Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(339)
- Faculty Publications (80)
- May 2010 (Revised August 2013)
- Case
Delta Electronics Hybrid Power Train
By: Willy C. Shih and Jyun-Cheng Wang
Delta Electronics, the world's largest manufacturer of switching power supplies, hoped to enter the market for gasoline-electric hybrid power trains for automobiles by being a major component and subsystem supplier. While most public awareness of hybrid vehicles fell... View Details
- February 2010 (Revised June 2011)
- Case
SEWA Trade Facilitation Center: Changing the Spool
By: Mukti Khaire and Kathleen L. McGinn
The case is about the decision to convert a not-for-profit organization into a for-profit company. SEWA Trade Facilitation Center (STFC), which is part of a larger non-profit organization—the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA)—works to improve the livelihoods of... View Details
- December 2009 (Revised October 2015)
- Case
Diamond Foods
By: David E. Bell and Mary Louise Shelman
CEO Michael Mendes has transformed a grower-owned cooperative into a publicly traded top marketer of snack foods. Diamond's organization, culture, product development process, advertising and promotion strategy, and specifically its marketing department have been built... View Details
- November 2009
- Article
Organizational Design and Control across Multiple Markets: The Case of Franchising in the Convenience Store Industry
Many companies operate units that are dispersed across different types of markets, and thus serve significantly diverging customer bases. Such market-type dispersion is likely to compromise the headquarter's ability to control its local managers' behavior and satisfy... View Details
- June 2009
- Article
Highbrow Films Gather Dust: Time-inconsistent Preferences and Online DVD Rentals
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Todd Rogers and Max H. Bazerman
We report on a field study demonstrating systematic differences between the preferences people anticipate they will have over a series of options in the future and their subsequent revealed preferences over those options. Using a novel panel data set, we analyze the... View Details
- 2008
- Book
Ownership Quotient: Putting the Service Profit Chain to Work for Unbeatable Competitive Advantage
By: James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser Jr. and Joe Wheeler
Hundreds of large organizations worldwide have used the groundbreaking Service Profit Chain to improve business performance. Now The Ownership Quotient reveals the next generation of the chain: customer and employee "owners" of your business. Employee-owners exhibit... View Details
- July 2008
- Case
Hilton Hotels: Brand Differentiation through Customer Relationship Management
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Gabriele Piccoli and Chekitan Dev
This case analyzes the Hilton Hotels Corporation's CRM strategy at a key juncture in its history, immediately after the firm has been taken private by Blackstone. The case provides students with a comprehensive history of the evolution and IT enablers of Hilton's CRM... View Details
- July 2008
- Teaching Note
Hilton Hotels: Brand Differentiation through Customer Relationship Management (TN)
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Gabriele Piccoli and Chekitan Dev
Teaching Note for [809029]. View Details
- July 2008 (Revised October 2012)
- Case
Affinity Plus (A)
By: Dennis Campbell and Peter Tufano
The executive team at Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union has pushed the concept of members first deeply throughout the organization, empowering employees to put member-owners' interests ahead of either the organization's interests or their own interests. As a result of... View Details
- June 2008
- Case
Rackspace Hosting in Late 2000
By: James L. Heskett and W. Earl Sasser
The leadership team of Rackspace, faced with accommodation of its service offering and dwindling financial reserves, decides to make customer focus the rallying cry of its new strategy. This short case was designed as the discussion igniter for a series of short video... View Details
- May 2008 (Revised June 2008)
- Case
Kenny Kahn at Muzak (A)
By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Stecker
Founded in 1934, Muzak pioneered the industry of background music. Equipped with propriety technology and a vast music library, over the ensuing decades the Muzak franchise organization expanded geographically. Despite a history of innovation, by the late 1990s Muzak... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Organizational Design and Control across Multiple Markets: The Case of Franchising in the Convenience Store Industry
By: Dennis Campbell
Many companies operate units which are dispersed across different types of markets, and thus serve significantly diverging customer bases. Such market-type dispersion is likely to compromise the headquarters' ability to control its local managers' behavior and... View Details
- February 2008
- Case
Cincom Systems, Inc.
By: Tom Nicholas and David Chen
Tom Nies, charismatic CEO of Cincom Systems, is considering a public offering of his software enterprise, but the 1987 stock market crash checks his plans. Nies reflects that capital for expansion will keep Cincom at the frontier of technological development in a... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Performance and Control across Multiple Markets
By: Tatiana Sandino, Dennis Campbell and Shelby Yu
Chain organizations typically operate units across different types of markets, with significantly diverging customer bases. Such market-type dispersion potentially influences performance through two channels: it makes performance a noisier indicator of store manager... View Details
- 2008
- Simulation
Pricing Simulation: Universal Car Rental
This web-based simulation presents an engaging context in which students develop their knowledge of pricing by managing a rental car operation (Universal) in Florida and improve regional performance by developing a pricing strategy. The simulation involves three... View Details
Keywords: Competition; Consumer Behavior; Price; Profit; Renting or Rental; Auto Industry; Service Industry; Miami; Orlando; Tampa
- 2007
- Working Paper
A Taste For Obscurity: An Individual-Level Examination of 'Long Tail' Consumption
By: Anita Elberse
Because online retailers are often able to provide products in a more cost-efficient manner than bricks-and-mortar stores, online channels are characterized by a vast assortment of products. Proponents of the "long tail" principle recently argued that the demand for... View Details
- July 2007 (Revised March 2008)
- Case
ABRY Fund V
By: Nabil N. El-Hage, Richard S. Ruback and Leslie Pierson
In January 2006, Andrew Banks and Royce Yudkoff were considering raising a 5th fund for their media-focused private equity firm, ABRY Partners. ABRY had a strong track record that the co-founders attributed to their group's deep knowledge of the media industry and... View Details
- May 2007 (Revised April 2009)
- Case
Netflix
By: Willy C. Shih, Stephen P. Kaufman and David Spinola
Reed Hastings founded Netflix with a vision to provide a home movie service that would do a better job satisfying customers than the traditional retail rental model. But as it encouraged challenges it underwent several major strategy shifts, ultimately developing a... View Details
- December 2005 (Revised February 2006)
- Case
Migros
By: Forest L. Reinhardt, Vincent Marie Dessain and Anders Sjoman
In October 2005, Urs Riedener, head of marketing at Swiss retailer Migros, is contemplating the company's competitive position. Primarily a retailer for foods and near-foods products, the cooperative Migros, with close to 600 retail outlets in Switzerland (but only... View Details
Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Corporate Governance; Corporate Strategy; Cooperative Ownership; Supply Chain Management; Product Marketing; Environmental Sustainability; Social Enterprise; Business or Company Management; Marketing Strategy; Retail Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Switzerland
- January 2005 (Revised June 2005)
- Case
Zipcar: Influencing Customer Behavior
By: Frances X. Frei and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar
At Zipcar, customers share the use of cars and, as a result, rely on each other for their service experience. Customers are required to keep the car clean and the gas tank full and to return the car on time. Told from the perspective of two customers: Sal Fishman, who... View Details