Publications

February 2025
Article

Improving Customer Compatibility with Tradeoff Transparency

By: Ryan W. Buell and MoonSoo Choi

Through a large-scale field experiment with 393,036 customers considering opening a credit card account with a nationwide retail bank, we investigate how providing transparency into an offering’s tradeoffs affects subsequent rates of customer acquisition and long-run... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Customer Selection; Customer Compatibility; Retention; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Communications; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Banking Industry; Australia

Find at Harvard

TeachingInterests

MBA Elective Curriculum-- Competing Through Business Models

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

The words “business model” are inescapable in our daily fare of business news. These two ubiquitous words seemed to effortlessly rise up to prominence during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. When businesspeople, journalists, academics, and other... View Details

06 Dec 2017
What Do You Think?

Is It Time To Break Up Amazon, Apple, Facebook, or Google?

1969, a move generally credited as enabling creation of a software industry in the US. More recently, the Sherman Act has been invoked most frequently to deny mergers, especially those of the “horizontal” variety, that unduly increase... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Technology; Web Services

October 2021
Case

Yildiz Holding's Corporate Strategy: Managing Diversification for Growth

By: Juan Alcácer and Esel Çekin

The case opens in May 2018 with Nurtaç Ziyal Afridi, chief strategy and growth officer of Yıldız Holding, a Turkish conglomerate, reflecting on the group’s diversification journey. In ten years, the group had achieved a remarkable growth through diversification: seven... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Diversification; Growth Management; Mergers and Acquisitions; Global Strategy; Restructuring; Food and Beverage Industry; North America; United Kingdom; Turkey; Asia

03 Mar 2015
First Look

First Look: March 3

industries such as agriculture and biofuels. As GenapSys came closer to releasing its product, Esfandyarpour and his Senior Director of Operations and Strategy, Leila Rastegar (HBS '11), sat down to decide which of three business models... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Jul 2022
Research & Ideas

Did Pandemic Stimulus Funds Spur the Rise of 'Meme Stocks'?

boom. Retail investors—who buy shares directly through websites like Robinhood rather than investment firms or employer-sponsored plans—snapped up stocks that appeared to have poorer prospects under traditional metrics. Remember the... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services

August 2011 (Revised April 2013)
Case

Language and Globalization: 'Englishnization' at Rakuten (A)

By: Tsedal Neeley

Hiroshi Mikitani, the CEO of Rakuten, (Japan's largest online retailer), is at the helm of an organization that is rapidly expanding into global markets. In a critical stride toward becoming the world's No. 1 Internet services company, Mikitani announces... View Details

Keywords: Teaching; Human Capital; Change Management; Transformation; Social Enterprise; Communication Strategy; Internet and the Web; Disruptive Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Leadership; Global Strategy; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Japan

Paige Tsai is PhD candidate in the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School. Her research broadly examines the effects of job design on employees. Her current projects explore the financial and well-being effects of holding multiple jobs,... View Details

Keywords: service industry; service industry; service industry; service industry

08 Nov 2011
First Look

First Look: Nov. 8

PublicationsHow Much Is a Reduction of Your Customers' Wait Worth? An Empirical Study of the Fast-Food Drive-Thru Industry Based on Structural Estimation Methods Authors:Gad Allon, Awi Federgruen, and Margaret P. Pierson... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2001 (Revised February 2018)
Case

The iPremier Company (A): Distributed Denial of Service Attack

By: Robert D. Austin, Larry Leibrock and Alan Murray

Describes a new CIO trying to manage a denial of service (DOS) attack against his e-retailing business. The attack and its aftermath provide students an opportunity to discuss the business issues that are interwoven with computer security issues. View Details

Keywords: Safety; Internet and the Web; Applications and Software; Retail Industry

January 2018 (Revised October 2021)
Case

Walmart Inc. takes on Amazon.com

By: David Collis, Andy Wu, Rembrand Koning and Huaiyi CiCi Sun

This case explores how Walmart should compete with Amazon. View Details

Keywords: Competitive Analysis; Strategy; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Retail Industry

August 2024
Case

Cristina Ventura: The Career of a Catalyst

By: Linda A. Hill, Allison J. Wigen and Ruth Page

This multimedia case follows the career of Chief Catalyst Officer for the Lane Crawford Joyce Group (LCJG), Cristina Ventura. After beginning her career in luxury in Europe and Asia, Ventura was recruited in 2011 to open Apple’s flagship stores in Hong Kong and South... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Entrepreneurship; Luxury; Family Business; Personal Development and Career; Fashion Industry; Fashion Industry; Fashion Industry; Asia; China; Hong Kong

May 2019
Supplement

Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (D)

By: Doug J. Chung

Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain. The company’s products consisted of home electronics and accessories. The company was noted for its excellent customer service and a fair “one-for-all” HR policy. Historically, the salespeople had been compensated... View Details

Keywords: Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Change Management; Behavior; Electronics Industry; Sweden