Publications

December 2021 (Revised May 2025)
Case

Bed Bath & Beyond: The New Strategy to Drive Shareholder Value

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel W. Fisher

At one time, Bed Bath & Beyond was one of the most successful specialty retailers in the United States—its growth and profit margins far exceeded both peer retailers in the home goods market as well as many other discount retailers. But in 2014, its stock price peaked,... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation; Diversification; Corporate Governance; Leading Change; Performance Evaluation; Valuation; Investment Activism; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

2012
Article

Behavioral Economics and the Psychology of Fruit and Vegetable Consumption

By: Joe Price and Jason Riis

Behavioral economics is an emerging paradigm that challenges the assumptions and predictions of classical economics. This new paradigm emphasizes that consumers do not always make optimal use of available information nor do they always make choices and tradeoffs in a... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Food; Social Marketing; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Behavior; Nutrition

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March 2019 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Growth Investing at Totem Point

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Charles C.Y. Wang and Jonah Goldberg

The case describes the investment of hedge fund, Totem Point Management in Analog Semiconductors (ADI) as a way to discuss forecasting and valuation in growth companies. In June 2016, hedge fund Totem Point invested in ADI at around $55 a share. In general, Totem Point... View Details

Keywords: Growth Investing; Investment; Strategy; Forecasting and Prediction; Valuation

American Fair Trade explores the contested political and legal meanings of the term fair trade from the late nineteenth century through the New Deal era. This history of American capitalism argues that business associations partnered with... View Details

July–August 2024
Article

Doing More with Less: Overcoming Ineffective Long-Term Targeting Using Short-Term Signals

By: Ta-Wei Huang and Eva Ascarza

Firms are increasingly interested in developing targeted interventions for customers with the best response, which requires identifying differences in customer sensitivity, typically through the conditional average treatment effect (CATE) estimation. In theory, to... View Details

Keywords: Long-run Targeting; Heterogeneous Treatment Effect; Statistical Surrogacy; Customer Churn; Field Experiments; Consumer Behavior; Customer Focus and Relationships; AI and Machine Learning; Marketing Strategy

27 Aug 2013
First Look

First Look: August 27

effect of connections is present both for authors who began writing for a media outlet before and after the book release. We then investigate other determinants of expert reviews. Relative to consumer reviews, we find that professional... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 Oct 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, October 2, 2018

Xu Abstract—We investigate how dynamic pricing can lead to more product returns in the online retail industry. Using detailed sales data of more than two million transactions from the Indian online retail market, where View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

Web

Faculty & Research

America, he reflected on these challenges and the long-term implications of the company’s broad-based ownership model. HBS Working Paper Designing Consent: Choice Architecture and Consumer Welfare in Data Sharing By: Chiara Farronato ,... View Details

September 2009 (Revised April 2020)
Case

VIZIO, Inc.

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Elizabeth A. Kind

William Wang, CEO of VIZIO, Inc., was proud of his company's success in providing affordable flat screen TVs. Since its founding in 2002, VIZIO had grown to over $2 billion in revenue and was one of the top three flat panel TV brands, along with Samsung and Sony. Faced... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Financing and Loans; Price; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry

October 1998 (Revised November 1999)
Case

Chantal Cookware Corp.

By: H. Kent Bowen, Paul W. Marshall and Stephanie Dodson

Chantal Cookware is a small, private company with a 15-year record of success in the design, assembly, and sale of high-end cookware. It experiences serious setbacks when consumers' tastes shift from colorful enamel-on-steel products to commercial-style cookware.... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Strategic Planning; Market Entry and Exit; Product Positioning; Trends; Manufacturing Industry

November 2012 (Revised June 2013)
Case

The Facebook IPO Litigation

By: Lena G. Goldberg and Annelena Loeb

Despite its success in the social-networking space, Facebook Inc.'s May 2012 IPO was largely considered a failure. Facebook faced multiple lawsuits and its share price had dropped significantly. Adversaries contended that Facebook had misled investors and violated... View Details

Keywords: Social Networking; IPO; Litigation Risk; Initial Public Offering; Ethics; Lawsuits and Litigation; Failure; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

29 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

Why Do Outlet Stores Exist?

the market to have more lower-value consumers at the expense of losing your higher-value consumers." By selling lower-quality designs for cheaper prices at the outlets, the companies could avoid... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Apparel & Accessories; Fashion; Retail

December 2011
Article

Platform Envelopment

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Geoffrey Parker and Marshall Van Alstyne

Due to network effects and switching costs in platform markets, entrants generally must offer revolutionary functionality. We explore a second entry path that does not rely upon Schumpeterian innovation: platform envelopment. Through envelopment, a provider in one... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Economic Systems; Development Economics; Business or Company Management; Business Strategy; Network Effects; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

April 1991 (Revised June 2001)
Case

Jaguar plc--1989

By: Timothy A. Luehrman and Robert W. Lightfoot

Describes Jaguar's product market problems in 1989, and its attractiveness to GM and Ford as an acquisition target. Students are asked to evaluate the suitability of GM and Ford as business partners for Jaguar, and to determine how much each should be willing to pay to... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Markets; Consumer Behavior; Product; Partners and Partnerships; Valuation; Auto Industry

January 2017
Case

Danaher Corporation, 2007–2017

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

On July 2, 2016, Danaher Corporation completed the spinoff of Fortive Corporation. The previous day, Danaher’s stock price had reached an all-time high. In 2015, Danaher had decided to split off its test and measurement, fuel and fleet management, and automation... View Details

10 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 10

entry) as a means of reconciling non-monotonic incentive responses to competition, effectively manipulating the number and skills distribution of contestants facing one another. February 2015 GfK Marketing Intelligence Review Beyond Bedlam: How View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2025
Working Paper

Combining Complements: Theory and Evidence from Cancer Treatment Innovation

By: Rebekah Dix and Todd A. Lensman

Innovations often combine several components to achieve outcomes greater than the “sum of the parts.” We argue that such combination innovations can introduce an understudied inefficiency—a positive market expansion externality that benefits the owners of the... View Details

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May 1994
Background Note

Segmenting Customers in Mature Industrial Markets: An Application

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

In mature industrial markets, segmenting customers by size, industry, or product benefits alone rarely is sufficient. Customer behavior regarding trade-offs between price and service also becomes an important criterion. This note offers a framework to enable such... View Details

Keywords: Segmentation; Framework; Consumer Behavior; Marketing Strategy; Industrial Products Industry