Publications

October 2000 (Revised November 2005)
Case

Hilton HHonors Worldwide: Loyalty Wars

By: John A. Deighton and Stowe Shoemaker

Hilton Hotels regards the frequent guest program as the industry's most important marketing tool, directing marketing efforts at the heavy user. What is Hilton to do then, when a competitor ups the ante? This case illustrates the economics of frequency marketing in... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Brands and Branding; Competitive Strategy; Accommodations Industry

17 May 2007
Working Paper Summaries

The Price of Capital: Evidence from Trade Data

Keywords: by Laura Alfaro & Faisal Z. Ahmed

13 Feb 2006
Research & Ideas

When Gender Changes the Negotiation

negotiations. After all, analysts in the investment management industry have highly portable skills and are frequently poached by competing firms. And though all of Park's employees were performing roughly the same work, they had... View Details

Keywords: by Dina W. Pradel, Hannah Riley Bowles & Kathleen L. McGinn

01 Sep 2022
What Do You Think?

Is It Time to Consider Lifting Tariffs on Chinese Imports?

controversies, trade continues. It’s perhaps evidence that sanity still prevails in the business world. But it raises the question of whether it’s time for the US to send a message, however small, of positive intent toward China by prioritizing negotiations that would... View Details

Keywords: Re: James L. Heskett

29 Jun 2021
Cold Call Podcast

Procter & Gamble’s Lean Innovation Transformation

Keywords: Re: Emily Truelove; Consumer Products

October 1986 (Revised November 1989)
Case

Becton Dickinson & Co.: VACUTAINER Systems Division

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Concerns negotiations between managers of Becton Dickinson's (BD) VACUTAINER division (which manufactures and sells blood collection products) and managers of a large hospital buying group. Recent changes in the health care industry are the background for the... View Details

Keywords: Distribution; Negotiation Participants; Negotiation Process; Price; Sales; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States

07 Jul 2003
What Do You Think?

Can We Have Too Much Productivity Improvement?

productivity is the need [for] ever-increasing consumption. Unfortunately unemployed workers don't consume much of anything." Garry Emmons reminded me that "We examined this issue with HBS profs in a February 1999 HBS Bulletin article. ("Too Much of a... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

16 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

Delivering the Digital Goods: iTunes vs. Peer-to-Peer

and the development of incremental tradeoffs towards radical moves to create new business models, new forms of satisfying needs that drastically reduce costs and/or raise value perceived by customers. One important enabler of new business models is the Internet. This... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Music

September 2023
Case

The Meteoric Rise of Skims

By: Ayelet Israeli, Jill Avery and Leonard A. Schlesinger

Since its founding in 2019 by Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede, Skims, a solutions-oriented brand creating the next generation of underwear, loungewear, and shapewear with an eye toward body-type and skin-tone inclusivity, has experienced a meteoric rise. Kardashian, who... View Details

2019
Book

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

By: Shoshana Zuboff

In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Profiling; Consumer Behavior; Forecasting and Prediction; Information Technology; Power and Influence; Ethics; Society; Transformation

Find at Harvard

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

01 Sep 2006
What Do You Think?

Are We Ready for Self-Management?

to create thousands of new locations, including stores and kiosks, at which its line of Mexican-themed products could be sold. At the same time, it was experiencing a shortage of capable managers in a fast-food industry known for... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

16 Sep 2019
Research & Ideas

Crowdsourcing Is Helping Hollywood Reduce the Risk of Movie-Making

industries like biotech, you can test things along the way to see if they are feasible, but for creative ideas like a film, you can’t experiment. You have huge uncertainty and you have to think about how to manage that risk.” One way that... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Motion Pictures & Video

September 2022 (Revised November 2022)
Case

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act: Trade and Genocide in U.S.-China Relations

By: Jeremy Friedman and David Lane

On June 21, 2022, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) went into effect, requiring companies to prove that goods imported from the People’s Republic of China were not made with forced labor. The bill was a reaction to reports of products being made with... View Details

October 2023
Case

Shredder Setups or Straightlining into Risk?: Investing in What You Love

By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger

Bob Hall, President of Green Gables Partners, evaluated whether to angel invest into an up-and-coming ski brand. As the son-in-law of the founder of Vera Bradley and having retired from a lengthy career on Wall Street, Hall was well-versed in both direct investing and... View Details

Keywords: Family Office; Angel Investors; Direct Investment; Family Business; Business Growth and Maturation; Small Business; Financial Strategy; Personal Finance; Investment Portfolio; Private Equity; Decision Choices and Conditions; Risk and Uncertainty; Consumer Products Industry; Montana; United States