Publications

2015
Working Paper

Misconduct in Financial Services: Differences across Organizations

By: Jennifer Brown and Dylan Minor

We examine misconduct in financial services. We propose a theory in which experts extract surplus based on the value of their firm's brand and their own skills. Using sales complaint data for insurance agents, we find that agents working exclusively for large branded... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Insurance; Sales; Financial Services Industry; Insurance Industry

SSRN

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May 1999 (Revised April 2003)
Case

Executive Health Group

Executive Health Group provides in-depth physical exams. Facing stagnant revenues, CEO William Flatley has to reposition his firm, strengthen the brand franchise, and grow share in an increasingly competitive health care environment. View Details

Keywords: Product Positioning; Competition; Health Care and Treatment; Brands and Branding; Health Industry

07 Nov 2012
HBS Case

HBS Cases: Sir Alex Ferguson--Managing Manchester United

is a British soccer club manager who turns out to be as incredible a performer as any of the lot. For 26 years, Sir Alex Ferguson has kept his Manchester United soccer club either at or near the top of competition, both in England and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Sports; Entertainment & Recreation

25 Apr 2023
Op-Ed

How SHEIN and Temu Conquered Fast Fashion—and Forged a New Business Model

under globally recognized brand names, including the private labels of mass merchants such as Walmart, Costco, and Target. Most of those profits accrued to the brands, rather than the Chinese suppliers.... View Details

Keywords: by John Deighton; Fashion; Retail; Consumer Products

December 1994
Case

Intel's Pentium: When the Chips Are Down (A)

By: Stephen A. Greyser and Norman Klein

Intel, the largest-selling manufacturer of microprocessor computer chips, finds itself in a brand-threatening situation when a flaw is revealed in its top-of-the-line Pentium chip. The story is front-page news for weeks. The company invested tens of millions of dollars... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Engineering; Crisis Management; Brands and Branding; Production; Failure; Semiconductor Industry

21 Jun 2019
News

The Business of Yoga

May 2005 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Gallardo's Goes to Mexico

By: Clayton M. Christensen

The theories of market segmentation and brand building in Chapter 3, What Products Will Customers Want to Buy? in The Innovator's Solution by Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor suggest that when companies segment markets and build brands in ways that match how the... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Global Strategy; Brands and Branding; Segmentation; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Mexico

January 2010 (Revised March 2010)
Case

Transforming ASUSTeK: Breaking from the Past

By: Willy C. Shih, Ho Howard Yu and Hung-Chang Chiu

What happens when an original design manufacturer (ODM) firm tries to transform itself into a branded goods seller? The case traces the evolution of ASUSTeK from a motherboard supplier, to an ODM of desktop and notebook PCs, through its split into three companies that... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Transformation; Disruptive Innovation; Brands and Branding; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Computer Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Taiwan

13 Apr 2016
Blog Post

3 Reasons Why Company Conversations Might Be Right For Your Organization

Participating in HBS recruiting events builds brand awareness and provides organizations the opportunity to connect with students. Here are 3 reasons why Company Conversations can be an effective recruiting... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

24 May 2021
Op-Ed

Can Fabric Waste Become Fashion’s Resource?

COVID-19 has broken fashion’s supply chain. As a result, an already wasteful industry has become more wasteful. Even before the pandemic, the global apparel industry was producing about 92 million tons of textile waste a year. That’s about one garbage truck’s worth of... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones and Shelly Xu; Fashion

May 2000
Case

J & B

Michael Stoner finds himself called upon to reposition a once venerable and highly profitable brand of Scotch whisky. He must find a cultural trend. View Details

Keywords: Demand and Consumers; Product Positioning; Culture; Food and Beverage Industry

2012
Case

Zhejiang Semir Garment Co., Ltd.

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Jie Jiao and Yuren Fang

With the rapid growth of China's economy and China's increasing integration into the global economy in the past two decades, China's leisure clothing and garment enterprises achieved a rapid rise and became an important competitive force confronting the foreign brands... View Details

Keywords: Business Model Innovation; Competitive Strategy; Management Controls; China; China

07 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

Off and Running: Professors Comment on Olympics

audience mix, as does the element of national pride that comes with victory and the emotional flag-raising ceremony that follows. The brand power of the Olympics is also fueled by business View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty; Sports

02 Jun 2020
Research & Ideas

Coronavirus Careers: Cloud Kitchens Are Now Serving

kitchens can test new restaurant concepts, menu items, and seasonal brands (for example, a salad brand in the summer) more easily without costly investments. It is still an... View Details

Keywords: by Lena Ye and Geoffrey Jones; Food & Beverage

March 1998
Case

Launch

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

Launch has developed an entertainment publication on CD-ROM with 240,000 subscribers and has recently introduced an on-line entertainment product (www.mylaunch.com) to complement the CD-ROM. Deals with multiple-channel delivery and platform selection and branding on... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Distribution Channels; Information Publishing; Brands and Branding; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

December 2017
Article

Discordant vs. Harmonious Selves: The Effects of Identity Conflict and Enhancement on Sales Performance in Employee-Customer Interactions

By: Lakshmi Ramarajan, Nancy Rothbard and Steffanie Wilk

Across multiple studies, we examine how identity conflict and enhancement within people affect performance in tasks that involve interactions between people through two mechanisms: role-immersion, operationalized as intrinsic motivation, and role-taking,... View Details

Keywords: Identity; Interpersonal Communication; Sales; Performance

Find at Harvard

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15 Nov 2022
Op-Ed

Why TikTok Is Beating YouTube for Eyeball Time (It’s Not Just the Dance Videos)

no-barrier-to-entry open mic night. Message delivery. Brands and other organizations hire influencers to use the platform to distribute a message, particularly on fashion, cosmetics, View Details

Keywords: by John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

15 Jun 2009
Research & Ideas

GM: What Went Wrong and What’s Next

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel for General Motors? Or are those just headlights from an oncoming train? Among Harvard Business School faculty, it depends on whom you ask. The carmaker—home to such storied brands as Cadillac,... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Auto

February 2010
Background Note

Food Retail: Trends and Implications

By: Rajiv Lal and Natalie Kindred

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Supply and Industry