Publications

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05 Oct 2023
News

On the Move: Massimo (Max) Magni (MBA 2003)

Our “On the Move” series highlights HBS alumni who are taking on new roles and responsibilities. Here we speak with Massimo (Max) Magni (MBA 2003), who has been named Macy’s new chief customer and digital officer. In this role, Magni will take charge of Macy’s digital... View Details

Keywords: Retail Trade

William A. Sahlman

William Sahlman is a Baker Foundation Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Mr. Sahlman received an A.B. degree in Economics from Princeton University (1972), an M.B.A. from Harvard University (1975), and a Ph.D. in Business... View Details

05 May 2022
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Raise Their Prices: Because They Can

says. Rising prices don’t stop consumers To test consumers’ willingness to keep buying higher-priced everyday goods, the researchers examined Kilts Nielsen scanner and consumer panel data for about 14.4 million retail products in 133... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

17 Dec 2014
Research & Ideas

How Our Brain Determines if the Product is Worth the Price

will appear in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Marketing Research. The research could help retailers and marketers decide when it's best to lead with price, which products work best with that strategy, and how to frame sales... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail

29 May 2012
First Look

First Look: May 29

considers how a competitor successfully challenged the incumbent in a platform market defined by strong network effects and high switching costs. The case allows students to assess the advantages and disadvantages of eBay's platform business model in comparison to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2014
Case

Starbucks Coffee Company: Transformation and Renewal

By: Nancy F. Koehn, Kelly McNamara, Nora N. Khan and Elizabeth Legris

Starbucks Coffee Company: Transformation and Renewal analyzes the turnaround and reconstruction of Starbucks Coffee Company from 2008 to 2014 as led by CEO and co-founder Howard Schultz. The case offers executives and students an opportunity to examine in depth how... View Details

February 1985 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Health Stop (A): What Type of Innovation Is It? And Six Factors Alignment

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Joyce Lallman, Nancy Kane, Jefferson C. Grahling and James Wallace

How can we evaluate if innovative health care ventures can do good—benefit society—and do well—become financially viable? This question is the topic of the first module in the Innovating In Health Care course book. This note and case series enables readers to conduct... View Details

Keywords: For-Profit Firms; Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Strategy; Valuation; Retail Industry; Retail Industry

Research Summary

The Function of Outlet Stores

Outlet stores are ubiquitous in the retail environment, and many firms sell goods through outlets as well as their primary stores. Using a highly detailed data set from a major U.S. luxury fashion goods firm, Professor Ngwe is able to look at market segmentation by... View Details

2019
Working Paper

Southern Responses to Gold Certification: Cooperate, Compete, Reject, Revise

By: Kristin Sippl

Artisanal gold mining is a Southern subsistence livelihood posing both challenges and opportunities for sustainable development. In 2011, Fairtrade International launched a certification program to address sustainability problems in the sector. Southern activists,... View Details

Keywords: Eco-labeling; Extractive Industries; Emerging Economies; Fair Trade; Environmental Sustainability; Standards; Programs; Governance Compliance; Competition; Adaptation; Mining Industry

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June 2003
Case

Judo in Action

Contains four short stories about small firms challenging large firms. Illustrates some of the ideas that have been termed "judo strategy." In each case, one can argue that the small firm attempts to use the large firm's size and incumbency to constrain the large firm... View Details

Keywords: Small Business; Competitive Advantage

Research Summary

Research Questions

By: Anita Elberse

One overarching question drives my research: What are effective marketing strategies for managers in creative industries?

I focus on three sub-questions:

How can managers in creative industries effectively manage products and product... View Details

June 2024
Case

Alignvest Student Housing: Keep Building or Time to Sell?

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Patrick Sanguineti

Sanjil Shah, Managing Partner of Alignvest Student Housing REIT (ASH), faces the most significant decision thus far in his career: is it the right time to sell the company? Together with his partner Reza Satchu, Shah had developed ASH into the largest student housing... View Details

Keywords: Exit Strategy; Real Estate; Founder; Equity Valuation; Decisions; Entrepreneurial Finance; Interest Rates; Health Pandemics; Housing; Partners and Partnerships; Expansion; Entrepreneurship; Business Exit or Shutdown; Canada

February 2016 (Revised May 2016)
Case

Blue Origin, NASA, and New Space (A)

By: Matthew Weinzierl and Angela Acocella

Jeff Bezos, six years after starting a revolution in retailing with Amazon.com, turned his life-long passion for space into a start-up, Blue Origin. Blue (as it was called) was a part of the New Space industry, a collection of startup aerospace engineering companies... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Partners and Partnerships; Transportation; Business Startups; Government and Politics; Business and Government Relations; Aerospace Industry

Article

Are Self-service Customers Satisfied or Stuck?

By: Ryan W. Buell, Dennis Campbell and Frances X. Frei

This paper investigates the impact of self-service technology (SST) usage on customer satisfaction and retention. Specifically, we disentangle the distinct effects of satisfaction and switching costs as drivers of retention among self-service customers. Our empirical... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Information Technology; Customer Satisfaction; Competition; Cost; Banks and Banking; Behavior; Market Transactions; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques

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October 2014
Supplement

Quiet Logistics (B)

By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred

This two-part case focuses on how to identify and manage strategic uncertainties in an innovative, entrepreneurial start-up company. In the (A) case, students learn about Quiet Logistics, an e-commerce fulfillment company working with high-end apparel retailers such as... View Details

December 2014
Article

Private Equity, Jobs, and Productivity

By: Steven J. Davis, John Haltiwanger, Kyle Handley, Ron Jarmin, Josh Lerner and Javier Miranda

Private equity critics claim that leveraged buyouts bring huge job losses. To investigate this claim, we construct and analyze a new dataset that covers U.S. private equity transactions from 1980 to 2005. We track 3,200 target firms and their 150,000 establishments... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts; Performance Productivity; Jobs and Positions; United States

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