Publications

May–June 2011
Article

The Uninvited Brand

By: Susan Fournier and Jill Avery

Brands rushed into social media, viewing social networks, video sharing, online communities, and microblogging sites as the panacea to diminishing returns for traditional brand building routes. But, as more branding activity moves to the web, marketers are confronted... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Brands; Brand Building; Brand Management; Digital Marketing; Advertising Campaigns; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Internet and the Web; Social Media; Advertising Industry; Consumer Products Industry

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By April 7, 2020, over 1.4 million people worldwide had contracted the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Governments raced to curb the spread of COVID-19 by scaling up testing, quarantining those infected, and tracing their possible contacts. It had taken Singapore's... View Details

July 2012 (Revised January 2014)
Case

HGRM: Bringing Back High Touch Hospitality

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Gabriele Piccoli

The case centers on the dilemma faced by Carlo Fontana, the owner-operator of a small chain of two four-star urban hotels located in Lugano, Switzerland, and the other in Milan, Italy. Having developed an extensive customer service and operations information system,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Customer Relationship Management

Companies compete on the decisions they make. For years—even decades—in response to intensifying global competition, companies decided to outsource their manufacturing operations in order to reduce costs. But we are now seeing the alarming long-term effect of those... View Details

2007
Working Paper

How to Capture Value from Innovation: Shaping Intellectual Property and Industry Architecture

By: Gary P. Pisano and David J. Teece

In making strategic decisions about how to capture value from innovation, managers often look at two critical domains—the intellectual property environment and the architecture of the industry—as beyond their control. Yet, the intellectual property environment and the... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Intellectual Property; Industry Structures; Value

28 Oct 2008
First Look

First Look: October 28, 2008

and to calculate metrics to compare their levels of modularity. Our research takes advantage of a natural experiment in this industry, where products exist that fulfill the same function, but that have been developed using very different organizational... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Research Summary

Ruling the Waves: Business and Politics along the Technological Frontier

By: Debora L. Spar

There are certain periods of time when technological innovation pushes at the frontiers of government and law; when technology undermines state authority and opens massive loopholes for entreneneurs to exploit. During these critical junctures, rules disappear and... View Details

December 2011
Article

Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?

By: Lauren Cohen, Joshua Coval and Christopher J. Malloy

This paper employs a new empirical approach for identifying the impact of government spending on the private sector. Our key innovation is to use changes in congressional committee chairmanship as a source of exogenous variation in state-level federal expenditures. In... View Details

Keywords: Spending; Private Sector; Taxation; Innovation and Invention; Interest Rates; Business and Government Relations; Investment; Employment; Power and Influence

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This paper employs a new empirical approach for identifying the impact of government spending on the private sector. Our key innovation is to use changes in congressional committee chairmanship as a source of exogenous variation in state-level federal xpenditures. In... View Details

Mar 2012
Article

Does America Really Need Manufacturing?

difficult-to-predict ways (and vice versa). The second is the maturity of the manufacturing process. Immature processes are ripe for innovation, but over time opportunities for improvement become incremental. Viewed through the modularity-maturity lens, relationships... View Details

09 Jun 2022
HBS Case

From Truck Driver to Manager: US Foods’ Novel Approach to Staff Shortages

CHEF’STORE locations have boomed, leading the company to consider opening new stores. Also, the company relies on another distributor to supply products at the cash-and-carry outlets, thereby avoiding additional complications to its core... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

April 2012
Case

Pret A Manger

By: Frances X. Frei, Rick Goldberg and Stephanie van Sice

Pret A Manger, a London-based chain of sandwich shops, was known for its fast, genuine service and pre-packaged sandwiches prepared on-site daily. Instructed by its board to grow at 15 percent per year, Pret considered opening "twin" shops in locations too small to... View Details

Keywords: Customer Service Excellence; Growth Planning And Management; Employee Performance Management; Information Management; Production Planning; Employee Attitude Development And Empowerment; Employee Retention; Leadership Development And Career Planning; Service Delivery; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Employees; Performance; London

2025
Book

Space to Grow: Unlocking the Final Economic Frontier

By: Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau

Your guide--using the compelling stories of changemakers and the tools of economics--to the transformation and future possibilities of the business and economics of space.

Space is a place of unparalleled possibility for humanity, and it's undergoing a... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Economics; Innovation and Invention; Market Entry and Exit; Aerospace Industry

March 2024
Case

From “BIG” Ideas to Sustainable Impact at ICL Group (A)

By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag

In the summer of 2023, Eduard (“Eddie”) Croitoru, Vice President (VP) of ICL Group (“ICL”) Corporate Initiatives, was reflecting on ICL’s internal ideation program, the Business Innovation for Growth (BIG) Accelerator. When Raviv Zoller became the CEO of ICL in 2018,... View Details

Research Summary

Competing in New Markets

Strategic advisors counsel managers to conduct a thorough competitive analysis emphasizing key points of differentiation. But for new markets, Professor McDonald’s research suggests that reports of the threat posed by similar rivals may be greatly exaggerated, and... View Details

2011
Working Paper

Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?

By: Lauren H. Cohen, Joshua D. Coval and Christopher J. Malloy

This paper employs a new empirical approach for identifying the impact of government spending on the private sector. Our key innovation is to use changes in congressional committee chairmanship as a source of exogenous variation in state-level federal expenditures. In... View Details

Keywords: Economic Growth; Investment; Spending; Government Administration; Employment; Managerial Roles

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December 1997 (Revised April 1998)
Case

www.springs.com

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Melissa Dailey

Business Week's June 1997 "Rising Star" profile of Springs Industries' president and COO, Crandall Bowles, reported that she was poised to become one of the top two or three women executives in the country. In November 1997, the company announced Bowles' appointment to... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Operations; Product Marketing; Management; Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; South Carolina

April 2023
Supplement

Fresh Food Generation

By: Brian Trelstad

Instructors should consider the timing of making videos available to students, as they may reveal key case details.

This case highlights one of five BIPOC entrepreneuers in the Boston area as part of the HBS Impact Investment Fund. In fall 2021, a team of... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Race; Food and Beverage Industry