Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,143)
- Faculty Publications (450)
- August 2013 (Revised July 2024)
- Case
Amazon in 2024
By: Sunil Gupta and Margaret L. Rodriguez
Amazon launched its website in July 1995 to sell books online and by 2020 it has grown to become a digital giant with over $280 billion in annual sales. A large part of its growth came from expanding into a variety of businesses that some see as unrelated. Has it... View Details
- 2013
- Working Paper
Where do the Most Active Customers Originate and How Can Firms Keep Them Engaged?
By: Clarence Lee, E. Ofek and Thomas Steenburgh
In this paper, we study how firms offering Web services can acquire and develop an active customer base. We focus on two basic questions. First, how does the method of customer acquisition affect the way customers use the service to meet their own needs and to interact... View Details
- July–August 2013
- Article
A Joint Model of Usage and Churn in Contractual Settings
By: Eva Ascarza and Bruce G.S. Hardie
As firms become more customer-centric, concepts such as customer equity come to the fore. Any serious attempt to quantify customer equity requires modeling techniques that can provide accurate multiperiod forecasts of customer behavior. Although a number of researchers... View Details
- July–August 2013
- Article
Complementary Goods: Creating, Capturing, and Competing for Value
By: Taylan Yalcin, Elie Ofek, Oded Koenigsberg and Eyal Biyalogorsky
This paper studies the strategic interaction between firms producing strictly complementary products. With strict complements, a consumer derives positive utility only when both products are used together. We show that value-capture and value-creation problems arise... View Details
- 2013
- Dissertation
Designing Freemium: A Model of Consumer Usage, Upgrade, and Referral Dynamics
By: Clarence Lee, Vineet Kumar and Sunil Gupta
Abstract. Over the past decade "freemium" (free + premium) has become the dominant business model among internet start-ups for its ability to acquire and monetize a large install-base with limited marketing resources. Freemium is a hybrid strategy where a firm offers... View Details
- April 2013 (Revised November 2015)
- Case
Advanced Leadership Pathways: Gilberto Dimenstein and Community Empowerment in Brazil
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Alexandre Naghirniac, Ai-Ling Jamila Malone and Daniella Suarez
In 2011, Gilberto Dimenstein, a well-known Brazilian journalist, created a new model that connected disparate resources to revitalize Sao Paulo. He wanted his model to expand across Brazil and the world. Dimenstein covered many of the social issues facing Brazil as a... View Details
- 2013
- Case
Advanced Leadership Pathways: Gilberto Dimenstein and Community Empowerment in Brazil (A)
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Alexandre Naghirniac, Ai-Ling Jamila Malone and Daniella Suarez
In 2011, Gilberto Dimenstein, a well-known Brazilian journalist, created a new model that connected disparate resources to revitalize Sao Paulo. He wanted his model to expand across Brazil and the world. Dimenstein covered many of the social issues facing Brazil as a... View Details
- 2013
- Dictionary Entry
Technology and Innovation Management
By: Elizabeth J. Altman, Frank Nagle and Michael L. Tushman
The goal of this annotated bibliography on technology and innovation is to organize and present the most important literature relevant to a scholar seeking to understand and advance the field. It includes articles that are highly-cited and foundational pieces, as well... View Details
- January 2013 (Revised April 2015)
- Case
Affinity Labs: Valuing Customer Growth
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Elizabeth Kind
In November 2006, Chris Michel left Military.com, which he founded in 1999, to start Affinity Labs, a global network of online communities. That month, Michel raised a Series A round of venture funding and established a partnership with Monster, which he had sold... View Details
- Article
Stability and Competitive Equilibrium in Trading Networks
By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers, Alexandru Nichifor, Michael Ostrovsky and Alexander Westkamp
We introduce a model in which agents in a network can trade via bilateral contracts. We find that when continuous transfers are allowed and utilities are quasi-linear, the full substitutability of preferences is sufficient to guarantee the existence of stable outcomes... View Details
- December 2012 (Revised August 2020)
- Case
Rodan + Fields Dermatologists
By: Das Narayandas, Michael Roberts and Liz Kind
The case focuses on issues involved in managing the direct multilevel marketing sales consultants who sell R+F skin care products. The company is trying to better manage the inconsistent and highly variable recruitment behavior of the sales force i.e., the degree to... View Details
- December 2012 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
AmTran Technology Ltd.
