Publications

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Organizational psychologists have long held that monitoring workers saps them of their autonomy and thereby reduces their effectiveness. Yet technology has intensified such surveillance in recent years: Managers now track everything from clinicians’ handwashing to... View Details

September 2006 (Revised January 2008)
Case

Providian Financial Corporation

By: John R. Wells

On October 3, 2005, Washington Mutual acquired Providian Financial Corporation, the ninth-largest credit card issuer in the U.S., for $6.5 billion. At the time, Providian had approximately 10 million customer relationships and a balance of $18.6 billion. For some... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Restructuring; Customer Relationship Management; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Credit Cards; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financial Services Industry; United States

07 Apr 2009
First Look

First Look: April 7, 2009

Addleshaw-Goddard (AG), the 15th largest law firm in the U.K., is seeking ways to serve larger clients on more important legal matters. Part of this strategy involves its "Client Development Centre (CDC)," an innovative idea and set of View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

June 2022
Case

Zalando: Becoming the Starting Point for Fashion

By: Antonio Moreno, Leela Nageswaran, Emilie Billaud and Federica Gabrieli

Born in 2008 as a small startup selling flip flops, by mid-2021 Zalando had turned into an online fashion company with an assortment of more than 4,500 international brands, 45 million active customers, and a presence in 23 European markets. An essential component in... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Customer Value and Value Chain; Digital Platforms; Distribution; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Infrastructure; Logistics; Service Operations; Strategy; Business Strategy; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; Europe

02 Feb 2010
First Look

First Look: Feb. 2

business schools excel in both rigor as well as relevance. This paper provides a personal example of these synergistic relationships and discusses boundary issues associated with these faculty/firm collaborations. Executive education in... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

06 Oct 2009
First Look

First Look: October 6

services into three new content areas—news, music, and popular bloggers. Each potential area of Daqi's expansion offered extensive benefits, such as major growth opportunity, as well as risks, including private lawsuits, government... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 2008 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Glass Egg Digital Media

Glass Egg is an outsource games development firm in Vietnam. They are able to offer brand-name publishers-Microsoft EA, Atari-significant cost savings in the development of art assets for their video games. However, the firm's management find themselves at a point at... View Details

Keywords: Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Product Development; Organizational Structure; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

21 Aug 2018
News

The Business Shelf: Driving Digital Strategy

Web

Unique Value Proposition - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

industry. These customers want an enhanced product or service and are willing to pay a premium for it. The unmet need is typically the dominant leg of the triangle, while the higher relative price supports... View Details

17 Oct 2023
HBS Case

With Subscription Fatigue Setting In, Companies Need to Think Hard About Fees

offers subscription services for creators and virtual reality gamers. For consumers, subscriptions help spread out costly payments over time, allow people to choose flexible usage and product-feature options at different price levels, and... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Consumer Products; Information; Information Technology

08 Jan 2008
First Look

First Look: January 8, 2008

of options in the future and their subsequent revealed preferences over those options. Using a novel panel data set, we analyze the film rental and return patterns of a sample of online DVD rental customers over a period of four months.... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Program

Private Equity and Venture Capital

will foster teamwork and amplify the impact of the Private Equity and Venture Capital program. A participant team might include executives responsible for finance, marketing, business development, customer service, human resources, and... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Finance

Web

Marketing - Faculty & Research

Centre Award in the Marketing category for “The New York Times Paywall” (HBS Case 512-077). By: Sunil Gupta, Vineet Kumar, Bharat Anand, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee The Case Centre Awards and Competitions recognize worldwide excellence in... View Details

15 Oct 2021
Blog Post

Coming Out Calculus: A Reflection in Honor of National Coming Out Day

associates at this financial services firm, am in training. We’ve received an itinerary for the day: it’s icebreakers, a whole lot of Excel modeling, some training on basic asset classes—nothing too... View Details

September 2015
Technical Note

FIELD 2: Situation Analysis

By: Jill Avery

In this note, we present a method, the 5 C's Analysis, for collecting and analyzing information about the internal and external environments that firms face. This analysis will enable you to develop design ideas for a new product or service for your Global Partner that... View Details

Keywords: Design Thinking; Innovation; Market Research; Marketing; Customers

February 2011
Case

Chegg: Textbook Rental Takes Flight

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, William A. Sahlman and Evan W. Richardson

In late 2010, Silicon Valley-based Chegg, the leading online college textbook rental company, is scaling rapidly. The case recounts Chegg's history from its origins as a distant competitor to Craigslist in college classified listings through a pivot into textbook... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Higher Education; Entrepreneurship; Books; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Service Operations; Renting or Rental; Online Technology; Service Industry; Service Industry; California

July 2000 (Revised August 2000)
Case

AllHerb.com: Evolution of an E-tailer

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Christina L. Darwall

Serial entrepreneur Ken Hakuta, in the second year of his latest venture, reconsiders his original strategy of maintaining an independent, self-funded, self-led company. His Internet herbal remedy company, AllHerb.com, has already enjoyed considerable success with its... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Strategic Planning; Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry