Publications

January 2016
Teaching Note

Groom Energy Solutions: Selling Efficiency

By: Michael W. Toffel, Kira Fabrizio and Stephanie van Sice

This case examines a start-up service provider that helps clients improve the energy efficiency of their factories, warehouses, and commercial and office spaces by integrating and installing lighting, heating, and cooling technologies. The company seeks to double... View Details

Keywords: Energy Efficiency; Energy Efficiency Paradox; Environment; Environmental Strategy; Growth; Energy; Energy Conservation; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Energy Industry

July 2015 (Revised October 2016)
Case

China Lodging Group (A)

By: Tatiana Sandino, Shelley Xin Li and Nancy Hua Dai

This case study explores the challenges of aligning middle management interests with company goals as a company navigates rapid growth in a dynamic industry. China Lodging Group, a Chinese hotel chain that opened about 2,000 hotels during its first decade in business,... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Business or Company Management; Growth Management; Balanced Scorecard; Accommodations Industry; China

September 2023 (Revised December 2023)
Case

Twiddy & Company: Trust in a Chaotic Environment

By: Sandra J. Sucher, Shalene Gupta and Tom Quinn

Twiddy & Company, known for Southern hospitality rooted in personal interactions, needed to adjust to contactless remote customer service as fear of the contagious virus prevented person-to-person contact. Local elected officials, in a bid to stop tourists from... View Details

Keywords: Trust; Health Pandemics; Organizational Culture; Disruption; Government Legislation; Transportation; Tourism Industry; North Carolina; United States

December 2016
Article

Selective Regulator Decoupling and Organizations' Strategic Responses

By: Jonas Heese, Ranjani Krishnan and Frank Moers

Organizations often respond to institutional pressures by symbolically adopting policies and procedures but decoupling them from actual practice. Literature has examined why organizations decouple from regulatory pressures. In this study, we argue that decoupling... View Details

Keywords: Regulator Leniency; Beneficence; Mispricing; Upcoding; Nonprofit Organizations; Health Care and Treatment; Revenue; Health Industry

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December 1994 (Revised December 1994)
Case

Physician Sales and Service, Inc. (A): June 1992

A medical products distribution company faces strategic opportunities and challenges in a rapidly changing market. Physician Sales and Service (PSS), founded by Patrick Kelly in 1983, operates in 20 states in the United States and intends to expand to 50 states by... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Distribution Industry

02 Aug 2024
HBS Case

How a Mission to Cut Food Waste Launched a Multimillion-Dollar Venture

On a hectic Friday in October 2016, Josh Domingues wondered if he had made a mistake quitting the security of a well-paying job managing contracts for professional hockey players to start a new venture selling nearly expired groceries at discount prices. After all, a... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Technology; Information Technology

31 Oct 2007
HBS Case

Climate Change Puts Heat on GMs

What is the responsibility of business regarding social issues? And how does that jibe with maximizing profits? In "UBS and Climate Change—Warming Up to Global Action?" Associate Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Professor Forest Reinhardt present the... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

2017
Working Paper

Inventory Management for Mobile Money Agents in the Developing World

By: Karthik Balasubramanian, David F. Drake and Douglas Fearing

Mobile money systems, platforms built and managed by mobile network operators to allow money to be stored as digital currency, have burgeoned in the developing world as a mechanism to transfer money electronically. Mobile money agents exchange cash for electronic value... View Details

Keywords: Currency; Mobile Technology; Market Platforms; Developing Countries and Economies

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April 2011
Case

Porcini's Pronto: "Great Italian cuisine without the wait!"

By: James L. Heskett and Richard Luecke

Porcini's Inc. operates a chain of 23 full-service restaurants located near shopping malls and downtown areas in the northeastern United States. Known for providing excellent service, Porcini's serves high-quality Italian cuisine made from fresh ingredients. Looking... View Details

September 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Bharti Tele-Ventures

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Ingrid Vargas

Following the liberalization of India's telecommunications service industry in the early 1990s, Bharti Tele-Ventures grew from a small entrepreneurial telephone equipment importer and manufacturer to become India's largest private-sector telecommunications service... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Growth and Development; Customers; Foreign Direct Investment; Mergers and Acquisitions; Competition; Public Ownership; Profit; Partners and Partnerships; Rank and Position; Telecommunications Industry; India

Article

The Cost Structure, Customer Profitability, and Retention Implications of Self-Service Distribution Channels: Evidence from Customer Behavior in an Online Banking Channel

By: Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei

This paper uses the context of online banking to investigate the consequences of employing self-service distribution channels to alter customer interactions with the firm. Using a sample of retail banking customers observed over a 30-month period at a large U.S. bank,... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Service Operations; Distribution Channels; Consumer Behavior; Internet and the Web; Banks and Banking; Technology Adoption; Service Delivery; Market Transactions; Market Participation; Profit; Retail Industry; Banking Industry; United States

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September 2000 (Revised November 2000)
Case

Panda Management Company, Inc.

Panda Management Co. is the largest Chinese restaurant chain in the United States. At the time of the case, Panda is facing multiple problems in operations, mostly stemming from rapid growth, and must choose a path for expansion. View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Service Operations; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

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November 2005 (Revised November 2007)
Case

Meisterchef.com

By: Henry B. Reiling

Two underperforming companies are seeking to combine on terms that will preserve the net operating loss of one for use against their combined future profits or at least against the future profits of the company that generated the losses. The questions are whether the... View Details

Keywords: Code Law; Corporate Governance; Mergers and Acquisitions; Cost Accounting; Taxation; Corporate Strategy; Profit; Crisis Management; Financial Management; Legal Services Industry; Legal Services Industry; United States

2014
Case

Meizhou Dongpo Restaurant Group

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Weiku Wu and Jia Guo

Since the establishment of the first Meizhou Dongpo Restaurant in Beijing in 1996, Wang Gang and his wife Liang Di have opened more than 100 chain restaurants in China and foreign countries, and set up the group headquarters, logistics center, R&D center and central... View Details

Keywords: Internationalization; Management; Standardization; Strategy; Restaurants; China; China

2009
Working Paper

Applying the Care Delivery Value Chain: HIV/AIDS Care in Resource Poor Settings

By: Joseph Rhatigan, Sachin H Jain, Joia S. Mukherjee and Michael E. Porter

The care delivery value chain is a framework that can help conceptualize the organization and structure of care delivery for medical conditions. We apply this framework to HIV/AIDS care in resource-limited settings. Several conclusions arise than can help inform... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Framework; Health Care and Treatment; Health Disorders; Service Delivery

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09 Dec 2008
First Look

First Look: December 9, 2008

nations' poor economic management, international financial contagion, close "crony" relations between local politicians and capitalists? This case examines how the crisis erupted in Thailand and spread in a chain of events that... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

August 2002 (Revised August 2002)
Case

Raiser Senior Services--The Stratford (A)

By: H. Kent Bowen and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

Focuses on modifying operations to increase profitability at an upscale senior care facility in California. Jennifer Raiser, president of Raiser Senior Services, opened the Stratford in 1992 as a high-end, continuing-care retirement community. Ten years later, the... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Profit; Saving; Health Care and Treatment; Age; Management Teams; Problems and Challenges; Ethics; Legal Liability; Business Growth and Maturation; Service Industry; Service Industry; California