By: Willy Shih, Jyun-Cheng Wang and Karen E. Robinson
As an original design manufacturer (ODM) of television sets and leading supplier to Vizio, a market leader in the U.S. for LCD flat panel TVs, AmTran Technology Ltd. uses what founder Alpha Wu describes as a "WE" model in which western companies perform sales,... View Details
Keywords: Modularity; Technology Transitions; Analog; Digital; Television; TV; Flat-panel; ATSC; NTSC; Video; Global Strategy; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Development; Product Design; Supply Chain; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Technology Adoption; Digital Platforms; Electronics Industry; Taiwan; United States; Japan
- Article
When Talk Is "Free": The Effect of Tariff Structure on Usage Under Two- and Three-Part Tariffs
By: Eva Ascarza, Anja Lambrecht and Naufel Vilcassim
In many service industries, firms introduce three-part tariffs to replace or complement existing two-part tariffs. In contrast with two-part tariffs, three-part tariffs offer allowances, or “free” units of the service. Behavioral research suggests that the attributes... View Details
- December 2012
- Article
Bolstering and Restoring Feelings of Competence via the IKEA Effect
By: Daniel Mochon, Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely
We examine the underlying process behind the IKEA effect, which is defined as consumers' willingness to pay more for self-created products than for identical products made by others, and explore the factors that influence both consumers' willingness to engage in... View Details
- October 2012
- Case
Riding the Wave of Technological Change at RE/MAX, LLC.
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Ramiro Montealegre and Jeffrey Sweeney
David Liniger, cofounder of RE/MAX, LLC., wondered if his business was prepared to exploit the next wave of business opportunities in the real estate market. This industry had moved from one in which broker/owners controlled all of the consumers' access to information,... View Details
- September 2012 (Revised May 2015)
- Case
Philips-Visicu
By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Natalie Kindred and Sara M. McKinley
Would the advent of global payment models and ACOs create sufficient demand for a telemedicine offering covering the care continuum, from hospitals to the home? This was the decision facing Royal Philips Electronics (Philips), the Netherlands-based producer of... View Details
Keywords: Health Care; Philips; Visicu; Telemedicine; eICU; Accountable Care Organization; ACO; Bundled Payment; Hospital To Home; Patient Monitoring Devices; Home Health Care; Health Care and Treatment; Communication Technology; Quality; Safety; Performance Productivity; Performance Capacity; Performance Efficiency; Consumer Behavior; Emerging Markets; Health Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Netherlands
- September 2012 (Revised January 2013)
- Case
J.C. Penney's 'Fair and Square' Pricing Strategy
By: Elie Ofek and Jill Avery
As a he gets ready to release 2nd quarter 2012 results, Ron Johnson, the new CEO of department store J.C. Penney, is reconsidering the dramatic changes he initiated for the business model and brand image of his company. A new pricing scheme he put in place in February,... View Details
- Article
Employee Selection as a Control System
By: Dennis Campbell
Theories from the economics, management control, and organizational behavior literatures predict that when it is difficult to align incentives by contracting on output, aligning preferences via employee selection may provide a useful alternative. This study... View Details
- August 2012 (Revised September 2013)
- Case
EnerNOC: DemandSMART
By: Michael W. Toffel, Kira Fabrizio and Stephanie van Sice
EnerNOC is an energy company with an innovative business model: it serves as an intermediary between electric utilities and electricity users. It contracts with electricity users willing to reduce demand during periods of peak energy demand, and sells this as excess... View Details
Keywords: Production Planning; Productivity; Environmental Protection; Energy; Environment; Business Government Relations; Laws And Regulation; Business Model; Environmental Sustainability; Innovation and Invention; Opportunities; Risk and Uncertainty; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Supply Chain Management; Production; Energy Conservation; Energy Industry
- July 2012
- Case
Performance Management at Vitality Health Enterprises, Inc.
By: John Bingham and Michael Beer
Vitality Health Enterprises, a medium-sized firm that manufactures health and personal care products, has experienced six straight quarters of strong revenue growth. James Hoffman, the new Senior Vice President of Human Resources, fears that the chain of success is... View Details