Publications

2025
Working Paper

Using Satellites and Phones to Evaluate and Promote Agricultural Technology Adoption: Evidence from Smallholder Farms in India

By: Shawn Cole, Grady Killeen, Tomoko Harigaya and Aparna Krishna

This paper evaluates a low-cost, customized soil nutrient management advisory service in India. As a methodological contribution, we examine whether and in which settings satellite measurements may be effective at estimating both agricultural yields and treatment... View Details

Keywords: Performance Evaluation; Technology Adoption; Measurement and Metrics; Analytics and Data Science; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; India

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31 May 2017
What Do You Think?

Can Amazon Do What Walmart Couldn’t, Stop the 'Wheel of Retailing'?

of customers and the volume of sales increase, the retailer gains a dominant position in the market. The goal gradually shifts from attracting more customers to increasing prices and margins in order to... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

Uncommon Service

Most companies treat service as a low-priority business operation, keeping it out of the spotlight until a customer complains. Then service gets to make a brief appearance – for as long as it takes to calm the customer down and fix whatever foul-up... View Details

22 Jul 2002
Research & Ideas

Is Performance-Based Pricing the Right Price for You?

services that simultaneously provide greater customer value and higher supplier profitability. We constantly strive to move elements of the relationship from the zero-sum conflict side to the win-win cooperation side to achieve business... View Details

Keywords: by Benson Shapiro; Manufacturing

19 Mar 2014
Research & Ideas

A Brand Manager’s Guide to Losing Control

commercial messages. Social media did not have that contract, so that when customers were interrupted by brands in social media, it felt abrupt, inappropriate, and out of place." The power shift from... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Advertising

January 2008 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Comcast New England: A Journey of Organizational Transformation

By: Michael Beer and Anita Arun

This case describes how Kevin Casey, Comcast's New England Region general manager, transformed a low commitment and performance organization. When he took charge of this Comcast region he inherited an organization that was bureaucratic, had low customer satisfaction,... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Interpersonal Communication; Customer Satisfaction; Employee Relationship Management; Management Teams; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Performance Improvement; Telecommunications Industry; New England

20 Aug 2008
Op-Ed

The Time is Right for Creative Capitalism

examples of where global capitalism is going. (RED) integrates the power of big business, new customer priorities, and the interconnected agents of social change, in the form of the Global Fund to Fight... View Details

Keywords: by Nancy Koehn

24 Apr 2019
Research & Ideas

The 'Amazon Effect' Is Changing Online Price Competition—and the Fed Needs to Pay Attention

prices across channels or locations,” Cavallo says. “So, while retailers currently have the technology to customize prices based on demographics, fairness concerns are limiting their ability to do so.” Historically, there has been more... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Retail

2017
Working Paper

The 4 Minds of the Customer: A Framework for Understanding and Applying the Science of Decision Making

By: Ryan Hamilton and Uma R. Karmarkar

Scientists have spent decades creating powerful and detailed descriptions of how people make decisions. Unfortunately, many of these theories make contradictory predictions and are difficult to understand and implement. We introduce the 4 Minds framework as a practical... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Choice; Market Research; Decision Making Process; Decision; Marketing Research; Consumer Behavior; Decision Choices and Conditions; Marketing; Decision Making; Segmentation; Research

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April 2012
Case

Renesas Electronics and the Automotive Microcontroller Supply Chain (A)

By: Willy Shih and Margaret Pierson

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck Japan in March 2011 caused extensive damage to Renesas Electronics wafer fabrication facility, a critical link in the global automotive supply chain. Many OEMs sole-sourced customized microprocessors from the fab, so its... View Details

Keywords: Natural Disasters; Crisis Management; Supply Chain Management; Production; Strategy; Semiconductor Industry; Auto Industry; Japan

2012
Book

Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy

By: Amy C. Edmondson

Continuous improvement, understanding complex systems, and promoting innovation are all part of the landscape of learning challenges today's companies face. I show that organizations thrive, or fail to thrive, based on how well the small groups within those... View Details

Keywords: Change; Interpersonal Communication; Learning; Values and Beliefs; Innovation and Invention; Management; Performance Improvement; Groups and Teams; Research; Strategy; Complexity; Value

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November 2024
Case

Ather Energy: The Future of Mobility

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Kannan Srinivasan and Malini Sen

Ather Energy, India’s third-largest electric scooter maker by volume, was founded in 2013. Five years later, the start-up launched its first electric scooter, Ather 450, which was powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), to navigate... View Details

Keywords: Energy Policy; Climate Change; Alternative Energy; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Transportation; Transformation; Green Technology; Technology Adoption; Communication Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Asia; India

22 Apr 2019
HBS Seminar

Francesca Rossi, AI Ethics Global Leader, IBM

January 2014
Technical Note

Learning From Extreme Consumers

By: Jill Avery and Michael Norton

Traditional market research methods focus on understanding the average experiences of average consumers. This focus leads to gaps in our knowledge of consumer behavior and often fails to uncover insights that can drive revolutionary, rather than evolutionary... View Details

Keywords: Market Research; Ethnography; Design Thinking; Innovation; New Product Development; Research; Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Innovation and Invention

30 Sep 2014
First Look

First Look: September 30

working paper: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2498174 Who Runs the International System? Power and the Staffing of the United Nations Secretariat By: Novosad, Paul, and Eric Werker Abstract—National governments frequently pull strings to get... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2015 (Revised February 2020)
Teaching Note

Trouble at Tessei

By: Ethan Bernstein and Ryan Buell

In 2005, Teruo Yabe is asked to revive Tessei, the 669-person JR-East subsidiary responsible for cleaning its Shinkansen ("bullet") trains. Operational mistakes, customer complaints, safety issues, and employee turnover are at or near all-time highs, even as the... View Details

Keywords: Service Management; Employee Engagement; Employee Motivation; Leadership And Managing People; Quality Improvement; Efficiency; Japan; Operational Transparency; Employee Coordination; Transparency; Leadership; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Employees; Quality; Transportation Industry; Japan

Research Summary

Product Policy and Pricing

By: Robert J. Dolan

Robert J. Dolan's continuing research on marketing issues focuses on pricing policy and new products. His research program encompasses the development of both cases and conceptual models. Dolan's focus is the proper utilization of customer input in the new-product... View Details

July 2007 (Revised February 2010)
Case

Launching Telmore (A)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Celso Fernandez and Moritz Jobke

When the Danish mobile phone service provider Telmore entered the market in October 2000, few people took notice. Its business model was not perceived as particularly aggressive or threatening to the industry. Less than three years later, Telmore's creative adaptation... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Disruptive Innovation; Market Entry and Exit; Creativity; Adaptation; Competitive Advantage; Telecommunications Industry; Denmark