Publications

January 1993 (Revised April 1993)
Case

Chadwick, Inc.: The Balanced Scorecard

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The pharmaceutical division of a diversified company has been asked to develop a Balanced Scorecard. Research and development projects take about ten years to bring a new product to the marketplace and the division depends on good relations and active feedback from its... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Performance Evaluation; Customer Relationship Management; Goals and Objectives; Customer Satisfaction; Research and Development; Marketplace Matching; Financial Condition; Product Launch; Pharmaceutical Industry

January 1999 (Revised March 2001)
Case

MindSpring

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

In a business environment where Internet Service Providers (ISP) has become increasingly commodity-like, Charles Brewer, founder and CEO of MindSpring, the nation's sixth largest ISP and the recognized leader in customer satisfaction, ponders a proposed merger with... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Satisfaction; Growth and Development Strategy; Web Services Industry; United States

November 1997 (Revised February 1998)
Case

WESCO Distribution, Inc.

By: Das Narayandas

In 1996, WESCO, a national distributor of electrical equipment and supplies, charted out a growth of 6 to 8 percent in sales, and 12 to 16 percent in profitability over the next five years. The centerpiece of this growth strategy is the National Accounts (NA) program... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Customer Satisfaction; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Distribution; Sales; Balance and Stability; Distribution Industry; Electronics Industry

2010
Other Unpublished Work

Saving Face by Making Meaning: The Negative Effects of Brand Communities' Self-serving Response to Brand Extensions

By: Jill Avery

An ethnographic study of a brand community following the launch of the Porsche Cayenne SUV finds that brand extensions can negatively affect the value of their parent brands. By studying the collective response to brand extensions of existing consumers and by... View Details

Keywords: Brands; Brand Management; Brand Positioning; Brand Equity; Internet; Social Media; Customers; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Auto Industry

November 1995 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Massachusetts General Hospital: CABG Surgery (A)

By: Steven C. Wheelwright and James Weber

A cross-functional team at Massachusetts General Hospital tries to reengineer the service delivery process (the "care path") for heart bypass surgery (CABG) in order to shorten hospital stays (and lower costs) while maintaining/enhancing the quality of care provided. View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Medical Specialties; Business Processes; Mission and Purpose; Product Positioning; Product Marketing; Management Practices and Processes; Customer Satisfaction; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Fair Value Accounting; Ethics; Pharmaceutical Industry; Health Industry; Massachusetts

26 Jan 2016
First Look

January 26, 2016

sites quickly become choked with low-quality content. While clicks rise, customer satisfaction plummets. The glitches, say the authors, are not in the algorithms but in the way we interact with them. Managers need to recognize their two... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 1995 (Revised January 2024)
Supplement

Health Stop (B): Starting Up

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

Describes the long waiting time experienced by customers in Health Stops and asks students to specify the changes in its business model which could help solve the problem. View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Health Industry; Retail Industry

03 Apr 2012
First Look

First Look: April 3

leadership development programs for residents. The authors first present a definition of clinical leadership and highlight evidence that effective frontline clinical leadership improves both clinical outcomes and satisfaction for patients... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

11 Oct 2004
Research & Ideas

Four Ways to Create Lasting Change

generations of a customer-satisfaction program at a large American retailer, dubbed "Alpha Corporation" for the sake of confidentiality. The first of Alpha's customer satisfaction programs, launched in the early 1990s, fell... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

17 Jan 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: January 17

psychological and organizational sciences, we argue that engaging in future-oriented thinking about specific work goals while commuting, what we call work-related prospection, positively influences job satisfaction because it facilitates... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2010 (Revised March 2013)
Case

HubSpot: Lower Churn through Greater CHI

By: F. Asis Martinez Jerez, Thomas Steenburgh, Jill Avery and Lisa Brem

HubSpot, a web marketing startup is under pressure from VCs to rapidly acquire new customers and to maintain a low level of customer churn. In the case, students explore the drivers of customer churn and uncover opportunities to increase customer retention across the... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Satisfaction; Customer Value and Value Chain; Forecasting and Prediction; Consumer Behavior; Happiness; Consulting Industry

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

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Service Delivery; Consumer Behavior; Performance Effectiveness; Customer Satisfaction

Read Now

April 2010
Case

A Giant Among Women

By: Willy C. Shih, Ethan S Bernstein, Maly Hout Bernstein, Jyun-Cheng Wang and Yi-Ling Wei

Few CEOs successfully manage the evolution of their companies from OEM outsourcer to branded manufacturer to expert consumer marketer as well as Tony Lo, CEO of Giant Manufacturing Co. Ltd., now the largest bicycle manufacturer in the world. In the mid-1980s, Giant... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Customer Focus and Relationships; Global Strategy; Gender; Customer Satisfaction; Product Development; Bicycle Industry; Taiwan

December 2007 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Vegpro Group: Growing in Harmony

By: David E. Bell, Brian Milder and Mary Shelman

Vegpro, a horticulture company, is Kenya's largest exporter of fresh vegetables and flowers to top supermarkets in the U.K. and Europe. In 2007, Vegpro's business is threatened by growing consumer concern about the environmental impact of food production and transport,... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Developing Countries and Economies; Ethics; Food; Growth and Development Strategy; Operations; Environmental Sustainability; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Kenya; Europe; United Kingdom

2011
Article

Group Size and Incentives to Contribute: A Natural Experiment at Chinese Wikipedia

By: Michael Zhang and Feng Zhu

In this paper, we examine the causal relationship between group size and incentives to contribute in the setting of Chinese Wikipedia, the Chinese language version of an online encyclopedia that relies entirely on voluntary contributions. The group at Chinese Wikipedia... View Details

Keywords: Rights; Motivation and Incentives; Internet and the Web; Valuation; Groups and Teams; Knowledge Sharing; Behavior; Satisfaction; Size; Government and Politics; Economics; Information Technology Industry; Hong Kong; Taiwan; Singapore

September 1999 (Revised February 2004)
Case

WebSpective Software, Inc. (A)

By: Michael J. Roberts, Joseph B. Lassiter III, John T. Gourville and Sun Ming Wong

Describes the situation at WebSpective, a software company that develops products to help companies manage the network of servers that support their Websites. Describes the use of "concept engineering" tools to interview customers, determine their needs and the... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Management Practices and Processes; Customers; Customer Focus and Relationships; Communication Intention and Meaning; Product Development; Product Marketing; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Customer Satisfaction; Marketing Strategy; Information Technology Industry