Publications

19 Apr 2011
First Look

First Look: April 19

Becker, Zoran Ivkovic, and Scott Weisbenner Publication:Journal of Finance 66, no. 2 (April 2011) Abstract : We exploit demographic variation to identify the effect of dividend demand on corporate payout policy. Retail investors tend to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Shunyuan Zhang

Shunyuan Zhang is an assistant professor in the Marketing unit at Harvard Business School. She teaches the first-year Marketing course in the MBA required curriculum.

Professor Zhang studies the sharing economy and the marketing problems that the dynamics of... View Details

Keywords: e-commerce industry; e-commerce industry; e-commerce industry

19 Sep 2006
First Look

First Look: September 19, 2006

Working PapersSuperstars and Underdogs: An Examination of the Long Tail Phenomenon in Video Authors:Anita Elberse and Felix Oberholzer-Gee Abstract The rise of online channels facilitates the distribution of a wide range of products and services. Academics and View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 1996
Case

Erox Corporation: Leverage Marketing

Erox Corp. is a biotechnology start-up that creates products containing synthetic human pheromones. It was founded in 1989, went public in 1993, and brought in a turnaround team in 1994. Sales ramped from $110,000 in 1993 to over $1 million in 1994, with prospects for... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Communications; Entrepreneurship; Biotechnology Industry

03 Mar 2023
Research & Ideas

When Showing Know-How Backfires for Women Managers

these stores had women store managers. Grocery stores offer fertile ground for research overall: The US grocery industry employed more than 4 million workers in 2019, and the retail trades employed more than... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin; Retail; Retail

W. Earl Sasser

Earl Sasser is a Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School and has been a member of the faculty there since 1969. He received a B.A. in Mathematics from Duke University in 1965, an MBA from the University of North Carolina in 1967, and a Ph.D. in... View Details

February 2018
Supplement

Robert K. Steel at Wachovia (B)

By: Gautam Mukunda, Nien-hê Hsieh and David Lane

In September 2008, Robert Steel presided over the sale of Wachovia, a top U.S. bank, less than three months after becoming its CEO. Wachovia’s exposure to risky home loans led depositors and creditors to flee the bank on Friday, September 26, after the FDIC seized and... View Details

December 2013
Case

Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home

By: Frank V. Cespedes and James Kindley

The Clique Pens Writing Implements division of U.S. Home is a manufacturer of a full line of pens, pencils, markers, and art supplies. Despite solid sales, division president Elise Ferguson has seen gross margins drop from 42% in 2010 to just over 36% in 2012 as a... View Details

Keywords: Production; Marketing Strategy; Distribution Channels; Compensation and Benefits; Sales; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry

25 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

Rapport: The Hidden Advantage That Women Managers Bring to Teams

(worldwide), but service industries like food and retail in this part of the world are great examples, and they occupy very large proportions of the labor force. The findings here apply to a lot of workers,”... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin; Food & Beverage

May 1994 (Revised July 1995)
Case

Taco Bell--1994

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger

Taco Bell CEO, John Martin, boldly proclaims a growth goal of 200,000 points of access by the year 2000 (the company had approximately 3,600 in 1991). To realize such growth, Martin embraces a philosophy of continual change. The implications for Taco Bell are dramatic... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Food; Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Human Resources; Brands and Branding; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Goals and Objectives; Change Management; Expansion; Business Growth and Maturation; Communication; Growth and Development Strategy; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; United States

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Web

Business, Government & the International Economy - Faculty & Research

instrument measuring men’s exposure to changes in the gender composition of the labor force across industries (labor market feminization), we make two contributions. First, labor market feminization negatively affects men’s income and... View Details

20 Nov 2017
Research & Ideas

How Independent Bookstores Have Thrived in Spite of Amazon.com

Click HereIndependent bookstores provide a story of hope by focusing on core values that include community, curation, and convening. (Video by Amelia Kunhardt) When Amazon.com burst onto the nascent online retail scene in 1995, the future... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel (with video by Amelia Kunhardt); Retail

October 1995 (Revised January 1998)
Case

Cybersmith

Cybersmith is a new company that has created a new retailing concept. This particular store has been reported in over 250 newspapers, and by every major American television network. Some would classify it as an on-line cafe, but management has positioned the store as... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Joint Ventures; Consumer Behavior; Product Marketing; Innovation and Invention; Retail Industry; Cambridge

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August 2020 (Revised March 2021)
Supplement

Migros Turkey: Scaling Online Operations (B)

By: Antonio Moreno and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in February 2020 as Ozgur Tort and Mustafa Bartin, CEO and chief large-format and online retail officer of Migros Ticaret A.S. (Migros), Turkey’s oldest and one of its largest supermarket chains, are looking over the results of the fulfillment pilot the... View Details

Keywords: Grocery; Business Model; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Value Creation; Globalization; Competition; Expansion; Logistics; Profit; Resource Allocation; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry; Turkey

April 2016 (Revised June 2017)
Teaching Note

Dollar General Bids for Family Dollar

By: Jonas Heese, Paula A. Price and Suraj Srinivasan

In spring 2015, Dollar General CEO Rick Dreiling was looking ahead to retiring at year's end but worried about ensuring continued growth for the company he had built since 2008 into a market leader in the U.S. discount retail world. Dollar General operated over 11,500... View Details

Keywords: Dollar General; Family Dollar; Dollar Tree; Antitrust; Board Of Directors; Activist Investors; Federal Trade Commission; Acquisition; Valuation; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry

February 2017 (Revised May 2022)
Case

The De Beers Group: Exploring the Diamond Reselling Opportunity

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Daniel P. Gross and Lauren G. Pickle

In September 2014, Tom Montgomery (SVP of strategic initiatives at the De Beers Group) and his team launched a pilot program in the United States to explore the $1 billion diamond market for pre-owned (recycled) diamonds. According to Montgomery, the motivation for the... View Details

30 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 30, 2008

http://papers.nber.org/papers/w14302 The Effect of Labor on Profitability: The Role of Quality Author:Zeynep Ton Abstract Determining staffing levels is an important decision in retail operations. While the costs of increasing labor are... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

June 2012 (Revised March 2014)
Case

I Paid a Bribe (Dot) Com

By: Karthik Ramanna and Rachna Tahilyani

Anti-corruption web platform "ipaidabribe.com" leverages the transparency and anonymity of the Internet to encourage private citizens in India who have been the victims of corruption to self-report details of bribes paid, including the bribe amount, the name of the... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Internet and the Web; Ethics; Service Industry; India