Distribution - Publications - Faculty & Research

26 Jun 2020
Research & Ideas

Why Japanese Businesses Are So Good at Surviving Crises

and earning reserves of the company.” He distributed $300 in cash to each Yakult Lady from the company’s safe, since banks were closed; used the firm’s delivery center as a temporary shelter for employees and their families; and... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

01 Dec 2023
News

Rounding the Bend

Illustration by Fernando Cobelo To help people visualize what a circular economy could look like and bring the challenges down to a closet-sized scale, Emily Bolon (MBA/MPA 2007) recommends the following exercise. First, make a mental tally of the number of garments... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Retail Trade; Apparel Manufacturing; Manufacturing

15 Nov 2022
Op-Ed

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

their own versions of it. Rethinking the discovery problem The rise of the internet democratized the publishing and distribution of information and entertainment. In the process, it created an enormous discovery problem. Those with an... View Details

Keywords: by John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

August 2019
Case

Walmart's Omnichannel Strategy: Revolution or Miscalculation?

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

This case describes Walmart's omnichannel strategy in 2018 as it battled Amazon for online retail market share. The case discusses Walmart's early forays into online retail, as well as its 2018 strategy, which aimed to integrate Walmart's enormous brick and mortar... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Strategy; Internet and the Web; Distribution; Distribution Channels; Competition; Retail Industry; Bentonville; Arkansas; New Jersey; Seattle; United States

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31 Aug 2021
Book

Feeling Powerless at Work? Time to Agitate, Innovate, and Orchestrate

through persuasion or coercion.” But where does this power come from? It derives from controlling access to what others value, such as income, status, achievement, belonging, autonomy, and moral purpose. Strategies for shifting power When power is View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald

Web

Baker Library / Bloomberg Center | About

Internet service. The space also houses some historical treasures for the School, including the Written Analysis of Cases slot; the Baker 20 case distribution center; a rendering of the original Baker Library stacks and grille; and an... View Details

13 Dec 2022
Research & Ideas

The Color of Private Equity: Quantifying the Bias Black Investors Face

institutions and the ultra-affluent. However, the fortunes of startups and struggling mature firms can depend on private funds, making the study’s results particularly influential to wealth distribution in the United States. “There is a... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds; Financial Services

30 May 2024
Research & Ideas

Racial Bias Might Be Infecting Patient Portals. Can AI Help?

Health and Hospital Association about the digital transformation of health care and the growing use of apps and other technologies in patient care. During the presentation, Stern recalls, an audience member asked “a wonderfully thoughtful question: How do we know about... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Health

01 Jun 2000
News

Going Public: Margaret M. Crotty

helped her get through her own sixteen-hour ordeal. While on a weekend vacation from Save the Children in 1995, Crotty boarded one of Indonesia's chronically overcrowded ferryboats. Several hours into the trip, as night was falling, the ferry began to roll over. Crotty... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

01 Jun 2024
News

Quantum Leap

“This is the first new kind of computer in 75 years,” says John Levy (MBA 1979), CEO of the quantum computing startup SEEQC. “And we’re building it on a chip!” Strolling through his company’s design and testing facility in Elmsford, New York, Levy looks less like a... View Details

Keywords: Alexander Gelfand; photographed by Chris Sorensen; quantum computing; innovation; leadership; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing; Manufacturing

Web

The Railroads: The First Big Business - Railroads and the Transformation of Capitalism | Harvard Business School

Railroads Finance Management Business Analysts Mass Distribution Mergers & Syndicates Research Links The Railroads: The First Big Business Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, local railroads around the world served as a means of... View Details

08 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

Decision Rights: Who Gives the Green Light?

To better understand how the distribution of decision rights drives performance and what companies can do to allocate them more effectively, we spoke with several leading authorities and practitioners. We found that while the barriers to... View Details

Keywords: by Peter Jacobs

09 May 2017
What Do You Think?

Should Management Be Primarily Responsible to Shareholders?

School Professor Sumantra Ghoshal questioned whether shareholders are even “owners” in the common sense of that term. As he put it, “If the value creation is achieved by combining the resources of both employees and shareholders, why should value View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

16 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restaurant Revolution: How the Industry Is Fighting to Stay Alive

contactless curbside pickup options. Investors are helping shore up distribution networks by injecting cash into distributors to keep products flowing. Franchisees are being offered more generous payment terms. Every player in the fragile... View Details

Keywords: by Michael S. Kaufman, Lena G. Goldberg, and Jill Avery; Food & Beverage

13 Mar 2014
HBS Seminar

Karthik Ramanna, Harvard Business School

Revolutionizing Innovation: Users, Communities, and Open Innovation

The last two decades have witnessed an extraordinary growth of new models of managing and organizing the innovation process that emphasizes users over producers. Large parts of the knowledge economy now routinely rely on users, communities, and open innovation... View Details

Web

Advisory Board - Entrepreneurship

the chief architect of Kiva's game-changing product vision. Prior to Kiva, Mick worked on a business process team at Webvan designing a next generation distribution strategy for grocery home delivery, during which he experienced... View Details

22 Feb 2018
Book

The New History of American Capitalism

political economy. Thomas Piketty locates the roots of growing inequality in the economic returns to capital and stresses the political stakes of distributive justice. “If democracy is someday to regain control of capitalism,” he writes,... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing

19 Sep 2023
Blog Post

2023 Summer Internships in Business & Environment

response services by connecting customers’ distributed energy resource assets (DERs) to every wholesale electricity market in North America. The Product Partnerships team is responsible for conducting market research for partnership... View Details

March 2023
Teaching Note

Ransomware Attack at Colonial Pipeline Company

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 123-069. On the morning of May 7, 2021, Colonial Pipeline Company became aware that the company had been the victim of a malicious ransomware attack that had stolen and locked up company data. The extortionists demanded 75 bitcoins (worth... View Details