Publications

16 May 2011
Research & Ideas

What Loyalty? High-End Customers are First to Flee

advisable or even necessary to invest in a response. In other cases, you may as well save your money, according to the researchers. The study also concluded that even though high-end customers can be fickle, a company that sustains a superior service position in its... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

December 1988 (Revised March 1989)
Case

Pabst Brewing Co.

At the end of 1984 the Pabst Brewing Co. was the object of a takeover contest for the second time in three years. Nearly two years after a reorganization in early 1983 Pabst still suffered from low margins and high debt service costs. This case describes the takeover... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Restructuring; Bids and Bidding; Acquisition; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

December 2012 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Rodan + Fields Dermatologists

By: Das Narayandas, Michael Roberts and Liz Kind

The case focuses on issues involved in managing the direct multilevel marketing sales consultants who sell R+F skin care products. The company is trying to better manage the inconsistent and highly variable recruitment behavior of the sales force i.e., the degree to... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Salesforce Management; Recruitment; Compensation and Benefits; Consumer Products Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; California

22 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

When Agreeing to Disagree Is a Good Beginning

something we’d rather avoid than engage in with confidence,” explained Francesca Gino, Tandon Family Professor of Business Administration in the Negotiation, Organizations, and Markets Unit at Harvard Business School during the event.... View Details

Keywords: by Clea Simon, Harvard Gazette

September 2011 (Revised October 2014)
Case

Ganesh Natarajan: Leading Innovation and Organizational Change at Zensar (A)

By: Michael Tushman and David Kiron

In 2005, Ganesh Natarajan, CEO of Zensar, a Pune, India-based software company, and his senior management team are considering consolidating staff and resources at the firms. Natarajan proposes an additional, possible controversial business unit to the proposed new... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Technological Innovation; Leading Change; Product Launch; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Information Technology Industry

August 2000
Case

Alison Brown of Compass Records

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Amy Blitz

Highly acclaimed recording artist, banjo player, and jazz/blue grass composer Alison Brown has used her artistic experience and MBA-based business savvy to found a successful independent record company with bassist/husband Garry West. Representing a stellar roster of... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Industry Structures; Service Delivery; Business Strategy; Expansion; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Music Industry

22 Feb 2010
Op-Ed

Tragedy at Toyota: How Not to Lead in Crisis

leader with a strong, cohesive plan. Mr. Toyoda is anything but. His uninspired words of optimism from Davos only unnerved customers and U.S. regulators. Meanwhile, Ford and GM are working hard to regain the market share they lost at... View Details

Keywords: by William George; Auto

05 Oct 2023
Blog Post

A Pathway to Public Service: Brandon Moore (MBA/MPP 2025)

statements and marketing strategies. I spend the vast majority of every 80-minute class hearing the perspectives of my peers. I am perpetually blown away by how the diversity of opinions enriches our learning environment. We aren’t... View Details

05 Jun 2012
First Look

First Look: June 5

firms' geographic expansion across time and markets. Specifically, we build a model in which two firms that differ in their capabilities enter sequentially into two markets with different potentials for profit. The model is solved using... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Web

Rigorous research, rooted in practice | About

Race, Gender & Equity Social Enterprise Behavioral Finance & Financial Stability Case Method Project Creating Emerging Markets Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard Foundry Impact-Weighted Accounts Institute for Strategy and... View Details

October 2003 (Revised January 2005)
Case

Shared Decision Making

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer, Karen Sepucha and Laura Feldman

The Foundation for Informed Medical Decision-Making has created an interactive videodisc system that provides patients with customized support regarding medical treatment or screening decisions when they face a choice between two equally effective courses of action.... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Borrowing and Debt; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Product Marketing; Distribution Channels; Production; Partners and Partnerships; Research and Development; Information Technology

08 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

The Strategic Way To Hire a Sales Team

equivalent of the entire sales force must be replaced at many firms every four years or so. And the time frame shrinks if and when companies increase revenue targets. So while strategy should drive search and selection, the exigencies of time and labor View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

01 Oct 1997
News

J. Hughes Norton III

Norton is seated in Congressional's main dining room, his cell phone close at hand. As senior vice president in charge of golf operations at Cleveland-based International Management Group (IMG), the world's oldest and largest sports View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons

2020
Working Paper

Overcoming the Cold Start Problem of CRM Using a Probabilistic Machine Learning Approach

By: Eva Ascarza

The success of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs ultimately depends on the firm's ability to understand consumers' preferences and precisely capture how these preferences may differ across customers. Only by understanding customer heterogeneity, firms can... View Details

Keywords: Customer Management; Targeting; Deep Exponential Families; Probabilistic Machine Learning; Cold Start Problem; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Consumer Behavior; Analytics and Data Science; Mathematical Methods; Retail Industry

SSRN

August 2016 (Revised November 2016)
Case

C.W. Dixey & Son

By: Anat Keinan and Michael B. Beverland

C.W. Dixey & Son is about to be relaunched as a luxury eyewear brand after a fifty-year absence from the marketplace. This case focuses on reviving a dormant brand with a 200-year plus heritage of innovation, craft excellence, and luxury. Drawing on extensive... View Details

Keywords: Luxury Branding; Authenticity; Inconspicuous Consumption; Brand Positioning; Brand Revitalization; Eyeyewear; Market Entry and Exit; Luxury; Market Participation; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry

August 2019 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Essential Explorations at MUJI

By: Tomomichi Amano, Das Narayandas, Naoko Jinjo and Akiko Kanno

Launched as a private brand in 1980 to counter the increasingly brand-conscious consumer in Japan, MUJI offered beautifully designed, fairly priced, no-frills quality goods. The once modest private label brand with 40 products had expanded significantly by 2019 to more... View Details

Keywords: Product Portfolio Management; Brands and Branding; Product; Management; Change Management; Mission and Purpose; Retail Industry; Japan

19 May 2021
Blog Post

Instagram Takeover - Ja’ Saint-Tulias (MBA 2022)

Ja’ Saint-Tulias (MBA 2022) is a forward-thinking, aspiring digital beauty marketing leader, and storyteller with an extensive background in chemical engineering and entrepreneurship from Michigan State University. Since she was a little... View Details

Article

Variance-Minimizing Monetary Policies with Lagged Price Adjustment and Rational Expectations

By: Jerry R. Green and Seppo Honkapohja

This paper considers a macroeconomic model with rational expectations in which prices are incompletely flexible. Markets therefore fail to clear. In such a model monetary policy is not neutral. The variance of real and nominal quantities and interest rates is sensitive... View Details