Publications

2017
Working Paper

Threat of Platform-Owner Entry and Complementor Responses: Evidence from the Mobile App Market

By: Feng Zhu

We examine how app developers on the Android mobile platform adjust their innovation efforts (rate and direction) and value-capture strategies in response to Google’s entry threat and actual entry into their markets. We find that, after Google’s entry threat increases,... View Details

Keywords: Platform-owner Entry; Entry Threat; Innovation; Complementors; Mobile App Industry; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Innovation Strategy; Market Entry and Exit

February 2002
Case

Strategy of the Firm Under Regulatory Review: The Case of Chilectra

By: Rafael M. Di Tella and Alexander Dyck

Discusses the largest electric distribution company in Chile and one of the five largest private Chilean companies. Introduces the exercise of operating control in order to improve the profitability of the investments, privatization, and international expansions. View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Corporate Accountability; Growth and Development Strategy; Privatization; Emerging Markets; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Global Strategy; Governance Compliance; Utilities Industry; Chile

22 Mar 2024
Blog Post

Driving Impact in Emerging Markets with HBS Alum Nneka Chime (MBA 2015)

leveraging MBA internships and exposure to various industries that HBS provided. However, she knew creating opportunities in emerging markets was a stronger calling. “Facing inequality and poverty can be... View Details

Winter 2021
Article

How Would-Be Category Kings Become Commoners

By: Rory McDonald and Keith Krach

Category creation is the holy grail in business, but more often than not, the very companies that establish lucrative new markets don’t end up being the category kings. Why? Many executives undermine their own ventures’ standing by misinterpreting and misfiring on... View Details

Keywords: New Markets; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Strategy; Business Model

Read Now

This paper studies the impact of platform-owner entry threat on complementors in platform-based markets. We examine how app developers on the Android mobile platform adjust innovation efforts (rate and direction) and value-capture strategies in response to the threat... View Details

24 Aug 2016
Research & Ideas

Behavioral Economists Can Make You a Healthier Consumer and Smarter Marketer

Click Here If people made purely rational decisions, life might be much easier for marketers in selling products and services. But few of us are that rational. Instead, our decisions are based on illogical biases such as loss aversion and... View Details

Keywords: by Amelia Kunhardt

Research Summary

Overview

By: Robert J. Dolan

Professor Dolan's research interests including product policy and pricing. These areas have been the subject to two books, Managing the New Product Development Process and Power Pricing:How Managing Price Impacts the Bottom Line. In addition, he works on the societal... View Details

Keywords: Product Commercialization; Product Development; Pricing Strategy; Marketing And Society

June 2016
Teaching Plan

Terrapin Laboratory

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Andrew Otazo

This teaching plan accompanies the case "Terrapin Laboratory," HBS No. 315-098. That case describes the formation and rapid growth of a drug testing company. The company needs to decide whether to enter the painkiller testing market, in addition to growing its drug... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth; Entrepreneurial Management; Growth Strategy; Market Entry; Venture Capital; Market Entry and Exit; Entrepreneurship; Health Testing and Trials; Growth and Development Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry

March 2010
Case

Target: Responding to the Recession

By: Ranjay Gulati, Rajiv Lal and Cathy Ross

Within 10 months of Gregg Steinhafel's taking over as CEO at Target, the U.S. was mired in the most significant economic downturn in 50 years. Top competitor Wal-Mart had positioned itself well for the crisis, while Target's same store sales began to slide. While... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Strategy; Operations; Brands and Branding; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Competition; Retail Industry; United States

Other Article

Online Discounting: Who is Leading the Race to the Bottom?

