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May 2003 (Revised October 2003)
Case

BEA Systems, Inc.: Constant Reinvention to Cope with Market Waves

Developed in 1995 as a specialist software vendor, BEA Systems, Inc. had already transformed itself twice from a transaction processing product company to a server application provider. By July 2002, it had become the fastest company in history to reach $1 billion in... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Platforms; Business Growth and Maturation; Management Practices and Processes; Applications and Software; Entrepreneurship; Organizational Culture; Web Services Industry; Information Technology Industry

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July 2007 (Revised February 2010)
Case

Saffronart.com: Bidding for Success

By: Mukti Khaire and R. Daniel Wadhwani

Saffronart, a five-year-old online art auction company, leads the market for modern Indian art and now faces competitors in the market it created. Established in 2000 by the wife-and-husband team of Minal and Dinesh Vazirani, Saffronart.com is an innovative online... View Details

Keywords: Arts; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Auctions; Industry Growth; Competition; Online Technology; Fine Arts Industry; India

16 Jun 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Paying Up for Fair Pay: Consumers Prefer Firms with Lower CEO-to-Worker Pay Ratios

Keywords: by Bhavya Mohan, Michael I. Norton & Rohit Deshpandé

June 2010
Article

Star Power: Colleague Quality and Turnover

By: Boris Groysberg and Linda Eling-Lee

In this article, we argue that the existence of greater organizational resources, in the form of higher quality colleagues, acts as a retention mechanism. We test our hypotheses using a panel data set of securities analysts in 24 securities firms over a 9-year period.... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Human Resources

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April 1986 (Revised May 1989)
Case

Alloy Rods Corp.

By: Frank V. Cespedes

In July of 1985 the managers of Alloy Rods (who recently purchased the company through a leveraged buyout arrangement) find that their chief competitor (a company more than 6 times as large as Alloy Rods) has introduced a new product clearly aimed at Alloy's most... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Business Strategy; Business or Company Management; Financial Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Channels; Product Development

April 1998 (Revised November 1999)
Case

Hambrecht & Quist

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Nicole Tempest

Hambrecht & Quist (H&Q), an investment bank headquartered in San Francisco, has a very unique culture relative to its Wall Street counterparts. Firm members and even competitors describe the culture as entrepreneurial, team-driven, non-bureaucratic, and... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Investment Banking; Growth and Development Strategy; Emerging Markets; Organizational Culture; Competitive Advantage; Banking Industry; San Francisco

12 Nov 2013
First Look

First Look: November 12

Publications November 2013 Journal of Consumer Research The Red Sneakers Effect: Inferring Status and Competence from Signals of Nonconformity By: Bellezza, Silvia, Francesca Gino, and Anat Keinan Abstract—We examine how people react to nonconforming behaviors, such... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Article

Product Quality and Entering Through Tying: Experimental Evidence

By: Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca

Dominant platform businesses often develop products in adjacent markets to complement their core business. One common approach used to gain traction in these adjacent markets has been to pursue a tying strategy. For example, Microsoft pre-installed Internet Explorer... View Details

Keywords: Tying; Platform Strategy; Google; Product; Quality; Digital Platforms; Strategy; Market Entry and Exit

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2018
Working Paper

Product Quality and Entering Through Tying: Experimental Evidence

Dominant platform businesses often develop products in adjacent markets to complement their core business. One common approach used to gain traction in these adjacent markets has been to pursue a tying strategy. For example, Microsoft pre-installed Internet Explorer... View Details

Keywords: Market Entry and Exit; Digital Platforms; Competitive Strategy; Product Marketing; Quality

SSRN

June 2013 (Revised November 2022)
Exercise

Competition Simulator Exercise

By: Eric J. Van den Steen

In the Competition Simulator Exercise, students explore through trial and error some important economic foundations of competitive strategy and managerial economics. In particular, the nine simulator exercises let students explore horizontal differentiation with and... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Economics; Game Theory; Competitive Strategy; Learning; Mathematical Methods; Analysis

December 2011 (Revised June 2013)
Case

Bananas (A)

By: Eric Van den Steen

As owner and CEO, Wim Van der Borght had grown Bananas in 8 years from a 4.5 million euro company into a 40 million euro group of companies with a range of field marketing activities in Belgium and the Netherlands. The core of the group consisted of two companies —... View Details

Keywords: Sustainable Competitive Advantage; Growth Strategy; Strategic Analysis; PVA; Culture As Commitment; Competitive Advantage; Organizational Culture; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Belgium

July 2004 (Revised January 2007)
Case

H&R Block and "Everyday Financial Services"

By: Peter Tufano and Daniel Schneider

H&R Block, the U.S. market leader in tax preparation services, must decide whether to offer financial services to its low-income clients. H&R Block is facing increased competition from branded and nonbranded tax preparers, and the number of returns prepared by the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Income; Taxation; Product Development; Financial Services Industry; United States

February 2000 (Revised October 2000)
Case

Kendle International Inc.

By: Dwight B. Crane, Paul W. Marshall and Indra Reinbergs

Candace Kendle and Christopher Bergen, the CEO and COO of Kendle International, Inc., are reviewing ways to finance the growth of their privately-owned company. Kendle is a contract research organization that conducts clinical drug trials for pharmaceutical and... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Financing and Loans; Venture Capital; Stock Options; Banks and Banking; Debt Securities; International Finance; Financial Strategy; Management Skills; Private Ownership; Initial Public Offering; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

December 2011 (Revised June 2013)
Supplement

Bananas (B)

By: Eric Van den Steen

As owner and CEO, Wim Van der Borght had grown Bananas in 8 years from a 4.5 million euro company into a 40 million euro group of companies with a range of field marketing activities in Belgium and the Netherlands. The core of the group consisted of two companies —... View Details

Keywords: Culture; Competitive Advantage; Organizational Culture; Growth and Development Strategy

November 2005
Case

Inventec Corporation

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Ingrid Vargas

Inventec Corp., with $4.5 billion in annual revenues, was one of Taiwan's leading original design manufacturers (ODMs). Inventec designed and manufactured electronic products such as computers, servers, MP3 players, PDAs, and cellular telephones for client companies... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Competitive Strategy; Emerging Markets; Manufacturing Industry; Electronics Industry; China; India

October 2005 (Revised January 2021)
Case

Pharmaceutical Industry in 2005, The

By: John R. Wells and Elizabeth Raabe

The entire pharmaceutical industry faced uncertain times in 2005. Many of the industry's most pressing issues—patent expirations, new drug pipeline development, price pressures, regulatory issues, and political pressures—were long standing. Fundamentally new... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Research and Development; Framework; Change; Competition; Technological Innovation; Pharmaceutical Industry

September 2003 (Revised May 2006)
Case

Eyeblaster: Enabling the Next Generation of Online Advertising

By: Elie Ofek

Eyeblaster management has to decide on the best course of action to sustain its momentum from enabling online rich media advertising. Pressure from competitors is forcing the company to re-evaluate its previous marketing strategy that focused primarily on getting... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Marketing Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Performance Evaluation; Digital Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy