Consumer Power - Publications - Faculty & Research

23 Apr 2014
HBS Case

Are Electronic Cigarettes a Public Good or Health Hazard?

health," one health advocate said. Consisting of a small barrel-shaped design that mimics an actual cigarette, the devices vaporize a liquid nicotine solution, which is then inhaled without the tar and carcinogens found in smoke. View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage; Advertising

17 Jun 2013
Research & Ideas

Advertising Symbiosis: The Key to Viral Videos

expenditures. Advertisers can get the most bang for the buck if they post their videos on YouTube and then motivate consumers to disseminate the ads for them, via email or social media. Getting an ad to go viral is among the cost-saving... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Advertising

08 Mar 2017
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: Can the Proposed American Health Care Act Improve on 'Obamacare'?

Representative Kevin Brady, a Republican from Texas and the House Ways and Means chairman, stated "our legislation transfers power from Washington back to the American people. We dismantle Obamacare's damaging taxes and mandates so... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch, Dr. Gordon Moore, and Emily Boudreau

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Rapid Response: Inside the Retailing Revolution

Once upon a time, suppliers held all the cards. Henry Ford's dictum that consumers could have any color car they wanted as long as it was black proved wrong in the extreme, but for years manufacturers in this country kept their hands... View Details

Keywords: by James E. Aisner; Consumer Products; Consumer Products; Consumer Products; Consumer Products; Consumer Products

21 May 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Do Friends Influence Purchases in a Social Network?

Keywords: by Raghuram Iyengar, Sangman Han & Sunil Gupta; Technology

21 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Are We Thinking Too Little, or Too Much?

The most captivating item in Michael Norton's office is a Star Wars The Force Trainer, a toy that allows would-be Jedi warriors to levitate a Ping-Pong ball within a tube using only the power of focused thinking. Norton, a marketing... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

11 Feb 2019
Research & Ideas

The Business of Saving the Planet

Roundtable, 200 powerful CEOs said corporations should widen their missions beyond just maximizing profits for shareholders. These Entrepreneurs Take a Pragmatic Approach to Solving Social ProblemsUsing business to create social change... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Energy; Green Technology

13 Jun 2014
Op-Ed

World Cup Soccer: 770 Billion Minutes of Attention

game, and they will forget the powerful machine that controls the most popular sport in the world. For more on The Economics of Attention, see The Rising Cost of Consumer Attention: Why You Should Care, and... View Details

Keywords: by Thales Teixeira; Sports

06 Oct 2011
What Do You Think?

How Will the ‘Moneyball Generation’ Influence Management?

Gaurav Goel: "Analytics is a powerful weapon but we need prudent processes for data capture that ensure a consistent quality of data." The tone of responses suggested that there was little question that the analytics of... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

17 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Why Global Brands Work

Harvard Business School professor John Quelch writes a blog on marketing issues, called Marketing Know: How, for Harvard Business Online. It is reprinted on HBS Working Knowledge.Ford has finally woken up to what Toyota knew a long time ago: the View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch; Auto

11 Mar 2014
Research & Ideas

Book Excerpt: ’Entrepreneurship and Multinationals’

As the pace of globalization speeded up from the 1960s, the term "multinational enterprise" (hereafter MNE) was coined, and there was an outpouring of discussion, much of it critical, about the political, social, and economic role of large global firms. MNEs... View Details

Keywords: Re: Geoffrey G. Jones

02 Jan 2012
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Articles of 2011

companies to look at products the way customers do: as a way to get a job done. Are You a Level-Six Leader? (23,834) http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6752.html Published: July 6, 2011 Asking the question, whom do you serve? is a powerful vector... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

11 Jun 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

Teaching the Next Generation of Energy Executives

You may think that being an energy executive—especially a manager in a leading oil company—might be the easiest job around. Just flip the production switch, and watch gas prices head toward $4 a gallon. But students enrolled in Harvard Business School professor Forest... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

29 Mar 2016
First Look

March 29, 2016

scrutiny in the last decade, with an increased expectation that private profit not come at the expense of consumer welfare. Consumers, Corporations, and Public Health assembles 17 case studies at the intersection of business and public... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

Don’t Get Buried in Customer Data—Use It

To illustrate how Cisco uses these three layers, Cunningham cites a hypothetical example. Assume that for a given year, the average score for product reliability has slipped a bit. Drilling down to the bottom two layers of data, Cisco discovers a problem with the View Details

Keywords: by Jean Ayers

2013
Working Paper

Separating Homophily and Peer Influence with Latent Space

By: Joseph P. Davin, Sunil Gupta and Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

We study the impact of peer behavior on the adoption of mobile apps in a social network. To identify social influence properly, we introduce latent space as an approach to control for latent homophily, the idea that "birds of a feather flock together." In a series of... View Details

Keywords: Social Influence; Social Network; Mobile App; Peer Effects; Latent Homophily; Latent Space; Proxy Variables; Familiarity; Behavior; Consumer Behavior; Applications and Software; Social and Collaborative Networks; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Power and Influence; Social Media

Citation

Read Now

17 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Let Customers Call the Shots

What is consumer empowerment and what does it mean for you as an executive? HBS professor Luc Wathieu outlined his views in the following e-mail interview with HBS Working Knowledge senior editor Martha Lagace.Lagace: In your paper you... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

July 2012
Case

Johannes Linden: Managing the Global Executive Committee

By: Linda A. Hill and Mark Rennella

Johannes Linden is the Director of the Washer and Dryer division of Fluss, a large Swiss appliance manufacturer. Soon after the company completes its revenue projections and bonus targets for the upcoming year, Linden shares some good news with his leadership team, the... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Style; Groups and Teams; Organizational Culture; Management Style; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence; Multinational Firms and Management; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Switzerland

Citation

Educators

Purchase

10 Apr 2006
Research & Ideas

Lessons from the Browser Wars

simplified access to the online world, transforming the Internet from a communications vehicle for academics into a mass consumer phenomenon. At the same time, the growing usefulness of the Internet drove sales of personal computers off... View Details

Keywords: by Sara Grant; Consumer Products; Consumer Products; Consumer Products

02 Sep 2002
Research & Ideas

The Role of Government When All Else Fails

law, for example, was transformed into a powerful consumer protection device. At about the same time, the federal government became actively involved in protecting citizens against the ravages of natural... View Details

Keywords: by Laura Linard

Publications