travel Industry; France; Europe

2008
Teaching Note

Cycleon (A): Postal Networks for Reverse Logistics

By: David F. Drake, Atalay Atasu and Luk N. Van Wassenhove

Keywords: Logistics; Distribution Channels; Entrepreneurship

20 Dec 2004
Research & Ideas

How an Order Views Your Company

Over a dozen years ago, HBS professors Ben Shapiro and Kash Rangan conducted research with colleague John J. Sviokla, focusing on the impact that a company's order management cycle (OMC) has on customers. Think of OMC as the process that manages the customer's order... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Johnston

February 2007 (Revised May 2007)
Case

Li & Fung 2006

By: F. Warren McFarlan, William C. Kirby and Tracy Manty

Describes the opportunities and strategy facing one of the most innovative global supply-chain companies, and the strategy it has chosen to deal with the expanding demand for its services. Li & Fung links thousands of factories in India, China, and elsewhere to nearly... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Supply Chain Management; Distribution Channels; Global Range; Strategy; Information Technology; Distribution Industry; Distribution Industry; China; India; United States; Europe

Educators

2009
Working Paper

Crafting Integrated Multichannel Retailing Strategies

Multichannel retailing is the set of activities involved in selling merchandise or services to consumers through more than one channel. Multichannel retailers dominate today's retail landscape. While there are many benefits of operating multiple channels, these... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Distribution Channels; Sales; Integration; Retail Industry

06 Jul 2015
Research & Ideas

Money and Quotas Motivate the Sales Force Best

It's well understood that cash bonuses often motivate a sales force to step up its game, but they don't work in every scenario and in some cases can backfire, a new study from Harvard Business School has found. The key variable? Whether the sales rep had to do... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Retail

06 Nov 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Extending Producer Responsibility: An Evaluation Framework for Product Take-Back Policies

Keywords: by Michael W. Toffel, Antoinette Stein & Katharine L. Lee; Chemical

2008
Case

Cycleon (A): Postal Networks for Reverse Logistics.

By: David F. Drake, Atalay Atasu and Luk N. Van Wassenhove

Keywords: Logistics; Distribution Channels; Entrepreneurship

October 2003
Supplement

Strategic Inflection: TiVo in 2003 (B)

By: Christina Darwall, Pai-Ling Yin and David B. Yoffie

Spreadsheet for use with case (9-704-429). Download Only. (Examines the possibility of TIVo being a content distributor). View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Distribution Channels; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

17 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

Where Did My Shopping Mall Go?

formats now fit only a narrow segment of the population. Finally, much of retail growth over the last three decades has relied on aggregating volume to support a large store infrastructure. However, this volume may not materialize in any View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

Other Article

Online Discounting: Who is Leading the Race to the Bottom?

By: Ayelet Israeli, Eric Anderson and Anne Coughlan

A short review of the finidings in: Israeli, Ayelet, Eric Anderson, and Anne Coughlan. "Minimum Advertised Pricing: Patterns of Violation in Competitive Retail Markets." Marketing Science 35, no. 4 (July–August 2016): 539–564. View Details

Keywords: Pricing; Price Policies; Pricing Policies; Discounting; Retailing; Retailing Industry; Minimum Advertised Price; Ecommerce; E-Commerce Strategy; Price; Distribution Channels; Distribution; Digital Marketing; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Technology Industry; Advertising Industry; United States

21 May 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Incentives versus Reciprocity: Insights from a Field Experiment

Keywords: by Doug J. Chung & Das Narayandas

21 Oct 2002
Research & Ideas

The Parable of the Bungled Baggage And the Unhappy Customer

Late-arriving luggage proved to be a parable about customer service for Harvard Business School professor W. Earl Sasser. In this excerpted transcript from a new video CD presentation, Sasser discusses how a seemingly harmless budget trim upended an airline's plan to... View Details

Keywords: by W. Earl Sasser

2015
Working Paper

Markets with Price Coherence

By: Benjamin Edelman and Julian Wright

In markets with price coherence, the purchase of a given good via an intermediary is constrained to occur at the same price as a purchase of that same good directly from the seller (or through another competing intermediary). We examine ten markets with price... View Details

Keywords: Intermediaries; Platforms; Two-Sided Markets; Vertical Restraints; Price; Distribution Channels; Business History; Financial Services Industry; Travel Industry; Insurance Industry; Real Estate Industry; Advertising Industry

January 2007
Case

Lou Pritchett: Negotiating the P&G Relationship with Wal-Mart

By: James K. Sebenius and Ellen Knebel

Describes several internal and external negotiations in the 1980s that led to a significant and growing partnership between Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Wal-Mart. From the perspective of Lou Pritchett, P&G's Vice President of Sales and Customer Development, the unfolding... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Negotiation; Distribution Channels; Partners and Partnerships; Sales

Educators

2025
Working Paper

New Product Diffusion Within Retailers: The Effect of Managerial Quality on Rollout

By: Tomomichi Amano and Jorge Tamayo

Retailers are key intermediaries through which consumers encounter innovation in the form of new products. How are these products rolled out within retailers? We observe significant variation in the availability of new products across stores in a large retail chain in... View Details

Keywords: Managerial Quality; Firm Performance; Diffusion Of Innovation; New Product Rollout; Retailing; Distribution Channels; Product Launch; Management Skills; Retail Industry; Colombia

SSRN

April 1998
Case

Geffen Records

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

Geffen Records faces new challenges due to emerging technologies, namely, streaming audio and CD-recordable drives. These technologies have the ability to reshape the foundation on which the music industry is founded. A rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Change Management; Distribution Channels; Music Industry

Educators

August 2018
Teaching Note

Magpie: Developing and Using Buyer Personas

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Teaching Note for HBS No. 818-013. Magpie is a startup with a platform that allows publishers to natively tag the products discussed in their content and thus allows consumers to purchase those products without needing to leave that publisher’s web page. A key aspect... View Details

Keywords: Buying Process; Marketing; Sales; Distribution Channels; Segmentation; Entrepreneurship; Social Media; Consumer Products Industry; Fashion Industry; United States