Consumer Technology - Publications - Faculty & Research

26 Apr 2011
Op-Ed

HBS Faculty Comment on Environmental Issues for Earth Day

Earth Day focuses the world's attention on the both the dangers and opportunities facing the planet. But sustainability and the intersection between business and the environment are issues that need to be addressed all the time, as cities grow, resources diminish, and... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Energy; Utilities

01 Dec 2015
News

Case Study: Bionic Banking

result in higher consumer costs and less agility. Alpha Architect’s focus on staying lean and minimizing distribution allows it to serve an account at almost any level, no longer needing to manage $1 million accounts to be profitable. The... View Details

2023
Article

Moral Escalation: Contested Category Emergence and Its Consequences in the Toy Industry

By: Ryann Noe

Preexisting research has outlined the cognitive, competitive, and economic barriers to market category emergence. Yet scholars have paid scant attention to the processes and consequences of moral resistance to nascent categories. Through a longitudinal, qualitative... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Market Entry and Exit; Product Positioning; Technology Industry; Technology Industry

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June 2010 (Revised January 2011)
Case

Scientific Glass Incorporated: Inventory Management

By: Steven C. Wheelwright and William Schmidt

Scientific Glassware is a fast-growing, privately held company that provides specialized glassware for laboratory and research facilities. Excess inventory is tying up extra capital needed to fund the company's expansion plans. The newly hired Manager of Inventory... View Details

Keywords: Inventory Control; Inventory Management; Materials Management; Order Processing; Warehousing; Salesforce Management; Logistics; Operations; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Finance; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry

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29 Feb 2024
Blog Post

IFC India: JSW Steel and Cement and the Quest to Capture Carbon in Hard to Abate Sectors

to different players in this quest. From incumbents in traditional businesses revamping processes and technologies to account for emissions to startups creating new solutions to existing challenges such as agriculture, mobility and waste... View Details

May 2021
Simulation

Customer Compatibility Exercise Application

By: Ryan W. Buell

Customers impose considerable variability on the operating systems of service organizations. They show up when they wish (arrival variability), they ask for different things (request variability), they vary in their willingness and ability to help themselves (effort... View Details

Keywords: Customer Compatibility; Customer Relationship Management; Strategy; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Performance Efficiency; Analysis; Consumer Behavior; Analytics and Data Science

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September 2017
Teaching Note

Dick's Sporting Goods

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Matthew G. Preble

This is the teaching note to accompany Rajiv Lal, Jose B. Alvarez, and Matthew G. Preble, “Dick’s Sporting Goods,” HBS No. 517-007 (Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2017). View Details

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February 2017
Case

Dick's Sporting Goods

By: Rajiv Lal, Jose B. Alvarez and Matthew G. Preble

Edward Stack, chairman and CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS), faced a rapidly changing sporting goods landscape in October 2016. Two large competitors—The Sports Authority and Sport Chalet—had folded earlier that year, and DKS had to contend with increasingly robust... View Details

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Educators

29 Jun 2016
Blog Post

Emerging Into Singapore

I arrived to Singapore with little expectations of what the city, office, culture, and people would be like. I was excited to start, but like a cub stepping out for the first time, I was anxious about jumping into the real world in a new unfamiliar place known to be... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Technology

01 Jun 2016
Blog Post

Reflecting and Digesting

Finals just ended, I said some goodbyes, and I am all packed and ready. My first year at HBS has already come to an end, way too quickly, and I just boarded my flight to Singapore. As you can probably imagine, I have not yet reflected on all that has happened over the... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Technology

10 Sep 2014
Blog Post

A Summer Reflection

Looking back on my summer internship at Walmart, I have four main takeaways about the company: Walmart cares A LOT about maintaining the culture that Sam Walton initially put in place. It’s actively and constantly managed- 4 core values, 10 rules of doing business,... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Technology

2021
Working Paper

Assessing the Strength of Network Effects in Social Network Platforms

By: Marco Iansiti

Network effects have risen to the forefront of platform competition discussions (e.g. the House Judiciary investigation of competition in digital markets, claiming that Facebook, for example, is entrenched due to strong network effects and high switching costs). While... View Details

Keywords: Social Networks; Platform Competition; Network Effects; Competition; Social Media; Digital Platforms

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01 Aug 2008
What Do You Think?

Has the Time Come for “Stretch” in Management?

flat-footed on the issue of fuel efficiency? Granted, Detroit was busy catering to consumer demands for more profitable, lower-mileage vehicles. But at the same time, could stretch have given greater urgency to responses to alternative... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

27 Mar 2025
Blog Post

IFC India 2025: Driving India's EV Future: Insights from Ather Scooter and Exponent Energy

technology that can charge a vehicle to 85% in 15 minutes. Their focus is primarily on commercial vehicles (CVs), a segment that represents 10% of India's vehicles but consumes 70% of the energy used in... View Details

Student-Faculty-Profile

Michelle Shell & Ryan Buell

best decisions and undermine our service experiences in the process. Behavioral science and economics has identified choice architecture as one path for helping consumers make better decisions in these circumstances – “nudging” them... View Details

01 Sep 2016
News

The Big Business of Little Loans

Banks. Amid the excitement, abuses have also appeared, with some online lenders reportedly charging as much as 50 percent in interest on some short-term loans. It’s been enough to attract the attention of regulators, with everyone from the View Details

Keywords: Nancy Miller

Web

Harvard Business School

of Four Innovative, New Institutions Cheryl E. Owens-Howard (DBA) 1983 A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Views of the Relationship Between Consumers and Advertising in the Marketplace Donna B. Stoddard (DBA) 1991 Information View Details

Profile

Janina Motter

Conference held at The Kennedy School. “The circular economy is about rethinking how we make and consume products, not to ‘use and throw away’ but as things that can be reused and repurposed more sustainably.” At the Conference, Janina... View Details