Publications

Register to Read

22 May 2024
HBS Case

Banned or Not, TikTok Is a Force Companies Can’t Afford to Ignore

Businesses that dismiss TikTok as merely a platform for teenagers looking to create and consume cat and dance videos do so at their own peril. That’s the message of a Harvard Business School case study tracing the video-sharing app’s... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Technology

November 2017
Teaching Note

Tencent

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

Teaching Note for HBS No. 718-426. Tencent had undergone many transformations since it was founded in 1998 as a simple messaging service. In 2017, it was the largest online games provider in China with a wide range of game types, China’s largest social networking... View Details

Keywords: Tencent; Tencent Holdings; WeChat; Social Networking; Social Networks; Gaming; Gaming Industry; Video Games; Computer Games; Mobile Gaming; Portals; Payments; Mobile Payments; O2O; Online-to-offline; E-commerce; Messaging; Subscription Model; Freemium; Mobile App Industry; Smartphone; PC; Monetization Strategy; Antitrust; Streaming; Cloud Computing; Artificial Intelligence; Big Data; Alibaba; Facebook; JD.com; Tesla; Bundling; Synergies; Digital Strategy; Imitation; Licensing; Agility; Entry Barriers; Online Platforms; Advertising; Digital Marketing; Business Ventures; Acquisition; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Conglomerates; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Organization; For-Profit Firms; Joint Ventures; Restructuring; Communication Technology; Blogs; Interactive Communication; Interpersonal Communication; Entertainment; Film Entertainment; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Music Entertainment; Investment; Investment Portfolio; Price; Revenue; Geographic Scope; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Business History; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Positioning; Social Marketing; Network Effects; Market Entry and Exit; Digital Platforms; Industry Growth; Monopoly; Media; Distribution Channels; Service Delivery; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Public Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Business and Government Relations; Groups and Teams; Networks; Opportunities; Social and Collaborative Networks; Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Cooperation; Corporate Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Applications and Software; Information Infrastructure; Value Creation; Emerging Markets; Product Development; Segmentation; Business Units; Communication; Profit; Communications Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Financial Services Industry; Information Industry; Information Technology Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Music Industry; Service Industry; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Video Game Industry; Web Services Industry; Asia; China; Canton (province, China)

June 2020 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Majid Al Futtaim Retail Geographic Expansion: Brick or Click?

By: Juan Alcácer and Alpana Thapar

This case illustrates the challenges that retailers face when they aggressively pursue geographical growth by expanding both their physical store network and their online presence. It features Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) Retail, a franchisee of Carrefour hypermarkets in the... View Details

Keywords: Stores; Ecommerce; Strategy; Expansion; Geographic Location; Decision Making; Internet and the Web; Digital Transformation; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Middle East

Educators

June 2014
Case

Going Social: Durex in China

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski and Aaron Smith

When Reckitt Benckiser (RB), a leading consumer goods company, first entered China, it encountered significant challenges. RB's strategy relied on selling high margin products supported by cost-effective advertising and distribution, but the highly competitive Chinese... View Details

Keywords: Distribution; Multinational Firms and Management; Internet and the Web; Marketing Communications; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry; China

Educators

October 2015 (Revised February 2016)
Teaching Note

Comcast Corporation

By: Sunil Gupta, Henry McGee and Felix Oberholzer-Gee

In March 2015, Richard Plepler, the CEO of Home Box Office (HBO) announced the company's new 'over the top,' or OTT service, HBO Now, that consumers could stream online for a monthly fee of $14.99 without paying for a cable subscription. Soon, CBS followed and... View Details

Keywords: Television Industry; Television; Marketing; Television Entertainment; Telecommunications Industry

11 Sep 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, September 11, 2018

Conference Proceedings More Amazon Effects: Online Competition and Pricing Behaviors By: Cavallo, Alberto Abstract—I study how online competition, with its shrinking margins, algorithmic pricing... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

08 Mar 2004
Research & Ideas

Creating Value in Your Business Ecosystem

Assistant, which helps new sellers prepare professional-looking online listings, and its Turbo Lister service, which tracks and manages thousands of bulk listings on home computers. The company has also established and maintained... View Details

Keywords: by Marco Iansiti & Roy Levien

July 2023
Article

Before or After? The Effects of Payment Decision Timing in Pay-What-You-Want Contexts

By: Raghabendra P. KC, Vincent Mak and Elie Ofek

We study how payment decision timing—before versus after product delivery—influences consumer payment under pay-what-you-want pricing. We focus on situations where there is minimal change in consumer uncertainty regarding the product before versus after receiving it.... View Details

