Publications

Educators

April 2006
Background Note

Designing Sustainable Service Models

By: Frances X. Frei

Taught as the second module in a Harvard Business School course on Managing Service Operations. Addresses the challenge of designing service models that effectively incorporate a customer operating role, as well as how to align operations to deliver value to both the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Customers; Design; Managerial Roles; Consumer Behavior; Service Operations; Power and Influence; Value

Educators

September–October 2013
Article

The Dynamic Advertising Effect of Collegiate Athletics

By: Doug J. Chung

I measure the spillover effect of intercollegiate athletics on the quantity and quality of applicants to institutions of higher education in the United States, popularly known as the "Flutie Effect." I treat athletic success as a stock of goodwill that decays over... View Details

Keywords: Choice Modeling; Entertainment Marketing; Heterogeneity; Panel Data; Structural Modeling; Rights; Analytics and Data Science; Higher Education; Ethics; Consumer Behavior; Advertising; Sports; Advertising Industry; Education Industry

SSRN

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1993
Chapter

Decomposing a Brand's Customer Franchise into Buyer Types

By: J. McQueen, J. Foley and J. A. Deighton

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Customers; Demand and Consumers

July–August 2025
Article

Don’t Let an AI Failure Harm Your Brand

By: Julian De Freitas

How companies market their AI systems affects the repercussions they face when their products fail. Marketers must promote their AI products with potential failure in mind. To do that, they must first understand consumers’ unique attitudes toward AI. Marketers who... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Attitudes

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April 2011
Teaching Note

Taylor Fresh Foods (TN)

By: David E. Bell and Mary Louise Shelman

Teaching Note for 509008. View Details

Keywords: Market Entry and Exit; Food; Demand and Consumers; Competition; Opportunities; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

26 Feb 2018
Research & Ideas

The Airbnb Effect: Cheaper Rooms for Travelers, Less Revenue for Hotels

from Airbnb may have forced the hotel to lower its rates for those rooms. Airbnb rooms were more plentiful in cities with a big demand for accommodations, as well as areas with higher-priced hotels, like New York, Los Angeles, View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Travel

May 2004
Background Note

56K Modem Battle

By: David B. Yoffie and Deborah Freier

Examines the battle to set the standard for the 56K modem. Set in 1996, this case looks at how computers accessed the Internet via a telephone line, or dial-up connection, and a hardware modem. In 1995, there were 18.6 million total modem unit shipments, with market... View Details

Keywords: Announcements; Revenue; Patents; Product Launch; Network Effects; Standards; Competition; Information Infrastructure; Internet and the Web; Technology Industry; Illinois

March – April 2008
Article

Customer Preference Discontinuities: A Trigger for Radical Technological Change

By: Mary Tripsas

What factors cause a mature industry to re-enter a period of technological turbulence? This paper addresses this question by developing a model of technological evolution that incorporates both technological trajectories and a new concept: preference trajectories, ... View Details

Keywords: History; Technology; Transition; Consumer Behavior; Industry Structures; Product Development

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17 Apr 2017
Research Event

The Most Pressing Issues for Platform Providers in the Sharing Economy

The so-called chicken-and-egg problem is arguably the most discussed and most obvious business dilemma in the sharing economy. Platform providers–like Uber, Airbnb, or Etsy–rely on both consumers View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Service

August 2022
Case

SuperRare: Turning an NFT Marketplace into a DAO

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Scott Duke Kominers and Amy Klopfenstein

In June 2021, John Crain and Jonathan Perkins, the founders of SuperRare, a marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), contemplate whether to transform their company into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). Crain and Perkins founded SuperRare in 2018 to... View Details

Educators

July 2003 (Revised June 2010)
Case

FrontPoint Partners

By: Jay O. Light

A hedge fund platform, a new and unique kind of asset management firm, contemplates various client markets for its services. View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Investment; Demand and Consumers; Digital Platforms; Service Delivery; Financial Services Industry

December 1998 (Revised April 1999)
Case

Mind of the Market: Constructive Memory Processes, Primer Nine

By: Gerald Zaltman and Kathryn A. Braun

Keywords: Markets; Research; Consumer Behavior

October 1992
Article

Segmenting Industrial Customers by Buyer Behavior

By: V. K. Rangan, R. T. Moriarty Jr. and G. Swartz

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Customers

July – August 2010
Article

Vision Statement: Mapping the Social Internet

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski and Tommy McCall

Fresh data on internet user behaviors around the globe show an East-West divide. View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Emerging Markets; Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet

05 Feb 2009
Research & Ideas

In Praise of Marketing

alongside global brands. Retailing and distribution remain largely local. And American consumers show a desire for increasing cultural variety in their life experiences, eating... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Advertising

April 2009
Supplement

Symbian, Google & Apple in the Mobile Space (B)

By: Fernando Suarez, Benjamin Edelman and Arati Srinivasan

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Network Effects; Networks; Strategy; Telecommunications Industry

24 Oct 2012
Research & Ideas

Want People to Save More? Send a Text

Dina Pomeranz's interest in helping people build a savings cushion for difficult economic times emerged during a summer internship in Cameroon, where a woman she lived with shared how worried and anxious she was about her financial... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

May 2004 (Revised July 2004)
Case

Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King

By: Nitin Nohria and Bridget Gurtler

Follows the rise and fall of the founder of the modern supermarket, Clarence Saunders. Prior to 1915, all staple shopping took place in the market or general store, where a clerk behind a counter pulled items from shelves for customers , measured them from a barrel, or... View Details

Keywords: Inflation and Deflation; Mission and Purpose; Business Processes; Leadership; Consumer Behavior; Leadership Style; Advertising; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Order Taking and Fulfillment