Publications

2012
Book

Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business

By: Frances Frei and Anne Morriss

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 jeopardized the... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Business Ventures

May 2003
Background Note

How to Induce Retailers to Reduce Stockouts?

By: V.G. Narayanan

Describes how the lack of incentive alignment between retailers and their vendors can lead to stockouts. Also describes various means to reduce incentive misalignment and hence stockouts. View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Supply Chain Management; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Distribution; Alignment; Business Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Retail Industry

January 2022
Article

Replicating Private Equity with Value Investing, Homemade Leverage, and Hold-to-Maturity Accounting

By: Erik Stafford

The contributions of asset selection and incremental leverage to buyout investment performance are more important than typically assumed or estimated to be. Buyout funds select small firms with distinct value characteristics. Public equities with these characteristics... View Details

Keywords: Replicating Portfolio; Private Equity; Investment Portfolio

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March–April 2024
Article

Case Study: Navigating Labor Unrest

By: Jorge Tamayo

Paulo Ferreira, the president of Luna Brazil, has an ambitious plan to turn around the dismal performance of the plant he oversees in Campinas. The wrinkle is, he needs the buy-in of the powerful local union, which is still smarting from a 10-year-old labor conflict... View Details

Keywords: Strategy And Execution; Layoffs; Manufacturing; Labor and Management Relations; Labor Unions; Negotiation Tactics; Conflict and Resolution; Performance Improvement; Corporate Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; Brazil

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17 Nov 2003
Research & Ideas

Lessons from a Nasty Trade Dispute

can win. This means hiring the proper consultants and legal advisors, particularly those who are well versed in the workings of the WTO. The last piece of advice is not really an action plan, rather an issue to recognize and keep in one's... View Details

Keywords: by Cynthia Churchwell

September 2008 (Revised August 2010)
Exercise

If We Blew It Up, Then We Could....

By: Stacey Childress

By setting up a thought experiment, this exercise challenges students to examine their own assumptions about the meaning of the word "public" in public education, as well as to understand competing assumptions held by others. View Details

Keywords: Education; Social Issues; Education Industry; United States

02 Dec 2015
What Do You Think?

What Will It Take to Achieve Gender Equality in Leadership?

Are Investors the Ultimate Antidote to Gender Inequality in Leadership? Once respondents came to terms with my use of “gender equality” in the title of this month’s column they described several ways in which it might be achieved in our discussion of gender inequality... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

28 Jan 2008
Research & Ideas

Billions of Entrepreneurs in China and India

in which the countries are different. These dimensions pervade all aspects of societal existence, whether that means raising capital to start a new business, the nature of markets, copyrights, the media, movies, and religion, as well as... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

07 Nov 2005
What Do You Think?

Is Less Becoming More?

Summing Up Less is increasingly more, at least in the minds of customers, according to nearly every respondent to this month's column. However, some cite product complexity as the cause of rising real and psychological consumer "costs" while others point to... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Consumer Products

January–February 2023
Article

Rethink Your Employee Value Proposition: Offer Your People More Than Just Flexibility

By: Mark Mortensen and Amy C. Edmondson

A lot of leaders believe that the formula for attracting and keeping talent is simple: Just ask people what they want and give it to them. The problem is, that approach tends to address only the material aspects of jobs that are top of employees’ minds at the moment,... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Retention; Recruitment; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Satisfaction

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August 1994
Background Note

Note on Entering Foreign Markets: Opportunities for Smaller U.S. Companies

By: Norman A. Berg and James Weber

Designed specifically for the smaller U.S.-based company; provides a brief overview of the various means by which such companies can enter foreign markets and the sources of information and assistance, principally on exporting, available to them. View Details

Keywords: Trade; Information; Management; Market Entry and Exit; Distribution; United States

April 1995
Case

Phelps Dodge Corporation

By: W. Carl Kester and Kendall Backstrand

A prolonged decline in copper prices prompts Phelps Dodge, one of the world's largest independent copper companies, to consider corporate diversification as a means of protecting itself from copper price volatility. View Details

Keywords: Diversification; Price; Volatility; Risk Management; Mining Industry; Arizona; United States

February 1999 (Revised August 1999)
Case

Michael Brown: Negotiating Slots at Foxwoods (B)

By: James K. Sebenius

The approach taken by Michael Brown and Governor Lowell Weicker and the means by which the agreement's sustainability was enhanced in the face of attacks by other gaming operators are detailed. View Details

Keywords: Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Agreements and Arrangements; Government and Politics; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Connecticut