Keywords: Price; Behavior; Valuation; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

July 2021
Article

The Effect of Price on Firm Reputation

By: Michael Luca and Oren Reshef

While a business's reputation can affect its pricing, prices can also affect its reputation. To explore the effect of prices on reputation, we investigate daily data on menu prices and online ratings from a large rating and ordering platform. We find that a price... View Details

Keywords: Pricing; Reputation Systems; IT Policy And Management; Economics Of Digital Platforms; Business Ventures; Reputation; Price; Consumer Behavior; Analysis

Research Summary

Research

Professor Karmarkar's research in consumer behavior develops theory-driven frameworks “from the brain up”. In particular, using a combination of consumer psychology, behavioral economics, and insights from neuroscience, she investigates the factors that consciously... View Details

2019
Working Paper

Soul and Machine (Learning)

By: Davide Proserpio, John R. Hauser, Xiao Liu, Tomomichi Amano, Alex Burnap, Tong Guo, Dokyun Lee, Randall Lewis, Kanishka Misra, Eric Schwarz, Artem Timoshenko, Lilei Xu and Hema Yoganarasimhan

Machine learning is bringing us self-driving cars, improved medical diagnostics, and machine translation, but can it improve marketing decisions? It can. Machine learning models predict extremely well, are scalable to “big data,” and are a natural fit to rich media... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Technological Innovation; Marketing; AI and Machine Learning

SSRN

Read Now

August 2022
Article

The Bulletproof Glass Effect: Unintended Consequences of Privacy Notices

By: Aaron R. Brough, David A. Norton, Shannon L. Sciarappa and Leslie K. John

Drawing from a content analysis of publicly traded companies’ privacy notices, a survey of managers, a field study, and five online experiments, this research investigates how consumers respond to privacy notices. A privacy notice, by placing legally enforceable limits... View Details

Keywords: Choice; Purchase Intent; Privacy; Privacy Notices; Warnings; Assurances; Information Disclosure; Trust; Consumer Behavior; Spending; Decisions; Information; Communication

11 Nov 2014
First Look

First Look: November 11

Publications November 2014 Harvard Business Review Cooks Make Tastier Food When They Can See Their Customers By: Buell, Ryan W., Tami Kim, and Chia-Jung Tsay Abstract—While existing theory suggests that increased contact between... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

20 Oct 2003
Research & Ideas

Gaps in the Historical Record: Development of the Electronics Industry

further investigation into the development of the consumer electronics and computer industries. Here is an excerpt.I have just completed an initial sketch of the evolution of two industries—Inventing the Electronic Century: The Epic Story... View Details

Keywords: by Alfred D. Chandler Jr.; Consumer Products

June 2018
Article

Video Content Marketing: The Making of Clips

By: Xuan Liu, Savannah Wei Shi, Thales S. Teixeira and Michel Wedel

Consumers have an increasingly wide variety of options available to entertain themselves. This poses a challenge for content aggregators who want to effectively promote their video content online through original trailers of movies, sitcoms, and video games. Marketers... View Details

Keywords: Film Entertainment; Marketing; Digital Marketing; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Improvement

February 2005 (Revised May 2005)
Case

Intelliseek

Intelliseek harvests, filters, and mines the content of messages posted by consumers online and on discussion boards and blogs. For any specified consumer product brand, Intelliseek measures the volume of work-of-mouth and its valence (proportion of positive and... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Information Technology; Consumer Behavior; Knowledge Management; Marketing Reference Programs; Web Services Industry

Educators

08 Apr 2014
First Look

First Look: April 8

Publications August 2013 Journal of Consumer Research Brand Tourists: How Non-Core Users Enhance the Brand Image by Eliciting Pride By: Bellezza, Silvia, and Anat Keinan Abstract—This research examines how core View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2009
Working Paper

Principles that Matter: Sustaining Software Innovation from the Client to the Web

By: Marco Iansiti

Economic analysis often reviews the role of principles—such as respect for intellectual property rights—in driving innovation. Given the interdependent nature of innovation in information technology, three core principles have emerged that work together to ensure that... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Technological Innovation; Intellectual Property; Partners and Partnerships; Competition; Information Technology; Internet and the Web

Read Now

May–June 2011
Article

The Uninvited Brand

By: Susan Fournier and Jill Avery

Brands rushed into social media, viewing social networks, video sharing, online communities, and microblogging sites as the panacea to diminishing returns for traditional brand building routes. But, as more branding activity moves to the web, marketers are confronted... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Brands; Brand Building; Brand Management; Digital Marketing; Advertising Campaigns; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Internet and the Web; Social Media; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry