Publications

Find at Harvard

27 Aug 2013
First Look

First Look: August 27

favorable to authors who have garnered other attention in the press (as measured by number of media mentions outside of the review) and who have won book prizes. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=45339 August 2013 California View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 1996 (Revised November 1997)
Case

Dewar's (A): Brand Repositioning in the 1990's

By: Alvin J. Silk and Lisa Klein Pearo

Dewar's, a major brand of Scotch whisky, produced by United Distillers of the U.K., and the U.S. leader in the Scotch category with a 15% market share, faced a declining market among traditional consumers of distilled spirits. Given the growing societal, legal, and... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Customers; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Market Participation; Strategic Planning; Opportunities; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United Kingdom; United States

May 2006
Case

A123Systems

By: H. Kent Bowen, Kenneth P Morse and Douglass Cannon

A 123Systems was a young company that was founded on basic materials science research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A co-founder of the company, Yet-Ming Chiang, was a full professor at MIT and served as scientific adviser. Intellectual property based... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property; Business Startups; Research and Development; Commercialization; Technological Innovation; Science-Based Business; Product Development; Battery Industry; Electronics Industry; Massachusetts

06 Feb 2013
What Do You Think?

Is ‘Conscious Capitalism’ an Antidote to Income Inequality?

customer satisfaction and product excellence at least as important as profitability), a collaborative spirit between employers and employees , a long-term view , and a close relationship with suppliers." Several respondents voiced serious... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

March – April 2009
Article

Market Research and Innovation Strategy in a Duopoly

By: Dominique Lauga and Elie Ofek

We model a duopoly in which ex-ante identical firms must decide where to direct their innovation efforts. The firms face market uncertainty about consumers' preferences for innovation on two product attributes and technology uncertainty about the success of their R&D... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Innovation and Management; Demand and Consumers; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Research and Development; Competitive Strategy

Find at Harvard

20 Jan 2023
News

Free Spirits

a beginning, a middle, and a finish. Their ready-to-drink cocktails are naturally low in sugar and calories (less than 2 grams and 35 calories). They are bottled and labeled with a sense of sophistication that would feel right at home on any elegant bar cart. With its... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Food Services and Drinking Places; Hospitality

19 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

Fed Up Workers and Supply Woes: What's Next for Dollar Stores?

stores,” which now outnumber all of the Starbucks and McDonald’s in the United States combined. They will account for 40 percent of all new store openings this year, according to a Coresight Research report. Willy Shih, the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of View Details

Keywords: by Christine Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Retail

January 2000 (Revised April 2000)
Case

StarMedia: Launching a Latin American Revolution

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Jon K Rust

By the fall of 1999, StarMedia had sprinted to a sizable lead in the race to acquire Latin American Internet users. Its pan-regional, horizontal portal was the first to target Spanish- and Portuguese-language speakers on the Internet, registering 1.2 billion page views... View Details

Keywords: Private Ownership; History; Risk Management; Business Cycles; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Infrastructure; Media; Emerging Markets; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Web; Information Technology Industry; Web Services Industry

04 Feb 2016
Blog Post

Meet the HBS Tech Club

popular tech courses at HBS include the Online Economy, Launching Tech Ventures, Digital Innovation and Transformation, Product Management 101 and 102, Entrepreneurial Finance (not purely tech), Founders’... View Details

07 May 2007
Research & Ideas

Rediscovering Schumpeter: The Power of Capitalism

by a better product or a better method or a better organization or a better strategy. Schumpeter believed the exact opposite, and of course he was right. This is an extremely hard lesson to accept, particularly by successful people. But... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Education

10 Mar 2015
First Look

First Look: March 10

Publications February 2015 Academy of Management Review Reflections on the 2013 Decade Award: "Exploitation, Exploration, and Process Management: The Productivity Dilemma Revisited" Ten Years... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

22 Apr 2021
Blog Post

Launching the Women in Tech Initiative at HBS

management positions in tech companies are held by people identifying as female (Source: Statista); 27% of female respondents to a PwC study considered a tech career, compared to 62% of males respondents (Source: PwC). In light of these... View Details

27 Sep 2010
Research & Ideas

Customer Experts Lose Influence When Teams are Pressured

puzzling and frustrating when I had the sense that our team failed to make the most of everyone's input. As a project manager I had made sure we held a kickoff meeting in the beginning of each new assignment to acknowledge all members'... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

20 Jun 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, June 20

leave for home by 5:30 p.m.? How did HUL develop a cheaper, better product to beat its competitor, Nirma? What do Taj Hotels, HDFC, HUL, L&T, and BPCL have in common? They are the win-win corporations! Based on over a decade of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2017 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Becton Dickinson: Innovation and Growth (A)

By: Raffaella Sadun, Michael Beer and James Weber

In late 2015, CEO Vince Forlenza was reviewing Becton Dickinson’s transformation efforts designed to enable the company to innovate and grow in a changing environment. Becton Dickinson had been a successful medical device company for over 100 years. In recent years,... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Change Management; Innovation Leadership; Mergers and Acquisitions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Health Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States

2019
Working Paper

The Customer May Not Always Be Right: Customer Compatibility and Service Performance

By: Ryan W. Buell, Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei

This paper investigates the impact of customer compatibility – the degree of fit between the needs of customers and the capabilities of the operations serving them – on customer experiences and firm performance. We use a variance decomposition analysis to quantify the... View Details

Keywords: Customer Compatibility; Satisfaction; Profitability; Customer Relationship Management; Service Operations; Customer Satisfaction; Banking Industry; Retail Industry