by James Heskett - Publications - Faculty & Research

24 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

Why Do We Tax?

call that goal the "Utilitarian criterion" after the philosophical framework that supports it. Since pioneering work in the 1970s by Nobel laureate James Mirrlees, the Utilitarian criterion has dominated tax... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Legal Services

07 Feb 2007
Research & Ideas

Dividends from Schumpeter’s Noble Failure

Business Cycles was Joseph Schumpeter's least successful book when measured by its professed aims and several other yardsticks. Yet the book contains two vital aspects that have largely been overlooked. First, the prodigious research that... View Details

Keywords: by Thomas K. McCraw

20 Jan 2017
Research & Ideas

Here’s How Businessman Trump Is Likely to Approach the Presidency

approach to the presidency. Their insights follow. Real estate rarely a zero-sum game John D. Macomber, Senior lecturer of business administration You have to start by distinguishing between a branding operation that’s supported View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese

12 Apr 2010
Research & Ideas

One Report: Better Strategy through Integrated Reporting

shareholders by attracting customers who support this. A sustainable strategy with a multi-stakeholder perspective means that sometimes trade-offs must be made. As Joshua Margolis and James Walsh point out,... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

22 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

Most Popular Articles, Papers of the Decade

the Service Profit Chain to Work for Unbeatable Competitive Advantage by HBS professors Jim Heskett and W. Earl Sasser and coauthor Joe Wheeler. Updating a Classic: Writing a Great Business Plan Published:... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

01 Apr 1996
News

Technology for Learning's Sake

telecommunications." McFarlan, in fact, was involved in overseeing one of the earliest regular uses of computers in the MBA Program when the "Business Game" became an annual exercise for generations of MBAs beginning in the mid-1960s. Originally introduced View Details

Keywords: by Deborah Blagg; photo by David Zadig

Research Summary

Winning Coalitions

By: James K. Sebenius

James K. Sebenius is examining the most effective ways to generate and sustain cooperation among a corporations many stakeholders. As the number of stakeholders grows, and management actions more often involve players outside the traditional chain of command and... View Details

Video

Moving the Eliot Table

16 Apr 2008
Lessons from the Classroom

Chris Christensen: Legend of the Classroom

School's 75th anniversary in 1984, a case-method colloquium organized by Christensen and colleagues Jim Heskett and David Garvin drew 85 participants from 60 universities around the world. That same year,... View Details

Keywords: by Deborah Blagg; Education

July 2021 (Revised September 2024)
Case

Supreme: Remaining Cool While Pursuing Growth

By: Jill Avery, Sandrine Crener, Marie-Cecile Cervellon and Ranjit Thind

Following VF Corporation’s acquisition of cult streetwear brand Supreme, consumers and industry pundits were nervous that becoming part of a large, public corporation would put an end to Supreme’s slow and careful growth trajectory as pressure for quarterly results... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Brands and Branding; Luxury; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Growth Management; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; United States; North America

Citation

Educators

Purchase

06 Jul 2015
Research & Ideas

Money and Quotas Motivate the Sales Force Best

just given it—conditional versus unconditional. Doug J. Chung, an assistant professor in the Marketing unit, and Das Narayandas, the James J. Hill Professor of Business Administration, explain what kind of bump managers can expect from... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Retail

22 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

Advertising: It’s Not ‘Mad Men’ Anymore

recognition system was essentially dismantled in 1956 with a consent decree signed by the trade associations involved in administering the system. But nothing much changed. As Silk, Mohammad Arzaghi, Ernst R. Berndt, and View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising

10 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

Become a Value Creator

As a young teacher at Harvard Business School, Brian J. Hall called on longtime professor James Cash for a favor: Hall wanted to study the inner workings of General Electric, and he needed Cash's help to get in touch with top-level... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

21 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

Don’t Get Buried in Customer Data—Use It

With the advent of customer relationship management (CRM) in the late 1990s, companies came to believe that by using technology to tailor their offerings to individual consumers' needs, customer loyalty—and company profits—would... View Details

Keywords: by Jean Ayers

31 Jul 2015
Research & Ideas

The Faculty Reader: Who is Reading What This Summer?

eager to finally read Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown. Brown chronicles how nine boys from working-class families won... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Information; Publishing

18 Feb 2013
Research & Ideas

Breaking Through a Growth Stall

where a company seems weighted down by the bounds of its original start-up business model, a lack of experience by its founder(s), and an accelerating, expense-fueled burn rate through working capital and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

The Value Profit Chain: Treat Employees Like Customers and Customers Like Employees

By: W. Earl Sasser

W. Earl Sasser, Jr., Leonard A. Schlesinger, and James L. Heskett complted a multi-firm study that provides further empirical verification of relationships established in their earlier examinations of 'breakthrough' service and the service profit chain.... View Details

07 Jun 2017
Research & Ideas

How an African History Scholar Became a Modern Righter of Wrongs

ourselves that we’re relevant because we’re important, or we can show people that we’re relevant.” It was the first time the British Government would be sued by any former colonized population, and the lawyers were eager to move forward.... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

27 Jun 2005
Research & Ideas

The Potential Downside of Win-Win

In The Real World James Gillespie, of the Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago-Kent College of Law, and I coined the term parasitic integration to describe instances in which the value created by... View Details

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Spirit at Work: The Search for Deeper Meaning in the Workplace

"spiritual anchors for the new millennium." Clearly, something of a nonmaterial nature is stirring in the corporate temple. But questions abound. Just what does it mean to bring spirituality into the workplace? Is this an appropriate way to help people feel... View Details

Keywords: by Marguerite Rigoglioso

Publications