Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,566)
- Faculty Publications (644)
- April 2012
- Article
Bouncing Out of the Banking System: An Empirical Analysis of Involuntary Bank Account Closures
By: Dennis Campbell, F. Asis Martinez-Jerez and Peter Tufano
Using a new database, we document the factors that relate to the extent of involuntary consumer bank account closure resulting from excessive overdraft activity. Consumers who have accounts involuntarily closed for overdraft activity may have limited or no access to... View Details
- March 2012 (Revised September 2012)
- Case
INRIX
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Ryan Johnson
Since its founding in 2004, INRIX, a leading global provider of traffic information and driver services, had received four rounds of financing from leading venture capital (VC) firms and by 2012 had been cash flow positive for the past six quarters. Its founder, Bryan... View Details
- March 2012
- Case
Schuberg Philis
By: Thomas J. DeLong and Daniela Beyersdorfer
The Dutch professional service firm Schuberg Philis has within a few years grown into a well-known player in the Dutch IT outsourcing market and regularly wins high customer- satisfaction marks. The growing workload and 100% promise to customers have increased the... View Details
- 2012
- Book
Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business
By: Frances Frei and Anne Morriss
Most companies treat service as a low-priority business operation, keeping it out of the spotlight until a customer complains. Then service gets to make a brief appearance—for as long as it takes to calm the customer down and fix whatever foul-up jeopardized the... View Details
- January – February 2012
- Article
When One Business Model Isn't Enough
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Jorge Tarzijan
Trying to operate two business models at once often causes strategic failure. Yet LAN Airlines, a Chilean carrier, runs three models successfully. Casadesus-Masanell, of Harvard Business School, and Tarziján, of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, explore how... View Details
- Article
Market Heterogeneity and Local Capacity Decisions in Services
By: Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei
We empirically document factors that influence how local operating managers use discretion to balance the tradeoff between service capacity costs and customer sensitivity to service time. Our findings, using data from one of the largest financial services providers in... View Details
- November 2011 (Revised August 2012)
- Background Note
Customer Discovery and Validation for Entrepreneurs
By: Frank V. Cespedes, Thomas Eisenmann and Steven G. Blank
Provides practical guidelines for conducting market research to explore and validate demand for entrepreneurial offering. Explains how the research objectives of entrepreneurs might differ from those relevant to managers evaluating product or service offerings to... View Details
- November 2011
- Case
WrapItUp: Developing a New Compensation Plan
By: W. Earl Sasser Jr. and Rachel Shelton
A restaurant chain based in California offers made-to-order sandwich wraps using fresh, healthy ingredients. The founders of the company take a very active role in day-to-day business and tightly control every aspect of the restaurant operation from hiring store... View Details
Keywords: Empowerment; Middle Management; Human Resource Management; Compensation; Incentives; Motivation; Motivation and Incentives; Change Management; Business Growth and Maturation; Service Delivery; Entrepreneurship; Employees; Compensation and Benefits; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; California
- 2011
- Case
Wrapitup
By: W. Earl Sasser
A restaurant chain based in California offers made-to-order sandwich wraps using fresh, healthy ingredients. The founders of the company take a very active role in day-to-day business and tightly control every aspect of the restaurant operation from hiring store... View Details
- October 2011
- Case
Raleigh & Rosse: Measures to Motivate Exceptional Service
By: Robert Simons and Michael Mahoney
In January 2010, U.S. luxury goods retailer Raleigh & Rosse is being sued by its employees for encouraging "off the clock" hours. At the center of the class action lawsuit is the famous Raleigh & Rosse performance measurement system previously thought to be the core of... View Details
Keywords: Control Systems; Performance Measurement; Goal Setting; Compensation; Incentives; Motivation; Sales Compensation; Motivation and Incentives; Goals and Objectives; Growth Management; Lawsuits and Litigation; Organizational Culture; Management Systems; Customer Focus and Relationships; Employees; Performance Evaluation; Compensation and Benefits; Retail Industry; United States
