Switching Costs - Publications - Faculty & Research

13 Mar 2023
Op-Ed

How Leaders Should Leave

switching costs up front, though. If you don’t immediately have a new job to go to, spending more time at home with your family may be as awkward as it is delightful. But more time at home gives you a rare... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

10 Feb 2020
In Practice

6 Ways That Emerging Technology Is Disrupting Business Strategy

Using multiple cloud providers ensures that they can always switch to the lowest cost option.” Andy Wu (@AndyWuAndyWu), an assistant professor who studies how technology entrepreneurs use resources to expand... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

28 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

Can Apprenticeships Work in the US? Employers Seeking New Talent Pipelines Take Note

switched to a new employer 27 percent left employment to attend college or another post-secondary education program 22 percent returned to high school Five percent were neither working nor in school [div class=infogram-embed... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

18 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

Industrial Decarbonization: Confronting the Hard Challenges of Cement

Cities like Cairo; Chongqing, China; Delhi; and Kinshasa, Congo are experiencing population explosions accompanied by unprecedented demand for homes, offices, factories, and infrastructure. In the United States, the Biden Administration’s policy-driven infrastructure... View Details

Keywords: by by Janelle Conaway; Green Technology; Energy; Industrial Products; Manufacturing

30 May 2023
Research & Ideas

Can AI Predict Whether Shoppers Would Pick Crest or Colgate?

average, would switch to the less preferred but cheaper brand. “Substitution patterns that you expect to find in observational data, we were able to find by collecting GPT’s responses,” says Israeli. “That was pretty incredible to us,... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

25 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Why IT Does Matter

the Internet, the cost of communications was seen as limiting IT's wider use. Packet switching was invented as a way to digitize voice, data, and video in a matter that enabled digital computers (and its... View Details

Keywords: by F. Warren McFarlan & Richard L. Nolan

04 Jun 2001
What Do You Think?

What’s the Future of the Subscription Model?

new service increases. As he puts it, "Value to the subscriber base will increase as the frame of reference in which the subscriber determines value switches away from prior cost." He also suggests that positioning a new service... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

15 Jan 2013
First Look

First Look: January 15

markets also plays a causal role in shifting investments to more novel startups-by lowering the cost of experimentation for early stage investors and allowing them to make riskier, and more novel, investments. Paper:... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

11 Feb 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

10 Rules Entrepreneurs Need to Know Before Adopting AI

moving target, potential customers are wary of costs and implementation complexities, and use cases, while powerful, are still lacking in many areas. Take advantage of uncertainty All this uncertainty is a fertile breeding ground for... View Details

Keywords: by Rocio Wu

20 Nov 2012
First Look

First Look: November 20

advertising agency services and the slow pace of change over several decades. We model an agency's decision as a tradeoff between the fixed cost to the advertiser of establishing a relationship with an agency and pecuniary economies of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

18 Apr 2000
Research & Ideas

Learning in Action

Pinkham Notch, NH to test a new version of the boot. Participants were put in groups based on foot size, given two to three pairs of boots — the new Cresta Hiker, as well as the very best competitive offerings — and were instructed to hike, View Details

Keywords: by David A. Garvin

18 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

How Economic Clusters Drive Globalization

leading research universities, low cost or highly trained labor, and geographic bounty. Understanding how clusters work can help governments develop effective policies for creating them, as well as direct entrepreneurs to the best... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Agriculture & Agribusiness

27 Nov 2000
Research & Ideas

The Dynamics of Standing Still: Firestone Tire & Rubber and the Radial Revolution

belted bias entailed "a certain amount of development and improvement, but nothing major. It was pretty much business as usual."11 Firestone's investment in radials, it appears, also followed the pattern of business as usual. When the automakers View Details

Keywords: by Donald N. Sull; Manufacturing; Transportation

23 May 2012
Research & Ideas

Five Ways to Make Your Company More Innovative

the same cost and much higher benefits. And so, part of what marketing does is ask, "What's absolutely necessary to make this product attractive to consumers? Do we have to add all these bells and whistles? Or do consumers just... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons, Julia Hanna & Roger Thompson

22 Jul 2019
Book

How to Be a Digital Platform Leader

switching costs, multihoming is hard, which makes it complicated for firms or individual users to switch from one platform to another. The next criterion we identify is relatively homogenous products and a... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

08 Sep 2008
HBS Case

The Value of Environmental Activists

There are many methods, most financial, to measure the success of companies in meeting goals. But the question becomes a lot harder at Harvard Business School when MBAs are challenged to measure the efforts of environmental organizations like Greenpeace and the World... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Energy; Utilities

14 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restarting Under Uncertainty: Managerial Experiences from Around the World

not an option, this process helped companies share implementation costs and leverage each other’s competencies to discover new ways of doing things. Some companies took more extreme measures to support their ecosystem, for example... View Details

Keywords: by Raffaella Sadun, Andrea Bertoni, Alexia Delfino, Giovanni Fassio, and Mariapaola Testa

03 May 2010
Research & Ideas

What Is the Future of MBA Education?

changed, and with it the security that used to come almost automatically with an MBA degree. [ ] High-paying jobs are no longer guaranteed to graduates, and the opportunity costs of two years of training—especially for those who still... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Education

05 Aug 2002
Research & Ideas

Five questions for Regina E. Herzlinger

"bonus" long-term policies that reward those who switch to healthy lifestyles. Insurers and providers will receive risk-adjusted payments, so the sick will become financially attractive enrollees and patients. With today's... View Details