By: Ayelet Israeli, Eric Anderson and Anne Coughlan

A short review of the finidings in: Israeli, Ayelet, Eric Anderson, and Anne Coughlan. "Minimum Advertised Pricing: Patterns of Violation in Competitive Retail Markets." Marketing Science 35, no. 4 (July–August 2016): 539–564. View Details

Keywords: Pricing; Price Policies; Pricing Policies; Discounting; Retailing; Retailing Industry; Minimum Advertised Price; Ecommerce; E-Commerce Strategy; Price; Distribution Channels; Distribution; Digital Marketing; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Technology Industry; Advertising Industry; United States

28 Jan 2015
Research & Ideas

Ground Game, Air Wars, and Other Marketing Lessons From Presidential Elections

Republican presidential candidates, but the results could help many marketing teams decide how to allocate scarce resources between mass advertising and personal selling efforts, or, as the researchers call... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

May 2014 (Revised March 2017)
Case

Unilever's Lifebuoy in India: Implementing the Sustainability Plan

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Unilever's new Global Brand VP must not only revitalize Lifebuoy soap's sagging market performance, but simultaneously impact the health of one billion people worldwide. The latter challenge comes from Unilever's new CEO who has introduced the Unilever Sustainable... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Management; Corporate Social Responsibility; Strategy Implementation; Marketing Strategy; Mission And Purpose; Change Management; International Business; Global; Fast-moving Consumer Goods; Soap; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Health Care and Treatment; Environmental Sustainability; Global Strategy; Developing Countries and Economies; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Health Industry; India

28 May 2019
Research & Ideas

Investor Lawsuits Against Auditors Are Falling, and That's Bad News for Capital Markets

world invest in US listed companies because the US legal regime offers a high level of investor protection. High quality auditing is a big part of this protection. When our investor protections standards go up, our capital View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Financial Services; Accounting

01 Jun 1997
News

Competition and Strategy Unit at HBS Sets Pace In Its Field

overlap, into four areas: competitive strategy, corporate strategy, global competition, and technology strategy. The largest of the subgroups, competitive strategy - essentially the core of the unit - looks at the techniques a firm uses... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

December 2010
Article

Social Preferences and Strategic Uncertainty: An Experiment on Markets and Contracts

This paper reports a three-phase experiment on a stylized labor market. In the first two phases, agents face simple games, which we use to estimate subjects' social and reciprocity concerns. In the last phase, four principals compete by offering agents a contract from... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Markets; Contracts; Decisions; Distribution; Labor; Game Theory

September 2012
Teaching Note

Vodafone Japan (A), (B) and (C) (TN)

By: Juan Alcacer

The series of three cases is used in Harvard Business School's (HBS) elective course "Competing Globally" as the second case in the first module (Why?: Strategies to create value globally) (See "Competing Globally: Course Note for Instructors", HBS 713-422). The module... View Details

Keywords: Telecommunications; Technological Innovation; Technology Strategy; Operations Strategy; Information Technology; Operations; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Strategy; Telecommunications Industry; Japan

January – February 2011
Article

'Bricks and Clicks': The Impact of Product Returns on the Strategies of Multichannel Retailers

By: Elie Ofek, Zsolt Katona and Miklos Sarvary

The Internet has increased the flexibility of retailers, allowing them to operate an online arm in addition to their physical stores. The online channel offers potential benefits in selling to customer segments that value the convenience of online shopping, but it also... View Details

Keywords: Price; Profit; Marketing Channels; Consumer Behavior; Online Technology; Retail Industry

November 2019 (Revised December 2020)
Case

Grupo Éxito: Facing Colombia's Competitive Grocery Retail Industry

By: José B. Alvarez, Carla Larangeira, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Miguel Diaz Moreno

Grupo Éxito, a leading South American retailer, faced declining market shares in Colombia in 2019 with the arrival of low-cost competitors and emerging digital trends. Originally founded in Medellín, Éxito had over the course of its seventy-year history evolved from a... View Details

Keywords: Grocery; Market Share; Information Technology; Trends; Competitive Strategy; Retail Industry; Colombia; Latin America

2015
Chapter

Framing the Game: How Brands' Relationships with Their Competitors Affect Consumer Preference

By: Neeru Paharia, Jill Avery and Anat Keinan

In this chapter, we explore how brands' relationships with their competitors affect consumers' preferences. Through a series of experiments, we show that the competitive context in which a brand operates can affect consumers' purchase interest and purchase frequency.... View Details

Keywords: Brand Management; CRM; Customer Relationship Management; Marketing Strategy; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Customer Focus and Relationships; Competition; Consumer Products Industry