Publications

July 2004 (Revised July 2005)
Case

Activision: The 'Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer' Project

By: Alan D. MacCormack, Enrico D"Angelo and Kerry Herman

Mike Ward, the producer in charge of developing the Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer game for Activision, must decide whether to launch the game in time for the 2002 Christmas season. Complicating his decision are the lukewarm response from consumers to TV test spots of the... View Details

Keywords: Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Product Development; Customer Satisfaction; Projects; Business or Company Management; Product Launch; Marketing Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Industry Structures; Innovation Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States

02 Apr 2024
What Do You Think?

What's Enough to Make Us Happy?

the staff and are miffed that the staff isn’t investing in them.” Katherine Lawrence’s comment typified the majority of responses to last month’s column. To sum up, management policies and the leadership that creates them—not employee... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2012
Book

Producing Prosperity: Why America Needs a Manufacturing Renaissance

By: Gary P. Pisano and Willy Shih

For years—even decades—in response to intensifying global competition, American companies decided to outsource their manufacturing operations in order to reduce costs. But we are now seeing the alarming long-term effect of those choices: in many cases, once... View Details

Keywords: Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Production; Competitive Advantage; Transformation; Innovation and Invention; Manufacturing Industry; United States

April 2010 (Revised April 2010)
Case

Mercadona

This case presents the predicament of a company trying to do right by its customers and its employees as the economic crisis of 2008 hits home. Fifteen years earlier, this Spanish supermarket chain had adopted its own version of total quality management, called the... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Compensation and Benefits; Employee Relationship Management; Service Operations; Business Processes; Retail Industry; Spain

Career Coach

Lauren Murphy

responsibility at the Proctor & Gamble company where she was a Brand Manager and a Regional Marketing Manager. She began her business career in the buying office as an Area Manager at Macy's Stores (formerly Joske's of Houston). Work... View Details

September 2010 (Revised September 2011)
Case

B Lab: Building a New Sector of the Economy

By: Christopher Marquis, Andrew David Klaber and Bobbi Thomason

The founders of B Lab are on a mission to create a new sector of the economy and are specifically focused on a three objectives: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations (B=Benefit) that legally expand their corporate responsibilities to include... View Details

Keywords: Economic Sectors; Social Entrepreneurship; Investment; Policy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Social Enterprise; Value Creation

05 Feb 2024
What Do You Think?

How Do You Hire for Attitude?

spend 2 percent of their time recruiting and 75 percent managing their recruiting mistakes.” Our research confirms that these are companies that hire for skills and try to do the nearly impossible: train for attitude. The question I’m asked repeatedly is, “How do you... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Program

Managing Innovation

countries across the globe Build relationships with a diverse group of peers who can provide wide-ranging insights into your business challenges and career decisions Who Should Attend Vice presidents, directors, and other senior managers who have View Details

June, 2023
Article

Walking the Purpose-Talk Inside a Large Company: Sustainable Product Development as an Instance of Divergent Change

By: Marissa Kimsey, Thijs Geradts and Julie Battilana

There is a growing interest in large companies pursuing a new purpose—changing their core reason for being from a singular focus on financial gain to a renewed responsibility to people and the planet alongside profit. Yet knowledge of how a large company can walk that... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Environmental Sustainability; Mission and Purpose; Leading Change

Research Summary

Works in Progress

"Hunkering Down and Venturing Out: Network Activation in Response to the Uncertainty of Organizational Restructuring." Under Review. Awarded Best Paper in Organizational Behavior: 2011 Trans-Atlantic... View Details

2025
Working Paper

Choosing and Using Information in Evaluation Decisions

By: Katherine Baldiga Coffman, Scott Kostyshak and Perihan O. Saygin

We use a controlled experiment to study how information acquisition impacts candidate evaluations. We provide evaluators with group-level information on performance and the opportunity to acquire additional, individual-level performance information before making a... View Details

Keywords: Discrimination; Beliefs; Stereotypes; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Selection and Staffing; Performance Evaluation

2022
Article

Nonparametric Subset Scanning for Detection of Heteroscedasticity

By: Charles R. Doss and Edward McFowland III

We propose Heteroscedastic Subset Scan (HSS), a novel method for identifying covariates that are responsible for violations of the homoscedasticity assumption in regression settings. Viewing the problem as one of anomalous pattern detection, we use subset scanning... View Details

Keywords: Scan Statistics; Anomaly Detection; Regression; Model Diagnostics

July 2020
Teaching Note

Shindigz

By: Frank Cespedes

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 819-010. Shindigz sells party and celebratory items through its branded direct online channel, third-party retail and wholesale channels, and online marketplaces. Shindigz has for decades successfully executed a premium-priced branded... View Details

Keywords: Ecommerce; Pricing; Price; Strategy; Decision Making; Distribution Channels; Brands and Branding; E-commerce; Consumer Products Industry

2018
Article

Threat of Platform-Owner Entry and Complementor Responses: Evidence from the Mobile App Market

By: Wen Wen and Feng Zhu

We examine how app developers on the Android mobile platform adjust their innovation efforts (rate and direction) and value-capture strategies in response to Google’s entry threat and actual entry into their markets. We find that, after Google’s entry threat increases,... View Details

Keywords: Platform-owner Entry; Entry Threat; Innovation; Complementors; Mobile App Industry; Digital Platforms; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Market Entry and Exit; Price; Innovation and Invention; Applications and Software

2018
Working Paper

The Welfare Effects of Peer Entry in the Accommodation Market: The Case of Airbnb

By: Chiara Farronato and Andrey Fradkin

We study the effects of enabling peer supply through Airbnb in the accommodation industry. We present a model of competition between flexible and dedicated sellers - peer hosts and hotels - who provide differentiated products. We estimate this model using data from... View Details

Keywords: Peer To Peer; Digital Platforms; Market Entry and Exit; Competition; Accommodations Industry

October 2017
Case

Shift Technologies, Inc.

By: Thomas Eisenmann and Nicole Tempest Keller

In 2017, management at Shift, an online marketplace that uses a “high touch,” concierge approach to buy and sell used cars, was formulating plans for the San Francisco–based startup’s next phase of expansion. One option was to preserve Shift’s current business model... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Market Design; Multi-Sided Platforms; Marketplace Matching; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Auto Industry; Retail Industry; United States

December 2013
Article

Reputational Contagion and Optimal Regulatory Forbearance

By: Alan Morrison and Lucy White

Existing studies suggest that systemic crises may arise because banks either hold correlated assets or are connected by interbank lending. This paper shows that common regulation is also a conduit for interbank contagion. One bank's failure may undermine confidence in... View Details

Keywords: Reputation; Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry