Product Distribution - Publications - Faculty & Research

16 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restaurant Revolution: How the Industry Is Fighting to Stay Alive

contactless curbside pickup options. Investors are helping shore up distribution networks by injecting cash into distributors to keep products flowing. Franchisees are being offered more generous payment... View Details

Keywords: by Michael S. Kaufman, Lena G. Goldberg, and Jill Avery; Food & Beverage

Web

Advisory Board - Entrepreneurship

the chief architect of Kiva's game-changing product vision. Prior to Kiva, Mick worked on a business process team at Webvan designing a next generation distribution strategy for grocery home delivery, during... View Details

22 Feb 2018
Book

The New History of American Capitalism

political economy. Thomas Piketty locates the roots of growing inequality in the economic returns to capital and stresses the political stakes of distributive justice. “If democracy is someday to regain control of capitalism,” he writes,... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing

July–August 2018
Article

Learning by Contributing: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Contribution to Crowdsourced Public Goods

By: Frank Nagle

As the economy becomes more information based, firms are increasingly using crowdsourced public goods as inputs for innovation and production. Counterintuitively, some firms pay their employees to contribute to the creation of these goods, which can be used freely by... View Details

Keywords: Open Source Distribution; Applications and Software; Competitive Strategy; Learning; Competitive Advantage

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February 2011
Case

Jamie Turner at MLI, Inc.

By: John J. Gabarro and Colleen Kaftan

The case describes the evolution of an interpersonal mismatch between a previously successful manager, Jamie Turner, and his new boss, Pat Cardullo. Turner, a 32-year-old MBA graduate, has been recruited by Cardullo to be vice president of marketing and sales at Modern... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Interpersonal Relations; Superior ＆ Subordinate; Micro Organizational Behavior; Performance Management; Personal Strategy ＆ Style; Management Style; Conflict Management; Interpersonal Communication; Employee Relationship Management; Rank and Position; Performance; Communication Strategy; Personal Development and Career; Acquisition; Distribution Industry; Distribution Industry; San Diego; Chicago

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2025
Working Paper

Generative AI and the Nature of Work

By: Manuel Hoffmann, Sam Boysel, Frank Nagle, Sida Peng and Kevin Xu

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology demonstrate a considerable potential to complement human capital intensive activities. While an emerging literature documents wide-ranging productivity effects of AI, relatively little attention has been paid... View Details

Keywords: Generative Ai; Digital Work; Open Source Software; Knowledge Economy; AI and Machine Learning; Open Source Distribution; Organizational Structure; Performance Productivity; Labor

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July 2017
Case

Magpie: Developing and Using Buyer Personas

By: Frank V. Cespedes

The founders of a start-up platform for publishers have developed preliminary personas of target customers and are evaluating the implications for initial target buyers, messaging, and marketing programs. The case is useful for discussing the process of developing... View Details

Keywords: Buying Process; Marketing; Sales; Distribution Channels; Segmentation; Entrepreneurship; Social Media; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

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Entrepreneurial Management Curriculum - Faculty & Research

YEAR) Course Title Faculty Name Term Quarter Credits 3 Technologies that Will Change the World Shikhar Ghosh Spring 2026 Q3Q4 3.0 Avoiding Startup Failure DJ DiDonna Spring 2026 Q3Q4 3.0 B2B Sales and Distribution (also listed under... View Details

20 Aug 2013
First Look

First Look: August 20

compensation plan. Substantively, the paper sheds insights on how different elements of the compensation plan enhance productivity. We find evidence that: (1) bonuses enhance productivity across all segments; (2) overachievement... View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

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Impact of the New Medium - Edwin H. Land & Polaroid | Harvard Business School

introduced the Polaroid Land Camera, Model 95, and Land Film, Type 40, to the public. Edwin Land stood at a precipice, wondering whether the significant investment and research in his new product would pay off. Land had wisely kept his... View Details

02 Apr 2020
What Do You Think?

What Are Lessons for Leaders from This Black Swan Crisis?

public and private sectors learn from the events of the past few months? In the public realm, Sandeep Yadav concluded, “It is only by sharing resources globally that we can distribute the burden of fighting the next Black Swan.” The... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

December 2005
Case

IBM and Eclipse (A)

IBM faces a collective action problem: It open sourced its $40 million application platform and has to convince other companies to contribute. Explores the events leading up to IBM's decision to make the Eclipse platform available as an Open Source project. In 1998,... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Open Source Distribution; Cooperation; Adoption; Computer Industry; Information Technology Industry

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25 Jul 2006
First Look

First Look: July 25, 2006

Jones Author's Abstract A noteworthy characteristic of the contemporary global economy is the uneven distribution of world foreign direct investment (FDI). While in the first global economy before 1929 most FDI was located in developing... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Dec 2023
News

Rounding the Bend

Illustration by Fernando Cobelo To help people visualize what a circular economy could look like and bring the challenges down to a closet-sized scale, Emily Bolon (MBA/MPA 2007) recommends the following exercise. First, make a mental tally of the number of garments... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Retail Trade; Apparel Manufacturing; Manufacturing

26 Apr 2022
Book

What Does Your Business Stand For? Why Building Trust Starts with Purpose

emphasized autonomy as an operating norm, to the point where employees who had worked in more conventional organizations found the transition jarring. Leaders integrated crowdsourcing into decision-making, most notably in the firm’s View Details

Keywords: by Ranjay Gulati

16 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

The Most Successful Startups Have Hands-On Founders

how these management skills can be acquired through peer networks, the researchers partnered with the Indian Software Product Industry Roundtable (iSPIRIT), a think tank that promotes the growth of Indian software View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

18 Dec 2012
First Look

First Look: December 18

of Research in Marketing 29 (2012) Abstract We examine the underlying process behind the IKEA effect, which is defined as consumers' willingness to pay more for self-created products than for identical View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

May 2018
Case

Sagacity Tea: What Direction for Growth?

By: John A. Quelch and Amy Handlin

Kate Moran, CEO and cofounder of Sagacity Tea, a small, Vermont-based ready-to-drink tea brand, is considering a consumer-product group (CPG) broker's proposal for the product's launch in several cities along the East Coast of the United States. The commitments in the... View Details

Keywords: Product Launch; Marketing; Distribution; Growth Management; Marketing Channels; Decision Choices and Conditions

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31 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Japan Disaster Shakes Up Supply-Chain Strategies

March 11. Tokyo, and indeed much of eastern Japan, is an epicenter of high-tech manufacturing. But dozens of suppliers in other industries are located in the region as well, and the loss of their production may have far-reaching effects... View Details

Keywords: by Dennis Fisher; Auto; Technology; Computer; Electronics

August 2023
Case

Reimagining Hindustan Unilever (A)

By: Sunil Gupta and Rachna Tahilyani

In the fall of 2019, the CEO and MD of Hindustan Unilever (HUL), India’s largest fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) firm, is wondering what to do about their experiments to digitize distribution. Despite three years of intense efforts, their apps to empower retailers... View Details