Publications

November 2018 (Revised June 2019)
Case

Michael Rubin and Fanatics (A)

By: Robert F. Higgins and John Masko

In 2016, Michael Rubin’s Fanatics was the U.S.’ largest sports e-commerce company and operator of the official online store for all the major American sports leagues. That year, Fanatics began to dabble in manufacturing licensed sports merchandise, securing limited... View Details

Keywords: Fanatics; Licensed Merchandise; E-commerce; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Sports; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States

04 Sep 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, September 4, 2018

challenge for firms based in suburban industrial parks. To stay relevant, they need to tap into urban hotbeds, but setting up operations there can be extremely expensive. In his work on global talent flows, Harvard Business School’s Kerr... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

25 Sep 2007
First Look

First Look: September 25, 2007

Purchase this case: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=608053 Dell Computers (B): The Transition Harvard Business School Supplement 607-081 The case presents the outcome of the (A) case and explores challenges in the PC View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

28 Oct 2008
First Look

First Look: October 28, 2008

important predictor of product performance, product variety, process flexibility and industry evolution. We explore this relationship in the software industry by use of a technique called Design Structure... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

25 Mar 2013
Research & Ideas

How Chapter 11 Saved the US Economy

and Chapter 11 played a heroic role in helping the country rebound. He outlines these ideas in Coming Through in a Crisis: How Chapter 11 and the Debt Restructuring Industry Are Helping to Revive the US Economy , published in the fall... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Financial Services

05 Jul 2011
First Look

First Look: July 5

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1590245 Cases & Course MaterialsBook Publishing in 2010 Stephen P. Bradley and Nancy BartlettHarvard Business School Note 711-419 Legacy book publishers wrangled with e-book View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Steinhoff International and the Stock Exchange

By: Siko Sikochi and Austin Lim

Nicky Newton-King, the Chief Executive Officer of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), was put in a difficult position. A scandal had broken out at Steinhoff, a JSE-listed company, under her watch and there were calls to suspend listing of the company securities from... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Financial Reporting; Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Markets; Corporate Governance; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Africa; South Africa

28 Aug 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, August 28, 2018

the world's most dominant retailers. Could Brandless change the way consumers bought the essential items that filled their pantries and medicine cabinets? Industry pundits had long predicted both the death of brands and the death of brick... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

November 2012
Teaching Note

Groupon (TN)

By: Sunil Gupta, Ray Weaver and Yien Hao Lock

On November 4, 2011, Groupon, a marketing services company that promoted local businesses by selling deeply discounted vouchers for their products and services, completed its initial public offering that valued the company at $17 billion. Within a year Groupon's share... View Details

Keywords: Social Networking; Media; Technology; Strategy; Business Growth and Maturation; Marketing Strategy; Marketing; Internet and the Web; Social Media; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; North America; United States

September 2002 (Revised August 2014)
Case

Cardinal Health (A): The Medicine Shoppe Acquisition

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Miguel Abecasis and Brenda Cheng

Robert Walter, the founder and CEO of Cardinal Health, a pharmaceutical distributor, is contemplating the purchase of Medicine Shoppe, a chain of apothecaries. The purchase might be construed as competition against his own drugstore customers. But one of its many... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Distribution Industry; Distribution Industry; Distribution Industry

21 Jul 2009
First Look

First Look: July 21

Target's faltering performance during an economic downturn led an activist shareholder to initiate a proxy fight. Target Corporation, the second largest discount store retailer in the U.S., had competed successfully against View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

June 2025
Case

Assessing the Offers for Seven & i Holdings

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno

In the fall of 2024, the board of Seven and i Holdings Company (7&i, the parent company of 7-Eleven convenience stores in the US, Japan, and other countries) received multiple offers to buy the company. Two successive (and unsolicited) offers came from Alimentation... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Valuation; Value Creation; Bids and Bidding; Financial Strategy; Negotiation Offer; Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Finance; Business Conglomerates; Leveraged Buyouts; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Japan; Canada

2015
Working Paper

Fake It Till You Make It: Reputation, Competition, and Yelp Review Fraud

By: Michael Luca and Georgios Zervas

Consumer reviews are now part of everyday decision-making. Yet, the credibility of these reviews is fundamentally undermined when businesses commit review fraud, creating fake reviews for themselves or their competitors. We investigate the economic incentives to commit... View Details

Keywords: Information; Competition; Internet and the Web; Ethics; Reputation; Social and Collaborative Networks; Retail Industry; Retail Industry