Publications

14 Jun 2011
First Look

First Look: June 14

conflict between the old and the new. Successful CEOs first develop a broad, forward-looking strategic aspiration that sets ambitious targets both for innovation and core business growth. They then hold the tension between innovation unit... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2019
Case

Understanding the Brand Equity of Nestlé Crunch Bar: A Market Research Case

By: Jill Avery and Gerald Zaltman

In early 2018, Nestlé announced the sale of its U.S. candy-making division and a select collection of 20 of its confectionery brands, including the Nestlé Crunch Bar, to Ferrero SpA for $2.8 billion. Under the terms of the Nestlé acquisition, each of the purchased... View Details

Keywords: Brand Equity; Marketing; Market Research; Qualitative Research; Marketing Communication; Customer Satisfaction; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; North America; Italy

22 Nov 2016
First Look

November 22, 2016

Abstract—Although Indian tribes and the surrounding states were often bitter enemies throughout much of the history of the United States, recently tribes and states have been able to work cooperatively in a number of areas. In some... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Jan 2004
Research & Ideas

How Women Can Get More Venture Capital

women who will say, "You know what? All my personal needs and all my family's needs are taken care of, and if I'm no longer enjoying the environment or the work, I'm gone." If there are other demands on women that are really... View Details

Keywords: by Mallory Stark & Martha Lagace

April 2008 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Flying J (A)

By: Rohit Deshpande and Lauren Barley

The largest retailer of diesel fuel in the U.S., Flying J, is rethinking its growth strategy as the economy goes into a recession. Its major customer base, owner-operated truck drivers, are facing increasing costs of doing business. Yet Flying J is considering whether... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Growth and Development Strategy; Price; Consumer Behavior; Non-Renewable Energy; Energy Industry; United States

24 Jun 2015
HBS Case

Upgrading School with a Startup Mentality

research associates Kyla Wilkes and Christine S. An. Though the company is still in its infancy, Kim believes it offers a compelling example of how startup principles could be transformative for a United States educational system often... View Details

Keywords: Re: John Jong-Hyun Kim; Education

10 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 10

intermediary's technology. We develop a model to show that the intermediary would want to restrict sellers from charging buyers more for transactions it intermediates. With this restriction an intermediary can profitably raise demand for... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

03 Apr 2019
Book

Fintech's Game-Changing Opportunities for Small Business

United States economy, and how innovation in financial services will reduce the friction and barriers in small-business lending, helping more of them thrive. In our Q&A, Mills, who served as a member of the Obama Cabinet and headed... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Banking; Financial Services

08 Jan 2001
Research & Ideas

Can Japan Compete? [Part Two]

notion underlying permanent employment actually is a good one. It is taken to the extreme in Japan. What we are soon to discover in the United States—if we haven't already discovered it—is that having employees move rapidly from company... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace & Hilah Geer

December 2022 (Revised July 2023)
Case

Applegate Farms

By: Forest L. Reinhardt, José B. Alvarez and Natalie Kindred

Keywords: Agribusiness; Food; Consumer Behavior; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Brands and Branding; Integration; Strategy; Change Management; Change; Organizational Structure; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

21 Dec 2010
First Look

First Look: December 21

the underlying basis for learning. We find that intraorganizational knowledge spill-ins transfer heuristics crafted by one unit under local conditions of reliability and validity to other units, where they are reinterpreted and... View Details

16 Sep 2013
Research & Ideas

Earnings Calls That Get Lost in Translation

questions. The calls are high stakes — a top executive with a murky message can cause share demand to dry up, or worse, a drop in the stock price, faster than you can say, "Outlook is uncertain." Imagine, then, the challenge for... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

26 Mar 2012
Research & Ideas

What Neuroscience Tells Us About Consumer Desire

2008 hired a neuromarketing firm to look into how consumers respond to Cheetos, the top-selling brand of cheese puffs in the United States. Using EEG technology on a group of willing subjects, the firm determined that consumers respond... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Consumer Products

30 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 30

sector may be traced back to fundamental properties of the underlying technologies. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-144.pdf Unraveling Results from Comparable Demand and Supply: An Experimental Investigation... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 2022
Supplement

Kornit Digital: The Amazon Warrants (C)

By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher

As of 12/31/21, Amazon held $22 billion of equity and warrants in related companies. In fact, it often requests a free grant of warrants when it enters into a new commercial agreement with a supplier. Over the past 20 years, Amazon has gotten warrants almost 20... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Value Creation; Consumer Behavior; Negotiation; Distribution; Ownership; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Equity; Distribution Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

February 2021 (Revised May 2021)
Case

SafeGraph: Selling Data as a Service

By: Ramana Nanda, Abhishek Nagaraj and Allison Ciechanover

Set in January 2021, the CEO of SafeGraph, a four-year-old startup that sold Data as a Service, looked to the future. His aim was to become the most trusted source for data about a physical place. The company provided points of interest (POI) and foot traffic data on... View Details

Keywords: Data As A Service; Monetization; Pricing; Business Startups; Analytics and Data Science; Consumer Behavior; Analysis; Business Model; Health Pandemics; Information Industry; United States

February 2024 (Revised August 2025)
Teaching Note

Travelogo: Understanding Customer Journeys

By: Eva Ascarza and Ta-Wei Huang

Teaching Note for HBS Exercise 524-044. The exercise aims to teach students about 1) Customer Segmentation; and 2) constructing buying personas, 3) Get actionable insights from clickstream data. View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Analysis; Analytics and Data Science; Marketing Strategy; Segmentation; Consumer Behavior; Travel Industry; United States

September 2017
Teaching Note

Dick's Sporting Goods

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Matthew G. Preble

This is the teaching note to accompany Rajiv Lal, Jose B. Alvarez, and Matthew G. Preble, “Dick’s Sporting Goods,” HBS No. 517-007 (Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2017). View Details

February 2017
Case

Dick's Sporting Goods

By: Rajiv Lal, Jose B. Alvarez and Matthew G. Preble

Edward Stack, chairman and CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS), faced a rapidly changing sporting goods landscape in October 2016. Two large competitors—The Sports Authority and Sport Chalet—had folded earlier that year, and DKS had to contend with increasingly robust... View Details