Publications

10 Oct 2023
Research & Ideas

In Empowering Black Voters, Did a Landmark Law Stir White Angst?

states (the data excludes Texas) for 1956 through 1980. They use the information to create a database—the first time that such records have been systemically collected for this part View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

March 2016 (Revised May 2018)
Case

ASOS PLC

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

Launched in 2000, ASOS was one of the world’s largest online fashion specialists in 2018. Focusing on young consumers aged 16–25 years, the company offered over 85,000 items on its websites, many times more than the largest fashion stores, and added several thousand... View Details

Keywords: ASOS; AsSeenOnScreen; Online Fashion; Online Apparel; Nick Beighton; Nick Robertson; E-commerce; E-Commerce Strategy; Online Retail; Multichannel Retailing; Omnichannel; Social Media; Marketplaces; Shipping; Advertising; Digital Marketing; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Startups; For-Profit Firms; Customer Focus and Relationships; Age; Gender; Currency Exchange Rate; Profit; Revenue; Geography; Geographic Scope; Global Range; Global Strategy; Globalized Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Business History; Selection and Staffing; Journals and Magazines; Human Capital; Business or Company Management; Crisis Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Succession; Brands and Branding; Marketing Channels; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Product Positioning; Social Marketing; Media; Distribution; Distribution Channels; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Infrastructure; Logistics; Public Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Vertical Integration; Segmentation; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; United Kingdom; England; London

Article

Market Heterogeneity and Local Capacity Decisions in Services

By: Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei

We empirically document factors that influence how local operating managers use discretion to balance the tradeoff between service capacity costs and customer sensitivity to service time. Our findings, using data from one of the largest financial services providers in... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Cost; Standards; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Performance Capacity; Performance Productivity; Financial Services Industry; United States

Find at Harvard

25 Jan 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Who Lives in the C-Suite? Organizational Structure and the Division of Labor in Top Management

Keywords: by Maria Guadalupe, Hongyi Li & Julie Wulf

Article

Get Ready to Sell

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Bud Hyler

Time-to-market measures the time to have a product ready to ship. But that’s not revenue and cash. Many firms with superb R&D functions lack an understanding of what’s needed to be ready-to-sell. Meanwhile, relevant tools are increasing in scope and decreasing in cost.... View Details

Keywords: Ready-to-sell; Sales; Health Pandemics; Performance Effectiveness

Read Now

August 2002
Article

Creativity Under the Gun

By: Teresa Amabile, Constance N. Hadley and Steven J. Kramer

If you're like most managers, you've worked with people who swear they do their most creative work under tight deadlines. You may use pressure as a management technique, believing it will spur people on to great leaps of insight. You may even manage yourself this way.... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Innovation and Invention; Time Management; Working Conditions; Performance Evaluation

Find at Harvard

25 Jan 2022
News

Why Facebook and Twitter Opened the Door to NFTs

March 2020 (Revised July 2022)
Case

Levi Strauss (A): A Pioneer Lost in the Wilderness

By: Joshua Margolis, Ashish Nanda, Margaret Cross, Imran Manji and Bismah Rahmat

In 2011, newly appointed CEO Chip Bergh needed to urgently turn around the iconic but floundering denim apparel firm, Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&Co.) Famous for its blue jeans, LS&Co. had suffered a decline in revenue of 29% from $6.8 billion in 1997 to $4.8 billion in... View Details

Keywords: Turnarounds; Transformation; Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decision Making; Strategic Planning; Brands and Branding; Product Positioning; Product Marketing; Apparel and Accessories Industry

March 2014 (Revised September 2015)
Case

ACA and the Union Bank Acquisition

By: Josh Lerner and Nathaniel Burbank

Okey Enelamah is the CEO of the African Capital Alliance (ACA), a private equity firm based in Nigeria. ACA has spent more than a year arranging a $500 million consortium bid to acquire and recapitalize Union Bank, Nigeria's sixth largest bank. Several weeks before the... View Details

Keywords: Nigeria; African Capital Alliance; Africa; Bank Capital; ACA; Union Bank; Development Finance Institutions; Capital Alliance Private Equity; Private Equity; Central Banking; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Nigeria; Africa

17 May 2022
Cold Call Podcast

Delivering a Personalized Shopping Experience with AI

Keywords: Re: Jill J. Avery

2010
Simulation

Marketing Simulation: Managing Segments and Customers

By: Das Narayandas

In this single-player simulation, students assume the position of CEO of a medical motor manufacturer and are tasked with executing a successful business-to-business marketing strategy over a period of twelve fiscal quarters. Students determine all aspects of the... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Salesforce Management; Distribution Channels; Price; Product Positioning; Customer Relationship Management; Profit; Revenue; Cost vs Benefits; Policy; Manufacturing Industry

February 2001 (Revised November 2009)
Case

Amazon.com (D)

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Dickson Louie and William A. Sahlman

At the end of 1999, Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos--just named Time Magazine's Man of the Year--ponders the next moves for his company. Having expanded into numerous categories in 1999, ranging from Z-shops to Auctions to E-cards as well as increasing the number... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Competitive Advantage; Expansion; Online Technology; Retail Industry

August 2000
Case

Manila Water Company (A)

By: Michael Beer and Elizabeth Weldon

On February 3, 1997, the east zone of the Manila Metropolitan Water and Sewerage System (MWSS) was taken over by the Manila Water Co. (MWC), a newly created joint venture between the Ayala Corp., a large Filipino conglomerate; Bechtel Enterprises, Inc., an American... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Horizontal Integration; Privatization; Problems and Challenges; Utilities Industry

09 Mar 2023
HBS Seminar

Gerard Cachon, Wharton

27 Jun 2018
News

L.A. Philharmonic Shows the American Symphony Orchestra Isn’t Dead Yet

Research Summary

Overcoming Large-N, Small-T Issues in Asset Pricing Tests

The large-N, small-T (i.e. large cross-section, short time series) nature of our asset data presents serious estimation problems for empirical asset pricing. In response, the literature tests asset pricing models against 10-25 test assets or portfolios. A... View Details

Profile

Yi-An Huang

who had interviewed at BMC suggested that I look into it. In what ways did your MBA influence your career path? It gave me time to explore, to clarify what I really wanted. At first, I was interested in for-profit businesses, but as I... View Details

Keywords: Health Care

January 2025
Case

GE Appliances 2025: Energizing Change

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jacob A. Small

At the turn of 2025, Kevin Nolan, CEO of GE Appliances following its acquisition by Chinese appliance giant Haier in 2016, is reviewing progress toward his net zero carbon vision for homes, which would otherwise exacerbate the global warming climate crisis. An... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Transformation; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Technological Innovation; Leading Change; Product Development; Organizational Culture

November 1998 (Revised February 1999)
Case

Bolsa de Valores de Guayaquil (BVG): Reaching Worldwide Investors Through the Internet

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Ramiro Montealegre, Dusya Vera and Karen Barone

The Guayaquil Stock Exchange developed a Web site to provide information about the market in Ecuador. Though the system provided some dynamic information for potential investors and allowed for some transactions to occur via the Internet, it had not at the time of the... View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Foreign Direct Investment; Emerging Markets; Internet; Technology Industry; Ecuador