Publications

January 2004 (Revised August 2005)
Case

Kikkoman Corporation: Consumer Focused Innovation

By: Rohit Deshpande and Hal Hogan

In May 2003, the president and CEO of Kikkoman Corp. sat in his Tokyo office weighing various options for strengthening the company's long-term growth. Kikkoman was the world's largest producer of soy sauce, largely due to its pioneering role since the 1950s as the... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Innovation Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Product Positioning; Adaptation; Competitive Strategy; Japan

January 2017 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Sales Razor Technologies

By: Paul Gompers and Noam Wasserman

Describes the issues facing a founder-CEO regarding building a board of directors, assembling an executive team, managing tension between co-founders, and outsourcing system development work. View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Conflict Management; Governing and Advisory Boards; Employees; Management Teams; Product Development; Technology Industry

April 2025 (Revised April 2025)
Case

JPMorganChase: Leadership in the Age of GenAI

By: Iavor I. Bojinov, Karim R. Lakhani and David Lane

This case study examines JPMorgan Chase's (JPMC) journey in adopting and implementing Generative AI (GenAI) following the release of ChatGPT. It outlines JPMC's initial cautious approach focused on data security, followed by strategic investments in internal platforms... View Details

September 1992 (Revised July 1994)
Case

MEM Company, Inc.: English Leather

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Laura Goode

In 1992, the president of MEM (a producer of personal care products, including men's fragrances) considered a redeployment of field sales efforts and changes in sales compensation policies. Any changes, moreover, must consider the context of strategic decisions... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Brands and Branding; Product Positioning; Consumer Behavior; Distribution Channels; Business Strategy; Consumer Products Industry

05 Sep 2012
First Look

First Look: September 5

categorization effect persisted regardless of whether the rewards were presented using a gain or loss frame. Using both moderation and mediation analyses, we found that categorizing rewards had these View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

TOTO: The Bottom Line

TOTO, the leading manufacturer of toilets in Japan, is struggling to penetrate the U.S. market with its premier bidet-toilets, which are present in 63% of homes in Japan. The case examines the behavioral, cultural, and institutional barriers that TOTO faces in gaining... View Details

Keywords: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Disruptive Innovation; Product Positioning; Market Entry and Exit; Organizational Culture; Consumer Products Industry; Japan; United States

April 2008 (Revised March 2015)
Case

TheLadders (A)

By: Peter A. Coles, Benjamin Edelman, Brian J. Hall and Nicole Bennett

Despite strong appeal among job seekers and outside recruiters, TheLadders' corporate job listings seem to lag. Could raising prices help solve the problem? TheLadders considers this strategic paradox. View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Price; Recruitment; Job Search; Marketing Strategy; Employment Industry

27 Jun 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

Learning to Make the Move to CEO

You're a successful senior executive with 20, 25 years of experience under your belt. You've made your mark and stand just 1 or 2 rungs from the position of CEO. Now what? As faculty chair of Harvard... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Education

2010
Working Paper

Do Call Centers Promote Education? Evidence from India

By: Emily Fair Oster and Mary Bryce Millett

Over the last two decades in India there have been large increases in outsourced jobs and large increases in schooling rates, particularly in English. Existing evidence suggests the trends are broadly related. In this paper we explore how localized these impacts are;... View Details

Keywords: Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Education; Training; Geographic Location; Technology Industry; India

November 2015
Case

Upwork: Reimagining the Future of Work

By: Feng Zhu, Rory McDonald, Marco Iansiti and Aaron Smith

Upwork, the world's largest freelance talent platform, was the result of a merger between the two leading online freelancing companies in 2014, Elance and oDesk. After the merger, the company operated as Elance-oDesk and continued to manage two online... View Details

Keywords: Platforms; Employment; Digital Platforms; Market Transactions; Business Processes; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Job Search

March 2023
Case

Best Buy: Renew Blue (A)

By: Sunil Gupta, Dave Habeeb and Amram Migdal

Preabstract: The A Video Case should be assigned to students in advance of class. The B case is intended to be used in class by educators and the C case can be assigned to students during or after class. The product is designed as a low-prep case for students, with... View Details

Keywords: Job Offer; Management Succession; Personal Development and Career; Business or Company Management; Leadership; Selection and Staffing; Retail Industry

15 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

Are the Most Talented Employees the Highest Paid? Yes—If They’re Bankers

Vallée explains. To that end, he and Célérier set out to quantify talent. To do so, they capitalized on data from French engineering schools. Measuring Talent In France, students are selected for engineering programs based solely on their... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Banking

19 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Empathy: The Brand Equity of Retail

Clinic had been consistently ranked No. 1 by US News & World Report for heart surgery survival rates, her father opted to go to the No. 2 ranked Mayo Clinic. The reason for his choice: doctors at the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

September 1999 (Revised July 2006)
Case

Juice Guys (A)

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Sharon Lee Fox and Cynthia Rushmore Kuechle

The case explores who the customers are for a new beverage product, their desires as customers for this product, and their desires when ordering this product from a local specialty store location. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Commercialization; Customer Satisfaction; Food and Beverage Industry

October 2009
Article

Managing Risk in the New World

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Anette Mikes, Robert Simons, Peter Tufano and Michael Hofmann Jr.

Five experts gathered recently to discuss the future of enterprise risk management: Kaplan, the Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School, who with his colleague David Norton developed the balanced scorecard; Mikes, an assistant professor at HBS who studies... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Financial Crisis; Capital Structure; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Risk Management

Find at Harvard

Article

Are You Suited for a Start-up?

By: Jeffrey Bussgang

Relative to established organizations, start-ups can be hard to figure out. What are the jobs to be done? The best entry points? How can you tell whether a company has potential for success and is the right fit for you? The author advises that you first assess... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Personal Characteristics; Job Search

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

04 Jul 2005
Research & Ideas

Should You Outsource Your Marketing?

Most companies already outsource a portion of their marketing function—advertising. But what about direct-mail management, lead management, or customer analytics? Increasingly, expertise in these and other marketing areas lies outside... View Details

Keywords: by Poping Lin

17 Aug 2021
Blog Post

New Associate Director: Courtney Fairbrother

more and more focused on the technical aspects of renewables, such as policy and analytics. After working in these roles, I realized that there is a need for translating environmental crises to people View Details

December 2001 (Revised February 2003)
Case

Netherlands:The, A "Third Way?"

By: Bruce R. Scott and Jamie Matthews

The economic success of The Netherlands in the 1960s can be attributed to Dutch wages that were kept substantially below those in neighboring countries. But increased pressures in the 1970s led to a wage explosion, which in turn pushed unemployment and disguised... View Details

Keywords: Wages; History; Policy; Problems and Challenges; Macroeconomics; Economic Systems; Employment; Performance Productivity; Jobs and Positions; Economic Growth; Netherlands