Publications

08 Oct 2020
News

Sales Calls Have Gone Virtual, and AI Is Listening In

19 Feb 2019
News

Unlocking the Customer Value Chain

12 Oct 2017
News

Telemundo: The Fastest Growing TV Network in the United States

18 Oct 2016
News

Zenefits Reboots as Z2. But It Might Not Be Enough

Harvard's Retsinas Interview on U.S. Home Prices

Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Nicolas Retsinas, director emeritus of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, talks about the outlook for the U.S. housing market and mortgage foreclosures. U.S. home prices... View Details

February 2011
Exercise

Carbon Trading Simulation: Green Cement Inc.

By: Peter A. Coles

This simulation presents students the opportunity to experience firsthand the economics of carbon markets and permit trading. Each student has private role information about a company he or she manages. The student must make decisions about pollution-reducing... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Investment; Markets; Agreements and Arrangements; Production; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Pollutants

June 2014 (Revised March 2016)
Case

Relating to Peapod

By: Susan Fournier and Jill Avery

Explores the relationships formed between consumers and the Peapod consumer-direct grocery delivery service, as revealed through an ethnographic study of Boston-area Peapod shoppers conducted between the Summer of 1997 and the Fall of 1999. Three representative case... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Customer Relationship Management; Marketing Strategy; Service Industry; Boston

Article

Seize the Power

By: Stefan Thomke

A company’s ability to create and refine its products, customer experiences, processes, and business models—in other words, to compete—is deeply affected by its ability to experiment. Digital giants such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Booking.com have found... View Details

Keywords: Experimentation; Competitiveness; Competition; Innovation and Invention; Marketing; Organizational Change and Adaptation

2010
Working Paper

Unraveling Results from Comparable Demand and Supply: An Experimental Investigation

By: Muriel Niederle, Alvin E. Roth and M. Utku Unver

Markets sometimes unravel, with offers becoming inefficiently early. Often this is attributed to competition arising from an imbalance of demand and supply, typically excess demand for workers. However this presents a puzzle, since unraveling can only occur when firms... View Details

Keywords: Labor; Marketplace Matching; Quality; Competition; Balance and Stability

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August 2016 (Revised November 2019)
Case

eSig: Growth Analysis

By: Mark Roberge and Tom Eisenmann

eSig, an early-stage startup, offers an electronic signature application as a "freemium" product, i.e., users can upgrade from a free basic version to a premium version by paying a subscription fee. Using 9 months of data from 50,000 user activations (available as a... View Details

Keywords: Esignature; Computer Software; Business or Company Management; Marketing Channels; Applications and Software; Business Startups; Computer Industry

May 2016 (Revised March 2017)
Teaching Note

The Road to Kolkata: NH-34 and PPP in India

By: Sid Yog and Ben Eppler

It is May 2014 and construction of road NH-34 has been fraught with difficulties, but HCON CEO Arjun Dhawan can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Land acquisition is finally nearing completion throughout the entire stretch, and one parcel is almost ready to begin... View Details

Keywords: Private Ownership; Partners and Partnerships; Construction; Emerging Markets; Infrastructure; Public Ownership; Construction Industry; India

2018
Working Paper

Ethical Hedonism? How Consumers' Prosocial Behavior Varies Along the Utilitarian-Hedonic Product Spectrum: Evidence from a Survey Experiment

By: Kristin Sippl

The marketing literature classifies products along a spectrum from utilitarian (e.g. rice) to hedonic (e.g. cannabis), and additionally using terms such as “luxury” and “illicit.” Research in business ethics has proposed a counter-intuitive mismatch between ethics and... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Luxury; Consumer Behavior; Environmental Sustainability

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March 2016 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Reinventing Best Buy

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

On March 1, 2017, Best Buy Company, Inc., North America’s largest retailer of consumer electronics and appliances, announced a third year of comparable-store sales increases and a 20.8% increase in domestic comparable online sales. These results were in marked contrast... View Details

Keywords: Best Buy; Hubert Joly; Renew Blue; Showrooming; Webrooming; E-commerce; E-Commerce Strategy; Online Retail; Multichannel Retailing; Omnichannel; Marketplaces; Turnaround; Consumer Electronics; Consumer Electronics Accessories; Appliances; Stores-within-stores; Store Experience; Store Size; Store Pickup; Store Management; Delivery; Delivery Models; Amazon; Amazon.com; Pricing Strategy; Business Subsidiaries; Business Units; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Entertainment; Film Entertainment; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Music Entertainment; Television Entertainment; Theater Entertainment; Price; Profit; Revenue; Geographic Scope; Multinational Firms and Management; Business History; Cost; Selection and Staffing; Reports; Technological Innovation; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Human Capital; Leading Change; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Product Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers; Media; Distribution; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Distribution Channels; Infrastructure; Product; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Public Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Programs; Groups and Teams; Sales; Salesforce Management; Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Information Technology; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Internet and the Web; Applications and Software; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Resource Allocation; Computer Industry; Electronics Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Information Technology Industry; Retail Industry; Service Industry; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Video Game Industry; United States; Minnesota; Minneapolis; Saint Paul; St. Paul

March 2017 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Edwin Land: The Art and Science of Innovation

By: Tom Nicholas, Christopher T. Stanton and Matthew G. Preble

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, Polaroid first invented—and then continuously reinvented—the field of instant photography. Under the leadership of its mercurial founder Edwin Land, the company regularly released new instant cameras and films, often... View Details

Keywords: Instant Photography; Company History; Change Management; Disruption; Forecasting and Prediction; Entrepreneurship; Business History; Innovation Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation and Management; Intellectual Property; Patents; Product Marketing; Brands and Branding; Product Launch; Product Development; Chemical Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

02 Feb 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Mobile Money: The Effect of Service Quality and Competition on Demand

Keywords: by Karthik Balasubramanian & David F. Drake; Banking

May 2005 (Revised December 2005)
Case

Nexgen: Structuring Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs)

A client asks Luc Giraud, CEO of the structured finance solutions provider Nexgen Financial Solutions, to put together a solution that allows the client to add AAA-rated bonds to its portfolio. The client cannot find suitably priced top-rated bonds in the market and... View Details

Keywords: Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Risk and Uncertainty; Debt Securities; Bonds; Financial Services Industry

November 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Marv Tseu at Active Reasoning

By: William A. Sahlman and Christina Darwall

Describes a set of decisions confronting the management team of an early-stage software company. The company has made considerable progress in developing its software but will need additional capital to move forward. Unfortunately, conditions in the capital market are... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Financing and Loans; Capital; Business Startups; Information Technology Industry

July 2000 (Revised July 2001)
Case

Sycamore Networks

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Daniel J. Green

Founders Desh Deshpande and Dan Smith reflect on Sycamore's sales strategies and consider how going public might affect the morale of its key employees. In the optical networking sector, technological change and exploding demand has created a market for talent in which... View Details

Keywords: Applied Optics; Entrepreneurship; Sales; Business Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Retention; Employees; Communication Technology; Technological Innovation; Communications Industry; Telecommunications Industry

September 1995 (Revised March 1997)
Case

Bob Reiss and Valdawn (A): November 1994

Bob Reiss, a seasoned entrepreneur, "accidentally" started Valdawn in 1988 and in six years built the company into a $7 million marketer of "fun and fashion" watches. Valdawn, a "virtual" company, has very few employees or fixed assets and enjoys attractive profit... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Business Growth and Maturation; Ethics; Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Apparel and Accessories Industry