Publications

December 2022
Case

Mission Produce in 2022

By: Forest Reinhardt, Jose B. Alvarez and Natalie Kindred

Founded by CEO Steve Barnard in 1983, California-based Mission Produce was a leading supplier of Hass avocados with a global sourcing, marketing, and distribution network and $892 million in 2021 sales. Barnard had been influential in the global avocado trade’s... View Details

Keywords: Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; California; Peru; Guatemala; Colombia; Mexico; Chile

Educators

Web

Asia Pacific - Global

with unique, innovative gameplays, and Tencent Games was able to seek out and partner with the creators behind these games because of successful execution of its investment strategy. But the competitive landscape of the gaming industry... View Details

April 2007
Article

Wintel: Cooperation and Conflict

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and David B. Yoffie

We study competitive interactions between Intel and Microsoft, two producers of complementary products. In a system of complements, like the PC, the value of the final product depends on how well the different components work together. This, in turn, depends on the... View Details

Keywords: Conflict and Resolution; Competition; Cooperation; Value; Performance Effectiveness; Research and Development; Motivation and Incentives; Investment; Price; Product Launch; Product

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Research Summary

By: Boris Groysberg

Professor Groysberg's research focuses on the challenges of managing professional service firms. In particular, his work investigates how a firm can be systematic in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage by leveraging its employees. In a number of related... View Details

August 2006 (Revised March 2007)
Background Note

Developing an Effective Living Group in the General Management Program

By: Michael Beer and John J. Gabarro

Discusses the importance of living room groups (eight participants who share a living room) at Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program developing into effective learning groups. The diversity of the groups is a strength, but only a conscious and concerted... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams

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06 Aug 2015
News

New rule could fuel debate over CEO pay

29 Jun 2021
News

Procter & Gamble’s Lean Innovation Transformation

18 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

When It Comes to Climate Regulation, Energy Companies Take a More Nuanced View

Common wisdom holds that oil and gas companies, electric utilities, and other industries known for their large carbon emissions generally oppose clean energy policies. Now, a study of corporate advocacy spanning 30 years reveals that many companies are more flexible... View Details

Keywords: by Desmond Dodd; Energy; Utilities

Web

About - Entrepreneurship

Knowledge When Migrants and Locals Innovate Together, Communities Gain Re: Prithwiraj Choudhury 23 Jan 2025 AP News Newman’s Own Invites More Companies to Donate 100 Percent of Their Profits to Charities Re: Nien-he Hsieh More News New Venture View Details

16 Nov 2021
HBS Case

How a Company Made Employees So Miserable, They Killed Themselves

have deeply downsized their staffs. “There’s a lot that happened in the situation that should sound alarm bells for others,” Montgomery says. “The cases point to risks that can arise when firms facing severe competitive threats adopt a... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

2009
Working Paper

Strategic Interactions in Two-Sided Market Oligopolies

By: Emmanuel Farhi and Andrei Hagiu

Strategic interactions between two-sided platforms depend not only on whether their decision variables are strategic complements or substitutes as for one-sided firms, but also -and crucially so- on whether or not the platforms subsidize one side of the market in... View Details

Keywords: Two-Sided Markets; Strategic Complements; Strategic Substitutes; Cost; Investment; Profit; One-Sided Platforms; Two-Sided Platforms; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Competitive Advantage

21 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Solving the Marketing Resources Allocation Puzzle

competitive advantages by developing a deep understanding of what their customers want and how they behave. It can be very difficult for the competition to pick customers off because they do not have the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

May 2017 (Revised November 2019)
Case

The Dubai International Film Festival

By: Rohit Deshpandé and Alpana Thapar

This case follows the conception and emergence of the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF). In an already crowded and highly competitive industry, Abdulhamid Juma was attempting to define and establish a unique brand positioning for DIFF. Committed to its vision,... View Details

Keywords: Brand Positioning; Underdog Brand Building; Business Models; Non-profit; Managing Multiple Stakeholders; Film Entertainment; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Competitive Strategy; Decision Making; Growth and Development Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

Educators

21 Dec 2009
Research & Ideas

Good Banks, Bad Banks, and Government’s Role as Fixer

Department should reject mergers that are likely to create more mega banks that are too big to fail. However, we should not attempt to increase competition in the financial sector by reinstating the barriers of the Glass-Steagall Act to... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson; Banking; Financial Services

November 2015 (Revised February 2016)
Supplement

Allianz Turkey: Focus on the Customer (B)

By: W. Earl Sasser and Gamze Yucaoglu

At the age of 39, Solmaz Altın took over the helm at Allianz Turkey. Solmaz quickly realized that, although the insurance market was thinly penetrated in Turkey, the company was operating in a very competitive environment with pressure on prices and, hence, cost... View Details

Keywords: Service Excellence; Customer Experience; Customer Service; Emerging Market; Customer Focus; Net Promoter Score; Customer Relationship Management; Competition; Leading Change; Service Operations; Emerging Markets; Customer Satisfaction; Insurance Industry; Turkey

08 Aug 2011
Research & Ideas

The Death of the Global Manager

while confirming and further exploring some basic challenges that have, more or less, remained the same. "There are three core strategies that any MNC has to pursue to build layers of competitive advantage," Bartlett says.... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

2009
Working Paper

From Strategy to Business Models and to Tactics

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Joan Enric Ricart

The notion of business model has been used by strategy scholars to refer to "the logic of the firm, the way it operates and how it creates value for its stakeholders." On the surface, this notion appears to be similar to that of strategy. We present a conceptual... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Framework; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation

April 2003 (Revised December 2006)
Case

ZARA: Fast Fashion

By: Pankaj Ghemawat and Jose Luis Nueno

Focuses on Inditex, an apparel retailer from Spain, which has set up an extremely quick response system for its ZARA chain. Instead of predicting months before a season starts what women will want to wear, ZARA observes what's selling and what's not and continuously... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Multinational Firms and Management; Competitive Advantage; Manufacturing Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry; Spain

Educators

July 2013
Article

Ethnic Innovation and U.S. Multinational Firm Activity

By: C. Fritz Foley and William R. Kerr

This paper studies the impact that immigrant innovators have on the global activities of U.S. firms by analyzing detailed data on patent applications and on the operations of the foreign affiliates of U.S. multinational firms. The results indicate that increases in the... View Details

Keywords: Technology Transfer; Innovation; Ethnic Networks; Patents; Diasporas; Ethnicity; Multinational Firms and Management; Competitive Advantage; Research and Development; Foreign Direct Investment; Innovation and Invention; United States