Publications

December 2013 (Revised March 2016)
Case

Managing Online Reviews on TripAdvisor

By: Thales Teixeira and Leora Kornfeld

In 2013, TripAdvisor was the most visited online travel site in the world. It hosted a massive repository of information on hotels and travel services, and provided millions of reviews written by consumers. Consumers were becoming increasingly motivated to read and... View Details

Keywords: Online Word-of-mouth; Online Reviews; Hotels; Internet and the Web; Marketing Communications; Marketing Reference Programs; Digital Marketing; Customer Satisfaction; Accommodations Industry; Travel Industry

July–August 2024
Article

Navigating the Future of Online Advertising with WEB3

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Ben Plomion

or years, digital ad spend was a steadily growing portion of marketing budgets. But online advertising faces challenges that mean a transformative shift in digital marketing. Meanwhile, so-called “Web3” has emerged as a medium that can change ad spend and how personal... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Advertising; Digital Marketing

Read Now

March 2011 (Revised July 2011)
Case

Vestas' World of Wind

By: Thomas J. Steenburgh and Elena Corsi

The wind turbine manufacturer Vestas launched the industry's first highly localized and customized new product launch campaigns which used also new tools such as web 2.0 platforms. Used to operate in a market where demand exceeded supply, Vestas had lost contact with... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Marketing Channels; Internet and the Web; Product Launch; Demand and Consumers; Advertising Campaigns; Global Strategy; Customization and Personalization; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Finance; Product Marketing; Technology Adoption; Energy Industry

Article

Turnkey or Tailored? Relational Pluralism, Institutional Complexity, and the Organizational Adoption of More or Less Customized Practices

By: Ryan Raffaelli and Mary Ann Glynn

We examine how the organizational adoption of new practices is influenced by relational pluralism, i.e., an organization's multiple ties to actors inside and outside its industry. We theorize that institutional mechanisms of practice diffusion underlying relational... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business Processes; Adoption; Customization and Personalization

Find at Harvard

10 Mar 2009
First Look

First Look: March 10, 2009

decision to launch a hedge fund in India, and the first years of the venture. It also profiles Nirva Patel and describes how they met, married, and managed the transition to a new life in Mumbai, including the impact on her career and View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

30 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 30

through growth in Web site traffic. The improvements typically range between 30% and 50%. When using the regression discontinuity approach, we still find a strong, positive effect of angel funding on the survival and growth of ventures... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 1981 (Revised May 1988)
Case

L.L. Bean, Inc.: Corporate Strategy

By: Hirotaka Takeuchi

L.L. Bean, Inc., a Maine-based manufacturer and mail-order retailer of sporting goods and apparel, has grown from $3 million in sales (1967) to over $120 million (1980). Current projections predict an annual compounded growth of 25% through 1985. Management must decide... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; Growth and Development; Growth Management; Production; Quality; Sales; Situation or Environment; Corporate Strategy; Internet and the Web; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

April 2012 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Dovernet

By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred

This case illustrates the implications of using stringent performance measurement systems to create performance pressure, motivate employee achievement, and sharpen a firm's competitiveness. It opens by describing the downsides of the ruthlessly competitive culture at... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Information Technology; Competitive Advantage; Decision Choices and Conditions; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Compensation and Benefits; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry; Vancouver

07 Mar 2007
Research & Ideas

How Do You Value a “Free” Customer?

Businesspeople understand that not all customers are created equal—the 80-20 rule suggests that over time a small percentage of a company's customer base can generate a high percentage of its sales and profit. Models for calculating customer lifetime value are built on... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Web Services

15 Mar 2011
First Look

First Look: March 15

initiatives. First, influential staff functions transform personally communicable, tacit expert knowledge to tool-generated, highly communicable knowledge. Second, the experts avoid detaching themselves completely from the resulting... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2008 (Revised October 2008)
Case

Marc Abrahams: Annals of an Improbable Entrepreneur

By: Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind

Marc Abrahams was a media entrepreneur who specialized in science humor. In 2008, he sought to boost the scale and monetization potential of his business. That business, called Improbable Research, encompassed a magazine (Annals of Improbable Research), a high-profile... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Selection and Staffing; Human Capital; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Personal Development and Career

Find at Harvard

23 Nov 2010
First Look

First Look: November 23

Todd Rogers and Michael I. Norton Publication: Harvard Business Review 88, no. 11 (November 2010) Abstract This article presents a dual interview based on a research study we conducted. Our study found that an artful dodger of questions was generally considered more... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2004 (Revised November 2004)
Case

Mavens & Moguls: Creating a New Business Model

By: Myra M. Hart, Victoria Winston and Kristin Lieb

Mavens & Moguls is a "virtual" marketing-consulting firm of approximately 40 professionals. Examines the processes by which its founder, Paige Arnof-Fenn, learns the business, builds a power network of industry experts and potential customers, and uses this expertise... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Values and Beliefs; Work-Life Balance; Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Operations; Networks; Business Model; Growth Management; Business Growth and Maturation; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Consulting Industry

14 Dec 2010
First Look

First Look: Dec. 14

pervasive in the China business context characterized by heavy reliance on personal relationships or guanxi, it went against the founding principles of CDG-professionalism and service quality. Yang had to decide where to draw the line... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2016
Teaching Note

Advanced Leadership Pathways: David Weinstein and Write the World

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Tessa Natanay Hamilton and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

Teaching Note for Case 314-030. Following a successful career as a lawyer, Chief Administrative Officer of Fidelity Investments, and law school instructor, David Weinstein became a 2011 Advanced Leadership Fellow at Harvard University. During his Advanced Leadership... View Details

Keywords: Writing; Online Platform; Social Entrepreneurship; Education; Internet and the Web; Competency and Skills; Leadership; Change Management

February 2013
Case

18 Months in a Startup: Zaggora.com

By: Tom Nicholas

The founders of Zaggora reflected back on a tumultuous year-and-a-half in which they had generated, from just $40,000 in personal savings, a multi-million dollar sportswear enterprise selling Hotpants to women. These were hotpants not of the 1960s hipster variety, but... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Growth Management; Problems and Challenges; Business Startups; Brands and Branding; Innovation and Invention; Corporate Finance; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Sports Industry

09 May 2024
Research & Ideas

Called Back to the Office? How You Benefit from Ideas You Didn't Know You Were Missing

been using Clarivate Web of Science to collect citation and reference patterns from more than 12,000 works across 15 disciplines published as of 2015, with the goal of exploring the role of geographic proximity on the evolution of ideas... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

November 1997 (Revised May 2002)
Case

MicroAge, Inc.: Orchestrating the Information Technology Value Chain

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Kirk A. Goldman

MicroAge, Inc. started as a storefront in Tempe, AZ in 1976 selling personal computer kits to hobbyists. During their first year of operation, founders Jeff McKeever and Alan Hald sold $1.5 million worth of computer kits, priced at under $1,000 each. Twenty years... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Growth Management; Risk Management; Product; Opportunities; Horizontal Integration; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Technology Industry; Arizona