- September 2011 (Revised February 2013)
- Case
Cleveland Clinic: Improving the Patient Experience
By: Ananth Raman and Anita L. Tucker
Healthcare has traditionally focused on medical outcomes and financial performance. The big question is always, "How much is it going to cost?" What would happen, though, if healthcare also considered the question of "How does the patient feel?" This case looks at the... View Details
- September 2011
- Article
The Labor Illusion: How Operational Transparency Increases Perceived Value
By: Ryan W. Buell and Michael I. Norton
A ubiquitous feature of even the fastest self-service technology transactions is the wait. Conventional wisdom and operations theory suggests that the longer people wait, the less satisfied they become; we demonstrate that due to what we term the labor illusion, when... View Details
- August 2011 (Revised July 2012)
- Case
Sealed Air Corporation: Deciding the Fate of VTID
By: Elie Ofek
In mid 2010 the Sealed Air Corporation has to decide on next steps for its novel video tracking technology (called VTID) after unsuccessful attempts to market it in three different industry settings. The company must determine whether its most recent target market, the... View Details
- August 2011 (Revised November 2012)
- Case
Danielle Marcoux at AdNet2Win Technologies
By: Anthony J. Mayo and Joshua D. Margolis
Danielle Marcoux, Director of Web Design at AdNet2Win Technologies, must decide how best to confront Charles Davide, the Chief Technology Officer and leader of the design team charged with overseeing a major upgrade of the company's proprietary customer loyalty... View Details
- June 2011
- Background Note
It's a Social World
By: Stephen P. Bradley and Nancy Bartlett
Social media had fashioned the lives of individuals and communities by 2010, providing an opportunity and a challenge for companies of all sizes. This note provides background on various social media (e.g. social networks, forums, games and communication services) and... View Details
- May 2011
- Article
Think Customers Hate Waiting? Not So Fast...
By: Ryan W. Buell and Michael I. Norton
Managers typically look for ways to reduce wait time to increase customer satisfaction. New research suggests there's a better approach: showing customers a representation of the effort, whether literal or not, being expended on their behalf while they wait. (The... View Details
- April 2011 (Revised May 2011)
- Case
EMC2: Delivering Customer Centricity
By: Thomas Steenburgh and Jill Avery
This case introduces the concept of customer centricity and traces its development at EMC, the world's leading data storage hardware and information management software company. EMC's customers had historically relied on EMC salespeople to guide them through the... View Details
- April 2011
- Case
Porcini's Pronto: "Great Italian cuisine without the wait!"
By: James L. Heskett and Richard Luecke
Porcini's Inc. operates a chain of 23 full-service restaurants located near shopping malls and downtown areas in the northeastern United States. Known for providing excellent service, Porcini's serves high-quality Italian cuisine made from fresh ingredients. Looking... View Details
Keywords: Franchising; Syndication; Quantitative Analysis; Performance Measurement; Human Resource Management; Incentives; Motivation; Consumer Behavior; Measurement and Metrics; Quality; Customer Value and Value Chain; Selection and Staffing; Expansion; Business Growth and Maturation; Service Delivery; Franchise Ownership; Customer Focus and Relationships; Product Marketing; Service Industry; Service Industry; Northeastern United States
- 2011
- Working Paper
The Impact of Forward-Looking Metrics on Employee Decision Making
By: Pablo Casas-Arce, F. Asis Martinez-Jerez and V.G. Narayanan
This paper analyzes the effects of providing forward-looking metrics on employee decision making. We use data from a southern European bank that, in April 2002, started providing its branch managers with customer lifetime value (CLV) information about mortgage... View Details
- March 2011
- Case
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Company in 2011
By: Willy Shih and Jia Cheng
When David Wang took over as the CEO of SMIC, he knew that if he was to capitalize on the company's strategic location in the China market, he would have to transform the company mindset and its operating structure from its roots in the manufacturing of DRAMs to the... View Details