Publications

Find at Harvard

Ever felt the "taxes" on air travel are unduly high? In other travel contexts (most notably, rental cars), genuine government-imposed taxes often approach or even exceed the amount payable to service providers. But when airlines quote fares, they sometimes include... View Details

05 Dec 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, December 5, 2017

S. Fader, Sunil Gupta, Bruce Hardie, Aurelie Lemmens, Barak Libai, David T. Neal, Foster Provost, and Rom Schrift Abstract—In today’s turbulent business environment, customer retention presents a significant challenge for many View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2016 (Revised May 2016)
Case

UFO Moviez—Gentle Disruption

By: Hong Luo, Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Saloni Chaturvedi

UFO Moviez is an Indian technology services provider that enables low-cost, digital delivery of films to cinemas. UFO’s satellite-based technology enables a significantly wider release of films compared to traditional analog prints and standard, higher-resolution... View Details

Keywords: Film Entertainment; Information Technology; Distribution; Disruption; Growth and Development Strategy; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; India

April 1999 (Revised March 2001)
Case

Be Our Guest, Inc.

By: Dwight B. Crane and Penny Joseph

Be Our Guest is a rapidly growing equipment rental company with substantial seasonality in its revenues and profits. In the spring of 1998, the senior management team is reviewing its financial plans in preparation for a meeting with the company's bank. The case... View Details

Keywords: Financial Strategy; Borrowing and Debt; Banks and Banking; Revenue; Management Teams; Business Plan; Forecasting and Prediction; Service Industry; Service Industry

February 2022 (Revised March 2022)
Case

National Electric Vehicles Sweden (NEVS): Materializing a Vision

By: Shane Greenstein and Elena Corsi

In 2021, the car manufacturer National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) faced the challenge of securing funding from its investor to launch an innovative mobility solution based on fleets of shared autonomous driving (AD) cars. The system was complex as it required the... View Details

Keywords: Autonomous Vehicles; Product Design; Sustainable Cities; Transportation Networks; Auto Industry; Sweden; Europe

05 Jun 2007
First Look

First Look: June 5, 2007

supplement: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=807158 Westin Hotels and Resorts: Operations of a Lifestyle Experience Harvard Business School Case 607-129 Westin Hotels and... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

21 Jan 2014
First Look

First Look: January 21

providing an additional source of revenue, but reduces consumer demand for the service. We characterize equilibrium information provision, disclosure levels, and prices and show that competition with privacy... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

31 Jan 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Addressing Racial Discrimination on Airbnb

Keywords: Web Services

January 2011 (Revised April 2011)
Case

TripAdvisor

By: Sunil Gupta and Kerry Herman

By 2010, TripAdvisor was the largest travel site in the world operating in 24 countries and 16 languages, with listings for 455,000 hotels, 92,000 attractions and 564,000 restaurants in over 71,000 destinations worldwide. It had over 40 million reviews from 35 million... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Growth and Development Strategy; Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet; Service Industry; Service Industry

March 2010 (Revised May 2010)
Case

Design Creates Fortune: 2000 Tower Oaks Boulevard

By: John D. Macomber and Griffin James

A real estate developer assesses its ability to capture the benefits of investing in LEED Platinum, Vedic Design, and EnergyStar components in new buildings. The building at 2000 Tower Oaks Boulevard in Rockville, Maryland is said to be the healthiest building in the... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Cost vs Benefits; Energy Conservation; Construction; Investment; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Leasing; Renting or Rental; Value Creation; Real Estate Industry; Maryland

03 Oct 2005
Research & Ideas

The Truck Driver Who Reinvented Shipping

mail carrier to supplement the family's income. Even so, when young Malcolm graduated from high school in 1931, the country was in the midst of the Depression and further schooling was simply not an option. Pumping gas at a View Details

Keywords: by Anthony J. Mayo & Nitin Nohria; Manufacturing; Transportation; Aerospace

01 Feb 1997
News

Shaping the Future of Business: Entrepreneurial Evolution at HBS

subscribers in financial services and the media who pay more than $1,000 a month to lease them. Just sixteen years after leaving a partnership position at Salomon Brothers,... View Details

Keywords: Nancy O. Perry and Susan Young; profiles by Garry Emmons

December 2003 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Blockbuster Inc. & Technological Substitution (D): The Threat of Direct Digital Distribution

Examines the emergence of technologies for delivering video content to consumer homes via direct digital distribution and investigates the strategic options facing video rental giant Blockbuster Inc. as it tries to respond to the new technological substitutes. Examines... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Risk and Uncertainty; Decisions; Technological Innovation; Competition; Change Management; Service Industry; Service Industry

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

Keywords: Information Technology; Governance Controls; Behavior; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Consumer Behavior; Leasing; Service Industry; Service Industry; United States

February 2018 (Revised June 2021)
Case

New Constructs: Disrupting Fundamental Analysis with Robo-Analysts

By: Charles C.Y. Wang and Kyle Thomas

This case highlights the business challenges associated with a financial technology firm, New Constructs, that created a technology that can quickly parse complicated public firm financials to paint a clearer economic picture of firms, remove accounting distortions,... View Details

Keywords: Fundamental Analysis; Machine Learning; Robo-analysts; Financial Statements; Financial Reporting; Analysis; Information Technology; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; North America; Tennessee

November 1996 (Revised July 1997)
Case

Alexander Plaza

By: Arthur I Segel and William J. Poorvu

In May 1996, Henry Bower, an asset manager for a real estate adviser, Medcem, has to negotiate the details of a lease after signing a letter of intent with a high technology company, Defentek, Inc. Defentek, Inc. is a fast-growing company with limited net worth that is... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Tactics; Negotiation Preparation; Agreements and Arrangements; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; District of Columbia

December 2003 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Blockbuster Inc. & Technological Substitution (B): Confronting New Digital Formats

Investigates how the rise of digital video formats threatens to make videocassette technology obsolete; how this technological substitution might alter the economics and structure of the video rental and retail industries; and how Blockbuster Inc., the industry leader,... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Decisions; Technological Innovation; Competition; Change Management; Service Industry; Service Industry

2016
Report

How Do People Pay Rent?

By: David Hao Zhang

Households still pay rent primarily with paper methods, even though electronic methods are featured more prominently among high-income, high-education, and high-rent households. These patterns may be explained either by the lack of landlord acceptance of electronic... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Payments; Rent Payments; Money Order; Credit Card; Checks; Credit Cards; Online Technology; Consumer Behavior; Cash; Leasing