Publications

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December 2010
Case

Leadership, Culture, and Transition at lululemon

By: Michael Tushman, Ruth Page and Tom Ryder

The case examines leadership and organizational change within a strong culture context through a multimedia study of lululemon, a specialty retailer of high-end athletic apparel. Video segments trace the company's history from its founding in 1998 as a single retail... View Details

Keywords: Leading Change; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Transition; Growth Management; Management Teams; Organizational Structure; Governing and Advisory Boards; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry; Vancouver; United States

September 2020
Supplement

Commonwealth Joe: January 2020 Update from CEO Robert Peck

By: Alexander J. MacKay

At the end of 2016, the leadership team of Commonwealth Joe Coffee Roasters—Robert Peck, Chase Damiano, and Jeremy Martin—had begun an ambitious retail expansion strategy in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area for their specialty coffee business. That October, they... View Details

Keywords: Cold Brew Coffee; Specialty Coffee; On-premise Coffee Market; Retail Expansion Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Brands and Branding; Expansion; Strategy; Decision Making; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry

My book Why Startups Fail: A New Roadmap for Entrepreneurial Success is organized in three parts. Part I looks at three common failure patterns for early-stage... View Details

17 Jun 2011
HBS Case

KFC’s Explosive Growth in China

A Matter Of Scale One key issue the case examines is "how to implement the rollout of a fast-food chain involving so many stores across such a vast—and regionally different—country," says Bell, who teaches the case in the... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Food & Beverage

2009
Chapter

Entry, Exit and Labour Productivity in U.K. Retailing: Evidence from Micro Data

By: Jonathan Haskel and Raffaella Sadun

The paper investigates the U.K. retail sector using store and firm-level data between 1998 and 2003. First, we present the first exhaustive description of the U.K. retail sector using micro data sources. Second, in the spirit of Foster, Haltiwanger, and Krizan (2002),... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Market Entry and Exit; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Productivity; Retail Industry; United Kingdom

Research Summary

Overview

The overarching goal of my research is to produce works that are influential and informative to both academics and practitioners in the field of operations management. To accomplish this, I collaborate with industry partners who provide knowledge about their field,... View Details

March 1987 (Revised October 1993)
Case

Au Bon Pain: The French Bakery Cafe, The Partner/Manager Program

By: W. Earl Sasser

In recent years, Au Bon Pain (ABP), a chain of upscale French bakeries/sandwich cafes based in Boston, confronted a set of human resource problems endemic to the fast food industry (i.e., a labor shortage which made it difficult to attract and maintain quality crew... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Managerial Roles; Retention; Employees; Performance Improvement; Recruitment; Problems and Challenges; Compensation and Benefits; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry; Boston

October 2013 (Revised January 2016)
Case

J.C. Penney's 'Fair and Square' Strategy (Abridged)

By: Elie Ofek and Jill Avery

As he gets ready to release 2nd quarter 2012 results, Ron Johnson, the new CEO of department store J.C. Penney, is reconsidering the dramatic changes he initiated for the business model and brand image of his company. A new pricing scheme he put in place in February,... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Change Management; Marketing Strategy; Price; Consumer Behavior; Decision Making; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Retail Industry; United States

16 Jul 2007
Research & Ideas

Understanding the ‘Want’ vs. ’Should’ Decision

consumer spending habits, and effective store layout. Sarah Jane Gilbert: What is the difference between the "want-self" and the "should-self"? How does psychology play a role in the internal conflict between the 2?... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Retail; Entertainment & Recreation

05 Oct 2016
Blog Post

The Women’s College Cohort at Peek Weekend

Peek has changed a lot since its founding in 2015! Please visit the Peek website for the most up to date information on dates, registration, and program events. As a senior in college, prepared to graduate with a job in consulting and a View Details

September 2017 (Revised March 2018)
Case

Chai Point: Disrupting Chai

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Ramana Nanda and Rachna Tahilyani

Chai Point is India’s largest organized chai retailer. It has missed its target for retail store openings by approximately 25%, goals that are very important to its investors who are also board members. However, it has developed an exciting new internet-based tea... View Details

23 Jan 2007
First Look

First Look: January 23, 2007

technologies and partners. Focuses on the partnership tensions between global firms and local family-dominated conglomerates. Addresses new venture financing in an asset-intensive business through the assembly of strategic contracts. More... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

December 2017 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Amazon Buys Whole Foods

By: José B. Alvarez, David Lane and Joni Coughlin

The June 2017 news that e-commerce giant Amazon was paying $13.7 billion for organic supermarket chain Whole Foods precipitated a broad sell-off in the shares of grocery retailers and suppliers. Behind the precipitous declines lay recognition that Amazon’s bold move... View Details

Keywords: Amazon; Whole Foods; Grocery; Grocery Delivery; Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Business Models; Food Value Chain; Agribusiness; Mergers and Acquisitions; Operations; Competitive Strategy; E-commerce; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Retail Industry; Web Services Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

October 2022
Case

Spaceport America, Public Sector Risk-taking, and Political Accountability (A)

By: Matthew Weinzierl, Dava Newman, Rebecca Browder and Angela Acocella

Sitting quietly in the heart of the New Mexico desert in the summer of 2014, Spaceport America (SA) housed little of the activity its supporters anticipated when opening its hangar doors in 2011. Despite $1 million in annual rent from Virgin Galactic, British... View Details

Keywords: Funding Sources; Risk and Uncertainty; Public Sector; Business and Government Relations; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Aerospace Industry; New Mexico

March 2022
Article

Winner Takes All? Tech Clusters, Population Centers, and the Spatial Transformation of U.S. Invention

By: Brad Chattergoon and William R. Kerr

U.S. invention has become increasingly concentrated around major tech centers since the 1970s, with implications for how much cities across the country share in concomitant local benefits. Is invention becoming a winner-takes-all race? We explore the rising spatial... View Details

Keywords: Clusters; Invention; Agglomeration; Artificial Intelligence; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Applications and Software; Industry Clusters; AI and Machine Learning

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2015
Case

Fine Harvest Restaurant Group (cases A and B)

By: Clara (Xiaoling) Chen, Kenneth A. Merchant, Tatiana Sandino and Wim A. Van der Stede

The Fine Harvest Restaurant Group cases A and B examine a company's design of a new system to evaluate the performance (and determine the bonuses) for its restaurant managers. Fine Harvest had traditionally evaluated restaurant managers based on store margins and had... View Details

Keywords: Incentive Systems; Relative Performance Evaluation; Restaurant Industry; Accounting; Economics; Human Resources; Measurement and Metrics; Labor; Performance; Salesforce Management; Retail Industry; North and Central America