Publications

July–August 2017
Article

Why Outlet Stores Exist: Averting Cannibalization in Product Line Extensions

By: Donald Ngwe

Outlet stores are a large and growing component of many firms' retailing strategies, particularly in the fashion industry. Outlet stores offer attractive prices in locations far from central shopping districts. The main perspectives on why outlet stores exist can be... View Details

Keywords: Fashion; Industrial Organization; Outlet Stores; Price Discrimination; Retail; Channel Management; Luxury; Product Marketing; Price; Retail Industry; Fashion Industry

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March 2013
Teaching Note

Nestlé: Agricultural Material Sourcing Within the Concept of Creating Shared Value (CSV) (TN)

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Matthew Preble

In December 2012, Hans Jöhr, Nestlé's head of corporate agriculture, was preparing to meet with the company's board of directors to discuss its vision for the future related to sustainable agriculture. Nestlé's continued success depended on its ability to access the... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainability Management; Agribusiness; Environmental Sustainability; Food; Nutrition; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

26 Aug 2009
Op-Ed

Where Cash for Clunkers Ran Off the Road

short term but, in reality, the promotion stole largely from future sales with taxpayers subsidizing over half a million new car sales that would have occurred anyway. C4C disrupted the even flow of supply and demand. New car buyers held... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Auto

September 2020 (Revised March 2022)
Case

JOANN: Joannalytics Inventory Allocation Tool

By: Kris Ferreira and Srikanth Jagabathula

Michael Joyce, Vice President of Inventory Management at JOANN, championed an effort to develop and implement an inventory allocation analytics tool that used advanced analytics to predict in-season demand of seasonal items for each of JOANN’s nearly 900 stores and... View Details

Keywords: Analytics; Machine Learning; Optimization; Inventory Management; Mathematical Methods; Decision Making; Operations; Supply Chain Management; Resource Allocation; Distribution; Technology Adoption; Applications and Software; Change Management; Fashion Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry; United States; Ohio

13 Sep 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Entrepreneurship in the Natural Food and Beauty Categories Before 2000: Global Visions and Local Expressions

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Beauty & Cosmetics; Food & Beverage

Article

Competition for Scarce Resources

By: Peter Eso, Volker Nocke and Lucy White

We model a downstream industry where firms compete to buy capacity in an upstream market that allocates capacity efficiently. Although downstream firms have symmetric production technologies, we show that industry structure is symmetric only if capacity is sufficiently... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Natural Environment; Technology; Production; Business Cycles; Forecasting and Prediction; Cost; Demand and Consumers; Industry Structures; Performance Capacity

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02 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

10 Trends to Watch in 2024

The lightning-fast ascent of generative AI isn’t the only sea change on the horizon for businesses in the new year. The global economy is in flux as war, climate change, trade issues, and infrastructure problems demand attention. Many companies continue to struggle to... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

2002
Book

Searching for a Corporate Savior: The Irrational Quest for Charismatic CEOs

By: Rakesh Khurana

Corporate CEOs are headline news. Stock prices rise and fall at word of their hiring and firing. Business media debate their merits and defects as if individual leaders determined the health of the economy. Yet we know surprisingly little about how CEOs are selected... View Details

Keywords: Managerial Roles; Selection and Staffing; Personal Characteristics; Experience and Expertise; Investment Activism; Corporate Strategy

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April 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

Market Dynamics and Moral Dilemmas: Novo Nordisk’s Weight-Loss Drugs

By: Joseph L. Badaracco, Tom Quinn and John Schultz

Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk was owned by a charitable foundation, and since its founding in the 1920s had focused on producing insulin to treat diabetes. In 2017, however, it released Ozempic, a diabetes treatment with the revolutionary side effect of... View Details

2019
Article

The Social Desirability of Offshoring: A Swiss Consensus (1945–1975)

By: Sabine Pitteloud

This article focuses on the evolution of the rhetoric and practice of corporate offshoring in Switzerland from the post-war economic boom to the industrial crisis in the mid-seventies. The virtue of a historical perspective on the issue of offshoring is to show how... View Details

Keywords: Multinationals; Offshoring And Outsourcing; Relocation; Labor Relations; Multinational Firms and Management; Labor and Management Relations; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Switzerland

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2016
Working Paper

Operations in the On-Demand Economy: Staffing Services with Self-Scheduling Capacity

By: Itai Gurvich, Martin Lariviere and Antonio Moreno

Motivated by recent innovations in service delivery such as ride-sharing services and work-from-home call centers, we study capacity management when workers self-schedule. Our service provider chooses capacity to maximize its profit (revenue from served customers minus... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Servers; On-demand Economy; Independent Capacity; Distributed Systems; Uber; Service Operations; Performance Capacity

SSRN

December 2018
Case

Choosy

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Julia Kelley

Founded in 2017, Choosy is a data-driven fashion startup that uses algorithms to identify styles trending on social media. After manufacturing similar items using a China-based supply chain, Choosy sells them to consumers through its website and social media pages.... View Details

April 1993 (Revised October 1995)
Case

ALZA and Bio-Electro Systems (A): Technological and Financial Innovation

By: Josh Lerner and Peter Tufano

To develop the next generation of risky products, ALZA, a mature and profitable biotechnology firm specializing in drug delivery systems, must raise $40 million. Organizational constraints and competitive concerns demand that the work be done inside the firm. However,... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Technological Innovation; Business Subsidiaries; Decision Choices and Conditions; Corporate Finance; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

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Browse All Articles, Research, & Case Studies - HBS Working Knowledge

01 Nov 2024 In Practice Layoffs Surging in a Strong Economy? Advice for Navigating Uncertain Times by Rachel Layne Layoffs have been on the rise in some US industries as tech and professional services companies grapple with slowing demand... View Details

13 Jul 2016
HBS Case

How Uber, Airbnb, and Etsy Attracted Their First 1,000 Customers

who have rides to offer. (Same idea as Airbnb, which connects people needing rooms with home-owners.) So to launch as a platform service, these companies need to find users on both the supply and demand... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Retail; Service; Transportation

April 2021 (Revised July 2021)
Case

StockX: The Stock Market of Things (Abridged)

By: Chiara Farronato, John J. Horton, Annelena Lobb and Julia Kelley

Founded in 2015 by Dan Gilbert, Josh Luber, and Greg Schwartz, StockX was an online platform where users could buy and sell unworn luxury and limited-edition sneakers. Sneaker resale prices often fluctuated over time based on supply and demand, creating a robust... View Details