Publications

30 Apr 2024
Book

When Managers Set Unrealistic Expectations, Employees Cut Ethical Corners

willing to approve continued sales of a drug known to be lethal to some customers in fulfilment of their assigned role to maximise value for shareholders (Armstrong, 1977, p. 204). And so on. Yet, the insights from this research and their... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

16 Jan 2006
Research & Ideas

What Customers Want from Your Products

restaurant chain could deliver the product more effectively by moving the dispensing machine in front of the counter and selling customers a prepaid swipe card so they could dash in, "gas up," and go without getting stuck in the... View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott Cook & Taddy Hall; Consumer Products

14 Apr 2015
First Look

First Look: April 14

Location Strategies to Strengthen Competitive Advantage No abstract available. Purchase this case: https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/715418-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 715-416 Why Do Firms Go Abroad? Strategies to Create View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2022
Case

Fueling a Cleaner Future: ACWA Power and Green Hydrogen

By: Dennis Yao and Alpana Thapar

In January 2020, Paddy Padmanathan, president and CEO of ACWA Power, was reflecting on the company’s sixteen-year record of success and thinking about its future growth plans. Founded in 2004, ACWA Power was a Saudi Arabian developer, owner, and operator of power and... View Details

Keywords: Green Hydrogen; Energy; Climate Change; Supply Chain; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Green Technology; Projects; Alliances; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Energy Industry; Saudi Arabia; Middle East; North Africa

2023
Working Paper

The Effects of Inconsistent Work Schedules on Employee Lateness and Absenteeism

By: Caleb Kwon and Ananth Raman

Problem Definition: Employee lateness and absenteeism pose challenges for businesses, particularly in the retail industry, where punctuality is vital for optimal store operations and customer service. This paper relates employee lateness and absenteeism with... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Employees; Human Capital; Retail Industry

SSRN

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February 2008 (Revised December 2023)
Case

Digital Music: From MP3 to Streaming

By: Willy Shih

The emergence of the MP3 file-based music format not only disrupted the market for portable audio players, it also impacted the business models of major record labels. Modularity, and the commoditization spillover enabled by modularity in the personal computer... View Details

Keywords: Recording; Digital Devices; Digital Media; Digital Music; Digital; Digital Economics; Consumer Electronics; Customer Value and Value Chain; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Music Industry; Technology Industry; Electronics Industry; United States

August 2021 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Northvolt: Making the World's Greenest Battery

By: Jurgen R. Weiss and Emilie Billaud

In 2021, the demand for lithium-ion batteries increased rapidly, particularly for electric vehicles. Anxious not to be reliant on Asian players, Europe was keen on developing its own home-grown capacity to control the value chain, maintain employment in Europe, and get... View Details

05 Nov 2013
First Look

First Look: November 5

value creation for shareholders overall. August 2013 Quarterly Journal of Economics Last-place Aversion: Evidence and Redistributive Implications By: Kuziemko, Ilyana, Ryan Buell, Taly Reich, and Michael Norton Abstract—We present... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 Dec 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Seesaws and Social Security Benefits Indexing

Keywords: by Matthew Weinzierl

April 2008
Exercise

Exercise: Customer-Operator Letter Writing

By: Frances X. Frei

The exercise involves having students write letters to an organization of their choice describing their operating experience at a detailed level. The companies' responses are paired with the students' letters and the entire collection is made available to the class.... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Customer Satisfaction; Customer Value and Value Chain; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Performance Improvement

17 Mar 2015
First Look

First Look: March 17

allows bank depositors to remain "sleepy": they do not have to pay attention to transient fluctuations in the market value of bank assets. In contrast, shadow banks create money-like claims by giving their investors an early... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 Jul 2016
First Look

July 5, 2016

case considers Nestlé’s creating shared value (CSV) strategy, which focused on the three categories of nutrition, water, and rural development. In the packaged food and beverage industry, pressure had mounted since the 1990s to improve... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 Oct 2012
First Look

First Look: October 2

Publications Corporate Social Responsibility and Access to Finance Authors: Beiting Cheng, Ioannis Ioannou, and George Serafeim Publication: Strategic Management Journal (forthcoming) Abstract In this paper, we investigate whether superior performance on corporate... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

07 Jul 2022
HBS Case

How a Multimillion-Dollar Ice Cream Startup Melted Down (and Bounced Back)

and in retail chains with lots and lots of stores, they use what are called co-packers, third-party factories, that will make ice cream to your specifications. That was always an option for Ample Hills.” Hiring a co-packer would have... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

03 Oct 2023
Research Event

Build the Life You Want: Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey Share Happiness Tips

wants. Now remember you're if you're at HBS you're doing plenty of math. For you Divinity School students, remember back to high school. Sorry. And you can raise, you can raise the value of a fraction by increasing the numerator or by... View Details

Keywords: by HBS Staff

February 2021
Case

Drizly: Managing Supply and Demand through Disruption

By: Kris Ferreira

It was April 6th, 2020, and the management team at Drizly—an online alcohol marketplace where consumers could browse and purchase alcohol from local liquor retail stores via Drizly’s app for immediate home delivery—were thrilled to see record-breaking sales from the... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Demand and Consumers; Growth and Development; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Satisfaction; Goals and Objectives; Supply Chain Management

October 25, 2022
Article

Why Sharing Economic Growth with the Community Is Good Business

By: José A. Tiburcio, Lino Miguel Dias and Robert S. Kaplan

Subsistence dairy ranchers in Central America struggle to stay afloat during the dry season when grass is scarce. Global life sciences company Bayer has launched a program to enable them to produce their own corn silage feed. The results of this program are helping to... View Details

Keywords: Sharing Economy; Innovation; Economic Growth; Poverty; Production; Supply Chain; Social Enterprise; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Central America

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17 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

What the Stockdale Paradox Tells Us About Crisis Leadership

immediate and long-term goals in mind. One respondent summed up the challenge in a particularly apt way: “Shifting existing organizational structures from ‘peacetime’ value creation to ‘wartime/survival’ in a very short period of time As... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

May 2007 (Revised January 2011)
Case

Bankinter: Deploying the Mortgage Simulator to the Branches

Describes how Bankinter, a mid-sized Spanish bank, altered the information set available to its customer-facing employees. In the spring of 2003, Bankinter introduced an Excel-based program called the Mortgage Simulator that helped branch managers calculate the price... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Value and Value Chain; Banks and Banking; Mortgages; Employees; Motivation and Incentives; Spain