Publications

2014
Article

Drivers and Dynamics of Online Word of Mouth

By: Frank Nagle and Christoph Riedl

Keywords: Online Word Of Mouth; Online Communities; Online Product Reviews; Internet and the Web; Consumer Behavior; Marketing Reference Programs; Digital Marketing

March 2022 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Hometown Foods: Changing Price amid Inflation

By: Julian De Freitas, Jeremy Yang and Das Narayandas

During the early part of the 2021 Covid-19 pandemic, Hometown Foods, a large seller of flour-based products, thrived as consumers hoarded baked goods and took up baking to pass the time and find comfort. Then, amid growing shortages in commodities, a vaccine arrived,... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Consumer Behavior; Supply Chain; Inflation and Deflation; Spending; Price Bubble; Price; Volatility; Food and Beverage Industry

December 2012
Article

Bolstering and Restoring Feelings of Competence via the IKEA Effect

By: Daniel Mochon, Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely

We examine the underlying process behind the IKEA effect, which is defined as consumers' willingness to pay more for self-created products than for identical products made by others, and explore the factors that influence both consumers' willingness to engage in... View Details

Keywords: Value; Consumer Behavior; Attitudes

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01 Dec 2020
News

Two Truths and a Lie About 5G

in developing countries where laying fiber just doesn’t make sense, although there are real questions about cost and sustainability. Apart from the hard-core mobile gamers, though, what will the average View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint

09 Jan 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Economic Transition and Private-Sector Labor Demand: Evidence from Urban China

Keywords: by Lakshmi Iyer, Xin Meng, Nancy Qian & Xiaoxue Zhao

February 1987 (Revised August 1988)
Case

Gillette Personal Care Division: Marketing Planning and Control

Bill Ryan, president of the Gillette Co.'s Personal Care Division, is considering changing the division's planning and control system for marketing. White Rain, the division's most recent success, had been launched by taking shortcuts through the system, while other... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Management Systems; Consumer Products Industry; United States

11 Mar 2001
Research & Ideas

Merchants to Multinationals: British Trading Companies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

countries, there was a vast increase in demand for products such as tea, coffee, sugar, and tropical fruits which had been luxuries to previous generations. By 1870 the British trading companies were already... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones

20 Dec 2018
Blog Post

A Time For Opportunity In Food and Agriculture

is in charge of Organic & Non-GMO Product Marketing at Indigo Agriculture And Eisen has just launched Plant Snacks. Given all this change, building consumer trust is critical. As Conklin observed, “there... View Details

2013
Working Paper

Separating Homophily and Peer Influence with Latent Space

By: Joseph P. Davin, Sunil Gupta and Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

We study the impact of peer behavior on the adoption of mobile apps in a social network. To identify social influence properly, we introduce latent space as an approach to control for latent homophily, the idea that "birds of a feather flock together." In a series of... View Details

Keywords: Social Influence; Social Network; Mobile App; Peer Effects; Latent Homophily; Latent Space; Proxy Variables; Familiarity; Behavior; Consumer Behavior; Applications and Software; Social and Collaborative Networks; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Power and Influence; Social Media

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01 Dec 2010
News

Money and Markets Dominate New Course Offerings

Subjects related to globalization and finance top the list of courses added this year to the elective curriculum for second-year MBA students. Notably, seven of the twelve new offerings are half-courses that require only fifteen sessions... View Details

Keywords: curriculum

04 Apr 2018
Research & Ideas

Smart Cities are Complicated and Costly: Here's How to Build Them

Chombosan Much promotion of smart cities assumes that municipalities will take a proactive, top-down, technology-first approach to urban progress. Thus far, these initiatives look for some forward-thinking city official (or immensely deep-pocketed private investor) to... View Details

Keywords: by John Macomber; Construction; Green Technology

Article

Sadness, Identity, and Plastic in Over-shopping: The Interplay of Materialism, Poor Credit Management, and Emotional Buying Motives in Predicting Compulsive Buying

By: Grant Edward Donnelly, Masha Ksendzova and Ryan Howell

A comprehensive study is currently lacking to explain why material values strongly influence compulsive buying. The goal of the current study is to test if money management, buying motivations for improving mood and identity, and self-transformation expectations... View Details

Keywords: Credit Cards; Consumer Behavior; Identity; Emotions

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December 2016
Article

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: Ethics; Marketing Reference Programs

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01 Mar 2016
News

Alumni and Faculty Books for March 2016

presentations on stage, whether they are Shakespeare, Beethoven, or The Lion King, depend on a business backstage. This book provides an overview of both the product on stage and the industry that makes it possible. While the industry's... View Details

01 Sep 2016
News

Alumni and Faculty Books for September 2016

economy. From sartorial taste and food habits to marriage and old age, from music and language to celebrities and censorship, he looks at over a... View Details

October 2011 (Revised March 2012)
Case

Cottle-Taylor: Expanding the Oral Care Group in India

By: John A. Quelch and Alisa Zalosh

Brinda Patel, director of oral care products for the India division of a consumer home-care product company, develops a data-driven marketing plan for toothbrushes. She believes her plan can support a 20% increase in unit sales based on rising demand for modern... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting; Budgeting; International Marketing; Product Planning ＆ Policy; Sales Promotions; Marketing Plans; Products; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Emerging Markets; Forecasting and Prediction; Advertising; Product Launch; Budgets and Budgeting; Product Development; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; India

Summer 2012
Article

Epistemic Contests and the Legitimacy of the World Trade Organization: The Brazil–USA Cotton Dispute and the Incremental Balancing of Interests

By: Arthur A. Daemmrich

The World Trade Organization (WTO) features prominently in studies of international institutions, often cast either as a tool of rich-world domination over the poorer South or as a neutral mediator facilitating a tariff-free world of economic prosperity. This article... View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Trade; Conflict and Resolution; Consumer Products Industry; Brazil; United States

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June 2010 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Tennant Company: Innovating Within and Beyond the Core

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Toby E. Stuart and James Weber

Tennant, a leading producer of floor cleaning equipment, must determine the business model to use for its new chemical-free cleaning technology. In 2005, Tennant Company had developed an innovative, environmentally friendly cleaning technology that could potentially... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Value Creation; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry