Publications

Research Summary

Do Vertical Mergers facilitate Collusion?

Joint work with Volker Nocke, University of Pennsylvania In this paper we investigate the impact of vertical mergers on upstream firms' ability to sustain collusion. We show in a number of models that the net effect of vertical integration is to facilitate... View Details

15 Jul 2021
News

Hubert Joly Turned Around Best Buy. Now He’s Trying to Fix Capitalism.

30 Aug 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Incentivizing Calculated Risk-Taking: Evidence from an Experiment with Commercial Bank Loan Officers

Keywords: by Shawn Cole, Martin Kanz & Leora Klapper

July 2008 (Revised October 2012)
Case

Affinity Plus (A)

By: Dennis Campbell and Peter Tufano

The executive team at Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union has pushed the concept of members first deeply throughout the organization, empowering employees to put member-owners' interests ahead of either the organization's interests or their own interests. As a result of... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Financial Institutions; Financing and Loans; Profit; Cooperative Ownership; Conflict of Interests; Strategy

April 2015 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Comcast Corporation (A)

By: Sunil Gupta, Henry McGee, Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Margaret L. Rodriguez

In March 2015, the U.S. television industry received a major wake-up call. HBO, a premium cable channel with over 30 million subscribers, had announced it would begin offering a standalone streaming service. This new service would allow customers to bypass the cable... View Details

Keywords: Cable Television; HBO; Industry Evolution; Television Entertainment; Disruption; Business Model; Competitive Strategy; Media and Broadcasting Industry

August 2020 (Revised February 2021)
Case

Luckin Coffee (A): Caffeine-fueled Growth?

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

This case describes the founding of Chinese coffee chain Luckin Coffee in 2017 and its path to surpassing Starbucks as the largest coffee chain in China (by number of stores) in 2019. Unlike Starbucks stores, which were designed to be welcoming “third places” for... View Details

09 Nov 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Intermediation in the Supply of Agricultural Products in Developing Economies

Keywords: by Kris Johnson Ferreira, Joel Goh, and Ehsan Valavi

March 2014
Article

Choosing the Right Customer

By: Robert Simons

Companies that win in competitive markets identify a primary customer and dedicate maximum resources to meeting that customer's needs. This article will show you how to identify the best primary customer for your business by analyzing perspective, capabilities, and... View Details

Keywords: Strategy Execution; Customer Focus; Organization Design; Accountability; Management Control Systems; Customer Relationship Management; Organizational Design

October 1996
Case

Jim Bender and Alert, Inc. (A)

Jim Bender has just been hired as CEO of Alert, Inc. Alert, founded in 1986 by a charismatic technologist, has accumulated an impressive portfolio of patents and leading edge technology projects in a variety of fields. The company has never, however, shown a profit and... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Entrepreneurship; Management Skills; Business Startups; Technology Industry

30 Aug 2014
News

A new green wave

January – February 2008
Article

Managing the Impact of Employee Turnover on Performance: The Role of Process Conformance

By: Zeynep Ton and Robert S. Huckman

We examine the impact of employee turnover on operating performance in settings that require high levels of knowledge exploitation. Using 48 months of turnover data from U.S. stores of a major retail chain, we find that, on average, employee turnover is associated with... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Governance Compliance; Retention; Standards; Service Operations; Business Processes; Retail Industry; United States

Read Now

April 1999 (Revised March 2002)
Case

Aluminum Smelting in South Africa: Alusaf's Hillside Project

With prices at all-time lows at the beginning of 1994, South Africa's sole primary aluminum producer--Alusaf--is considering building the world's largest greenfield smelter. Using cost estimates in this case, students can evaluate the relative cost position of this... View Details

Keywords: Metals and Minerals; Analysis; Markets; Profit; Capital; Industrial Products Industry; South Africa

16 May 2012
News

Good versus Bad, Rethinking Business Leadership

18 Jun 2019
News

Case Study: When One Division Makes All the Money but the Other Gets All the Attention

27 Mar 2017
News

How Companies Can Benefit More From Their Corporate Giving

February 2013 (Revised May 2013)
Case

Juan Valdez: Innovation in Caffeination

By: Michael I. Norton and Jeremy Dann

Corporate entrepreneurs attempt to revive Colombia's famous Juan Valdez brand in the age of Starbucks, with café chain and packaged coffee ventures. In the 1970s and 80s, the iconic "Juan Valdez" ingredient brand was the most recognized in the world of coffee. The... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Branding; Global Business; Sales; Marketing; Retailing; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Change; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Brands and Branding; Innovation and Invention

August 2019 (Revised April 2020)
Case

Transforming Hindustan Unilever

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Rachna Tahilyani

In October 2013, when Sanjiv Mehta had taken over the reins of Unilever’s business in India and the larger South Asia region, Hindustan Unilever (HUL) had been going through a difficult time. Caught in the midst of a weakening economy, falling consumer spending, and... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Transformation; Leading Change; Performance Improvement; Consumer Products Industry; India

July 1986 (Revised July 1991)
Case

Nippon-WTI Ltd.

By: W. Carl Kester and Glynn Ferguson

A Japanese joint venture between a U.S. parent and a Japanese parent has proposed that 100% of the U.S. parent's product be produced in Japan rather than the 40% currently being manufactured there. This would require the U.S. parent to give up a dollar profit earned on... View Details

Keywords: Joint Ventures; Currency Exchange Rate; Profit; Product; Production; Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; Asia; Japan; United States