Publications

March 2021
Article

Last Place Aversion in Queues

By: Ryan W. Buell

This paper documents the effects of last place aversion in queues and its implications for customer experiences and behaviors as well as for operating performance. An observational analysis of customers queuing at a grocery store, and four online studies in which... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Operations; Queues; Reference Effects; Last Place Aversion; Transparency; Customers; Behavior; Satisfaction; Service Operations

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September 1999 (Revised October 2000)
Case

Eggrock Partners, LLC (A)

By: Thomas J. DeLong, Myra M. Hart and Sharon Peyus

Explores the challenges of choosing how to grow a professional services firm (PSF). Before developing a growth strategy, the partners need to agree on what business(es) the company should be in. Each of the three partners has differing views of what the company should... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Model; Expansion; Business Processes; Industry Structures; Customer Focus and Relationships; Employees; Partners and Partnerships; Service Industry

April 2008 (Revised October 2008)
Case

TD Canada Trust (A): The Green and the Red

By: Dennis Campbell and Brent Kazan

The case series illustrates the role of performance measurement and analytics in translating TD-Canada Trust's service model of "comfortable banking" into operational terms. In 2000, in a banking market where consumers and regulators were typically hostile to mergers... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Commercial Banking; Profit; Balanced Scorecard; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Banking Industry; Canada

February 1995 (Revised June 1999)
Case

Chemical Bank: Implementing the Balanced Scorecard

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Norman Klein

The retail bank division of Chemical Bank faces declining margins and increased competition in its credit and deposit gathering and processing business. It wishes to implement a new strategy to become a preferred financial service provider to target customer groups.... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Adoption; Growth and Development Strategy; Communication Strategy; Customer Relationship Management; Management Systems; Performance Evaluation; Banks and Banking; Measurement and Metrics; Banking Industry

14 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

Clay Christensen’s Milkshake Marketing

price, or dividing the customer base into target demographics, such as age, gender, education, or income level. Unfortunately, neither way works very well, according to Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, who notes that... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Service; Service; Service; Service

August 1995 (Revised January 1997)
Exercise

Consumer Behavior Exercise (E)

By: John A. Deighton and Susan M. Fournier

Students are instructed to interview a recent purchaser of a high-involvement product or service in depth about his/her ownership and usage experiences. The exercise provides students with first-hand understanding of important concepts in consumption domain (e.g.,... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior

Teaching Interest

Overview

Lena teaches the required first year MBA course on Leadership and Corporate Accountability, an elective second year MBA course on Law, Management and Entrepreurship, and an elective second year MBA course on Challenges and Opportunities in the Restaurant Industry. View Details

March 2011
Case

Cash Flow Productivity at PepsiCo: Communicating Value to Retailers

PepsiCo developed a new metric that better measured the value added by Pepsi products than did gross margin, the traditional metric used by retailers to determine shelf space and promotional activity. The new metric, cash flow productivity, captured the value of... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Cash Flow; Measurement and Metrics; Distribution; Performance Productivity; Value Creation; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry

August 1995 (Revised January 1997)
Exercise

Consumer Behavior Exercise (F)

By: John A. Deighton and Susan M. Fournier

Students are instructed to interview a recent purchaser of a high-involvement/ego-expressive product or service in depth about his/her ownership and usage experiences. The exercise provides students with first-hand understanding of important concepts in consumption... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior

August 1995 (Revised January 1997)
Exercise

Consumer Behavior Exercise (D)

By: John A. Deighton and Susan M. Fournier

Students are instructed to interview a recent purchaser of a low-involvement product or service in depth about his/her ownership and usage experiences. The exercise provides students with first-hand understanding of important concepts in consumption domain (e.g.,... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior

Article

Know Your Customers' 'Jobs to Be Done'

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon and David S. Duncan

Firms have never known more about their customers, but their innovation processes remain hit-or-miss. Why? According to Christensen and his coauthors, product developers focus too much on building customer profiles and looking for correlations in data. To create... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management

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February 2013 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Iz-Lynn Chan at Far East Organization

By: Linda A. Hill, Anthony J. Mayo and Dana M. Teppert

Iz-Lynn Chan, assistant director of retail business group and service quality and vice president of Far East retail consultancy for Far East Organization, a private real estate developer group in Singapore, raises service standards in the company's hospitality... View Details

Keywords: Hospitality; Organizational Change And Transformation; Leadership; Leading Change; Change Management; Service Industry; Singapore

05 Jul 2021
What Do You Think?

Do Companies Really Need Chief Experience Officers to Know Their Customers?

The Pinto was the last vehicle for rent. I had hoped to sneak into the lot unseen. Unfortunately, the GM customer service team, for whom I was an outside consultant, spotted me as I entered the lot. The... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

November 1990 (Revised June 1991)
Case

American Airlines (A): Strategy in the 1990s

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Gary W. Loveman

American Airlines is pursuing a growth strategy through international and domestic route expansion. At the same time, the airline is working hard to cut costs while trying to provide the best customer service possible. Is this strategy achievable given the recent surge... View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Air Transportation; Cost Management; Customer Focus and Relationships; Growth and Development Strategy; Air Transportation Industry; United States

23 Sep 2020
News

Cranky customers, masked smiles redefine workplace culture: ‘Feels like we’re strangers’

April 2025
Case

Thrivent: From Insurance Agents to Financial Advisors

By: Hubert Joly, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Tom Quinn

Thrivent, a midwestern financial services company with a centuries-long history rooted in Lutheranism, had reached $10 billion in revenue mostly by selling life insurance. In the 2020s, however, CEO Terry Rasmussen began a transformation process centered around the... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Transformation; Talent and Talent Management; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Value and Value Chain; Forecasting and Prediction; Employee Relationship Management; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Job Design and Levels; Human Capital; Leading Change; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States; Minneapolis