Consumer Goods - Publications - Faculty & Research

04 Jun 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Can a Continuously-Liquidating Tontine (or Mutual Inheritance Fund) Succeed where Immediate Annuities Have Floundered?

Keywords: by Julio J. Rotemberg; Financial Services

13 Dec 2006
Research & Ideas

Improving Public Health for the Poor

open competition. If it makes economic sense to deliver healthcare to someone who's poor, then people will compete to do that. If it's commercially viable, you actually address what today under the definition of healthcare as a public View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Health

November–December 2020
Article

Lifting the Veil: The Benefits of Cost Transparency

By: Bhavya Mohan, Ryan W. Buell and Leslie K. John

Firms do not typically disclose information on their costs to produce a good to consumers. However, we provide evidence of when and why doing so can increase consumers’ purchase interest. Specifically, building on the psychology of disclosure and trust, we posit that... View Details

Keywords: Cost Transparency; Disclosure; Field Experiment; Cost; Trust; Consumer Behavior

Citation

SSRN

Find at Harvard

29 Oct 2012
Research & Ideas

Are You Paying a Tip--or a Bribe?

about and weighs the past and future. In some places, tips are provided not so much to reward good service but to encourage good service in the future—a perception that brings the tip closer to the purpose... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

12 Dec 2011
HBS Case

HBS Cases: Clocky, the Runaway Alarm Clock

In the spring of 2005, media outlets from Gizmodo to Good Morning America were buzzing about Clocky, an alarm clock that jumped off the nightstand and rolled away chirping and beeping, forcing its owner to get out of bed to turn it off... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Consumer Products

04 Sep 2007
Research & Ideas

Jumpstarting Innovation: Using Disruption to Your Advantage

Mature companies understand that to compete today they need to innovate. But finding sources of innovation while still paying attention to the current business can be a struggle. The good news, says Harvard Business School professor Lynda... View Details

Keywords: by Lynda M. Applegate

18 Feb 2009
First Look

First Look: February 18, 2009

laissez faire policy favors the better-regulated economy, level playing fields are good for weaker regulators. We show that multinational banking mitigates the cherry-picking effect and reduces the damage that a level playing field causes... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

02 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Four VCs on Evaluating Opportunities

funny mix. When we review an investment opportunity, entrepreneurs have to have a pretty good story to tell about what they want to do. I think it helps to be cocky, there's no doubt about it, but if you're not sufficiently confident,... View Details

Keywords: by Lauren Barley

17 Sep 2007
Research & Ideas

Broadband: Remaking the Advertising Industry

strictly online. Who reads newspapers? Old guys. So this is an industry that is being dramatically transformed. “The reality for the advertising industry is that the old model is broken.” As broadband enables new forms of entertainment and new ways to View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Advertising; Media & Broadcasting; Publishing

22 Feb 2010
Op-Ed

Tragedy at Toyota: How Not to Lead in Crisis

inquiry this week.) Meanwhile, he let serious product quality issues spiral out of control by understating safety risks and product problems. This left the media, politicians, and consumers to dictate the conversation, while Toyota... View Details

Keywords: by William George; Auto

15 Mar 2011
First Look

First Look: March 15

documented crimes against women in India. Our evidence suggests that this increase is good news, as it is driven primarily by greater reporting rather than greater incidence of such crimes. In contrast, we find no increase in crimes... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

Managing Marketspace Service Interfaces

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

Jeffrey F. Rayport is focusing on the strategic challenges that face businesses selling information-intensive products and services. A key strategic issue in such businesses is the dematerialization of information-intensive products and services as a consequence of... View Details

26 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

Lipstick Tips: How Influencers Are Making Over Beauty Marketing

this product.” During the video’s 12-plus minutes of step-by-step instructions, Hughes holds up product after product close to the camera so viewers can get a good look at each brand name. Because, after all, Hughes isn’t merely sharing... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Consumer Products; Consumer Products

17 Jan 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Price Coherence and Adverse Intermediation

Keywords: by Benjamin G. Edelman & Julian Wright; Consumer Products

25 Mar 2019
Research & Ideas

The Secret Life of Supply Chains

research rethinks what academics and practitioners have simply called the supply chain—a loose federation of individual suppliers that feed companies with the goods and services necessary to create products for View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Manufacturing; Service

17 Apr 2022
Book

How to Avoid the 'Ethical Slide' That Leads Companies Astray

while the book was in process. Today, strong ethics are a central issue for business leaders, knowing consumers are drawn to companies that do the right thing while steering clear of businesses that break ethical boundaries, Nelson says.... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

04 Jun 2013
First Look

First Look: June 4

http://ssrn.com/abstract=1625503 iPosture: The Size of Electronic Consumer Devices Affects Our Behavior By: Bos, Maarten W., and Amy J.C. Cuddy Abstract—We examined whether incidental body posture, prompted by working on electronic... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

15 Jan 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, January 15, 2019

budgets. Concurrently, changes to other government policies were causing expatriates—who made up about a third of Saudi Arabia’s population and were a key consumer of Almarai’s dairy products—to leave the country in droves. This case... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

12 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

COVID Tested Global Supply Chains. Here’s How They’ve Adapted

Global supply chains took some heat during the COVID-19 pandemic, with consumers waiting months for goods and politicians wringing their hands over trade policy. “Reshoring” is one of the hottest new... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

02 Sep 2015
What Do You Think?

What's Wrong With Amazon’s Low-Retention HR Strategy?

supplanted job priorities. No data was provided, but the impression left by the article was that because so many good people have left Amazon, it pursues either intentionally or unintentionally what can be called a low-retention strategy... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Consumer Products; Consumer Products; Consumer Products; Consumer Products; Consumer Products

Publications