Publications

05 May 2020
News

China Tariffs and Coronavirus a Double Hit to American Retailers

Teaching Interest

Overview

The Business of Aesthetics is a new course for second-year students who are considering careers in sectors and companies whose long-term financial value is built on their ability to deliver aesthetic value. Such companies are rewarded not only for eliciting a high... View Details

Keywords: Aesthetics; Luxury Goods; Retail; Consumer Goods; Design; Creativity; Consumer Behavior; Brand Building; Experience Goods; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

June 2012
Class Lecture

Why You're Not Buying Venezuelan Chocolate: The Provenance Paradox

By: Rohit Deshpandé

A product's country of origin establishes its authenticity. This is the provenance paradox. Consumers associate certain geographies with the best products: French wine, Italian sports cars, Swiss watches. Competing products from other countries - especially developing... View Details

Keywords: Global Business; Branding; Strategic Planning; Strategic Positioning; Emergent Countries; Consumer Perception; Developing Markets; Brands and Branding; Geographic Location; Globalized Markets and Industries; Perception; Emerging Markets; Product Positioning; Global Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Venezuela

December 2018 (Revised September 2019)
Case

Brand Activism: Nike and Colin Kaepernick

By: Jill Avery and Koen Pauwels

Nike's selection of politically polarizing Colin Kaepernick as the spokesperson for the 30th anniversary of its iconic "Just Do It" campaign catapulted the brand into the media spotlight and made it a political flashpoint for consumers across America. Would the choice... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Entertainment; Politics; Activism; Brand Equity; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Sports; Advertising; Social Media; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States; North America

Article

Alfred D. Chandler: His Vision and Achievement

Among historians, Alfred Chandler's influence is by far the greatest, as he has affected economics, sociology, and business administration. Chandler never took short cuts, never stinted, and never published until he was satisfied that he had done his very best.... View Details

Keywords: Goals and Objectives; Mission and Purpose; Success; Books; Demand and Consumers; Power and Influence; Economic Growth; Ethics; Knowledge Sharing; Product Positioning; Market Transactions; Fair Value Accounting

Article

Soul and Machine (Learning)

By: Davide Proserpio, John R. Hauser, Xiao Liu, Tomomichi Amano, Burnap Alex, Tong Guo, Dokyun (DK) Lee, Randall Lewis, Kanishka Misra, Eric Schwarz, Artem Timoshenko, Lilei Xu and Hema Yoganarasimhan

Machine learning is bringing us self-driving cars, medical diagnoses, and language translation, but how can machine learning help marketers improve marketing decisions? Machine learning models predict extremely well, are scalable to “big data,” and are a natural fit to... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Marketing Applications; Knowledge; Technological Innovation; Core Relationships; Marketing; Applications and Software

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07 Nov 2007
Op-Ed

How Marketing Hype Hurt Boeing and Apple

from delayed activation and sluggish email (AT&T's responsibility as the exclusive network provider) to feature shortfalls began to dampen marketplace enthusiasm. The hype had brought forward demand from... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Consumer Products; Consumer Products

February 2023 (Revised April 2023)
Case

Kvadrat: Focus, Execute, and Grow

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott

Kvadrat was a family-owned global textiles company. The company had enjoyed impressive top-line growth and was shifting gears to emphasize profitability via a shorter strategic agenda. Agenda items included: U.S. expansion, generating improved margins in its consumer... View Details

Keywords: Growth; Culture; International Expansion; Organization; Family Business; Leadership; Growth and Development; Strategy; Organizations; Supply Chain; Family Ownership; Profit; Organizational Culture; Denmark

Research Summary

Branding in Digital and Social Media

By: Jill J. Avery

This very contemporary line of research explores the rapidly changing digital world, and investigates how emerging technologies are creating a new consumer culture in which consumers expect to be partners in the co-creation of brands. The work explores the branding... View Details

26 Jun 2009
Research Event

Business Summit: Business and the Environment

Governments, business, and consumers must act to address climate change. The actions must deal with resource supply issues and renewable energy, as well as with View Details

Keywords: Re: Forest L. Reinhardt; Energy; Utilities

10 Jul 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, July 10, 2018

expenditures under the entry of new generation lab managers. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=46697 Executive Education in the Digital Matrix: The Disruption of the Supply Landscape By: Moldoveanu, Mihnea, View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

January 2013 (Revised June 2018)
Case

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google 2018

By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

Four businesses had, by 2012, grown to dominate the infrastructure that all firms rely on to reach online customers. Will the balance of power among the four persist, will one take command at the expense of the other three, or are all four more vulnerable than they... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Competitive Advantage; Infrastructure; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Growth and Development; Service Industry; Retail Industry; United States

March 2017 (Revised July 2019)
Case

Interline Brands: Don't Stop Believing

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Ricardo Andrade

Interline Brands, a leading distributor of residential housing maintenance and repair parts and equipment in the U.S., had just held its November 2014 board meeting. The meeting had been productive but not without some soul searching for both the company’s management... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity Exit; Consumer Goods; IPO; Private Equity; Initial Public Offering; Decision Choices and Conditions

March 2021
Article

Assortment Rotation and the Value of Concealment

By: Kris J. Ferreira and Joel Goh

Assortment rotation—the retailing practice of changing the assortment of products offered to customers—has recently been used as a competitive advantage for both brick-and-mortar and online retailers. We focus on product categories where consumers may purchase multiple... View Details

Keywords: Assortment Optimization; Retailing; Imperfect Information; Sales; Strategy; Consumer Behavior

2013
Comment

Fairness and Redistribution: Comment

By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra

In an influential paper, Alesina and Angeletos (2005)—henceforth, AA—argued that a preference for fairness could lead two identical societies to choose different economic systems. In particular, two equilibria might arise: one with low taxes and a belief that the... View Details

Keywords: Taxes; Beliefs; Economic Systems; Values and Beliefs; Fairness; Taxation

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03 Jun 2013
Research & Ideas

The Power of Rituals in Life, Death, and Business

which Norton and fellow HBS Associate Professor Francesca Gino found that rituals indeed alleviate and reduce grief, even among people who don't inherently believe in the efficacy of rituals. Further... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

October 2018 (Revised August 2019)
Module Note

Supply Chain Management

By: Willy C. Shih

This note on supply chain management provides background for the seven class supply chain module in the Technology & Operations Management required curriculum course taught at the Harvard Business School. This module includes four broad topics: sourcing and supply... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Information; Supply ＆ Demand; Supply Chain Industries; Supply Chain Management; Supply Chain; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; Asia; Europe; Japan; China

November 2011 (Revised August 2012)
Background Note

Customer Discovery and Validation for Entrepreneurs

By: Frank V. Cespedes, Thomas Eisenmann and Steven G. Blank

Provides practical guidelines for conducting market research to explore and validate demand for entrepreneurial offering. Explains how the research objectives of entrepreneurs might differ from those relevant to managers evaluating product or service offerings to... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Entrepreneurship