Publications

October 2012
Case

Hill Country Snack Foods Co.

By: W. Carl Kester and Craig Stephenson

Hill Country Snack Foods, located in Austin, Texas, manufactures, markets, and distributes snack foods and frozen treats. The CEO is passionate about maximizing shareholder value and believes in keeping tight control over costs and operating the business as efficiently... View Details

Keywords: United States; Financial Strategy; Debt Management; Retail Trade; Risk Management; Food; Capital Structure; Corporate Finance; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Texas

8 Feb 2022
Interview

Episode 109: Former Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly

By: Hubert Joly and Adam Mendler

A former Fortune 100 CEO, Hubert Joly was the leader of America's largest consumer electronics retailer. As CEO of Best Buy, Hubert led the company’s turnaround by implementing a distinct leadership philosophy and contrarian strategic decisions. Hubert joins Adam to... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Philosophy; Leadership; Personal Development and Career

June 2012 (Revised December 2017)
Technical Note

Strategy and Strategic Decisions

By: Eric Van den Steen

This note introduces a framework for formulating strategy that helps a manager identify which decisions are strategic—and thus which decisions to focus on (both when developing strategy and when executing it)—and that provides a practical test for whether a particular... View Details

Keywords: Formulating Strategy; Strategic Theory; Strategy Test; Strategic Analysis; Strategy; Theory; Strategic Planning

16 Jan 2012
News

All hands on deck: How can we make more heroes?

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Begenau’s research agenda is directed at better understanding how financial markets work and how they affect the real economy. She uses quantitative analysis to build both prescriptive and descriptive models concerning financial risk in banking, and she also... View Details

March 2024
Case

From “BIG” Ideas to Sustainable Impact at ICL Group (A)

By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag

In the summer of 2023, Eduard (“Eddie”) Croitoru, Vice President (VP) of ICL Group (“ICL”) Corporate Initiatives, was reflecting on ICL’s internal ideation program, the Business Innovation for Growth (BIG) Accelerator. When Raviv Zoller became the CEO of ICL in 2018,... View Details

Program

Advanced Management Program

optimizing our virtual program experience ever since. In a world that is now centered around virtual connection, our programs reflect the input and experience of tens of thousands of participants. When you participate in a virtual HBS... View Details

2009
Chapter

Behavioral Aspects of Price Setting, and Their Policy Implications

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper starts by discussing consumers' cognitive and emotional reaction to posted prices. Cognitively, some consumers do not appear to make effective use of price information to maximize their consumption-based utility. Emotionally, prices can induce regret and... View Details

Keywords: Inflation and Deflation; Price; Policy; Laws and Statutes; Demand and Consumers; Business and Government Relations

2016
Working Paper

Infrastructure, Incentives and Institutions

By: Nava Ashraf, Edward L. Glaeser and Giacomo A.M. Ponzetto

Cities generate negative, as well as positive, externalities; addressing those externalities requires both infrastructure and institutions. Providing clean water and removing refuse requires water and sewer pipes, but the urban poor are often unwilling to pay for the... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Urban Development; Organizations; City; Infrastructure; Zambia

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June 2016
Article

Technology Choice and Capacity Portfolios under Emissions Regulation

By: David Drake, Paul R. Kleindorfer and Luk N. Van Wassenhove

We study the impact of emissions tax and emissions cap-and-trade regulation on a firm's technology choice and capacity decisions. We show that emissions price uncertainty under cap-and-trade results in greater expected profit than a constant emissions price under an... View Details

Keywords: Technology Management; Management; Technology; Service Operations; Environmental Sustainability

April 2012
Article

How Many Direct Reports?

By: Gary L. Neilson and Julie Wulf

If senior executives are feeling ever more pressed for time, why would they add more to their plates? It might sound counterintuitive, but research by Booz & Company's Gary L. Neilson and me shows that over the past 20 years the CEO's average span of control, measured... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Governance Controls; Managerial Roles; Adaptation; Personal Development and Career; Cooperation; Management Teams

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Read Now

June 2020
Case

RBC: Transforming Transformation (A)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Aldo Sesia

In 2017, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), a Canadian financial icon, mandated a swat team of “enablers of collaboration” (their job description) to support the personal and commercial bank in the enterprise-wide RBC Cultural Transformation initiative. Historically,... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Information Technology; Transformation; Change Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Decision Making; Human Resources; Management Systems; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Management Teams; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Canada

Research Summary

Learning Agility

This research in both field and experimental settings is targeted at examining whether and how employees in the 'midst of learning' are aware of the optimal learning behavior as well as determining if this awareness does indeed increase learning agility. Further,... View Details

November 1990 (Revised June 1993)
Background Note

Price-Quantity Determination

Examines the important economic considerations affecting a firm's price-quantity decision for a product. Begins with a discussion of the appropriate decision criterion. Next, it motivates the concept of a demand curve for a product and defines demand elasticity.... View Details

Keywords: Price; Accounting

July 2008 (Revised May 2009)
Case

The Springfield Nor'easters: Maximizing Revenues in the Minor Leagues

By: Frank V. Cespedes, Christopher H. Lovelock and Laura Winig

The marketing director of a new minor-league baseball team must design, conduct, and then interpret survey research to determine optimal ticket pricing that will yield large attendance figures and contribute to the owner's goal of breaking even in the first year of... View Details

Keywords: Market Research; Quantitative Analysis; Consumer Marketing; Pricing Strategy; Price; Marketing Strategy; Mathematical Methods; Product Launch; Sports; Sports Industry; Massachusetts

June 2013 (Revised January 2016)
Case

Château Margaux: Launching the Third Wine

By: Elie Ofek and Eric E. Vogt

Château Margaux, one of only five prestigious estates in the Bordeaux Medoc wine region to have been classified as a "first-growth", is facing a host of strategic decisions in early 2013. Up until this point the estate had been selling two red wines, a first wine whose... View Details

Keywords: New Product Launch; Marketing Plan; Brand Management; Go To Market Strategy; Channels Of Distribution; Wine Industry; Marketing Strategy; Distribution Channels; Product Launch; Brands and Branding; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; France

August 2009 (Revised August 2010)
Case

Calera Corporation

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Thomas J. Steenburgh and Lauren Barley

Brent Constantz, founder, CEO, and president of Calera Corporation, felt a surge of optimism as he gazed at the recently commissioned prototype flue gas processing line at Calera's R&D facility in Moss Landing, California. It was late May 2009, and Calera was an... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Product Design; Product Development; Environmental Sustainability; Commercialization; Green Technology Industry