Publications

Web

Business & Environment

third-party firms providing charging infrastructure. Power market rules made capital investments for charging infrastructure instantly profitable for California monopoly utilities. By contrast, in Germany's liberalized power market,... View Details

2008
Working Paper

Variation in Experience and Team Familiarity: Addressing the Knowledge Acquisition-Application Problem

By: Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats

Prior work in organizational learning has failed to find a consistent effect of variation in experience on performance. While some studies find a positive relationship between these two variables, others find no effect or even a negative relationship. In this paper, we... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Learning; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Groups and Teams; Familiarity; India

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January 2014
Case

CleanSpritz

By: John A. Quelch and Alisa Zalosh

Sales of CleanSpritz all-purpose cleaning spray have been steadily declining for the past five years, and management believes the decline correlates to a growing environmental concern among U.S. consumers. CleanSpritz's management is considering several options to... View Details

Keywords: Product Positioning; Competition; Marketing Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Improvement; Environmental Sustainability; Product Launch; Product Development; Consumer Products Industry

10 Apr 2012
First Look

First Look: April 10

market's growth that is the primary driver of profit margins and sales growth. A few retailers have succeeded in going global by developing strategies that apply four retail-specific rules for globalization. Rule 1: The home View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

November 2000 (Revised November 2005)
Case

Tellme Networks, Inc.

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Nicole Tempest

Tellme, an early-stage, venture-backed company based in Silicon Valley, leverages speech-recognition technologies to provide: 1) a "voice portal" with news and other information accessible through any telephone, and 2) turnkey application development and hosting... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Business Conglomerates; Business Startups; Internet and the Web; Venture Capital; Technology Adoption; Internet and the Web; Brands and Branding; Information Technology; Telecommunications Industry; Technology Industry

September 2007
Case

Tetra Pak Argentina

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Gustavo A. Herrero

Deals with the hands-on management of a difficult situation facing the subsidiary of a multinational corporation (Tetra Pak) in a developing country (Argentina). The situation arises from a major economic, social, and institutional breakdown that jeopardizes the... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Crisis; Currency Exchange Rate; Sovereign Finance; Multinational Firms and Management; Crisis Management; Business and Government Relations; Argentina

2024
Chapter

Managing, Preserving, and Unlocking Wealth through FinTech

By: Grace Headinger, Lauren Cohen and Zhaoheng Gong

In nearly every generation, a sentiment like Einstein’s has been expressed as a cautionary tale to constrain the development and application of technology. In spite of these calls, technology has time and again proven its utility and ability to improve across and upon... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Technological Innovation; Finance

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January 2022
Case

Tomorrow.io Goes To Space

By: Joshua Lev Krieger, Abhishek Nagaraj and James Barnett

This case study explores the evolution of Tomorrow.io, a weather forecasting technology company, as it pivoted toward building and launching space-based weather radar satellites. This strategic shift was driven by the company's ambition to overcome data limitations in... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Competency and Skills; Engineering; Globalization; Innovation and Invention; Performance; Information Technology; Aerospace Industry

September 2002 (Revised March 2006)
Case

Environmental Power Corporation: Changing Manure Into Gold?

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Laure Mougeot Stroock

In 2002, Environmental Power Corp. (EPC), a small company developing renewable energy projects, was attempting to commercialize its "digester," a facility that extracted methane from manure, reduced manure's environmental impact, and generated electricity. The company... View Details

Keywords: Commercialization; Energy Generation; Renewable Energy; Environmental Sustainability; Investment; Projects; Wastes and Waste Processing; Corporate Finance; Business and Government Relations; Energy Industry

Research Summary

Understanding Customers

In conventional business case studies, protagonists almost never have the option of stepping back to seek a new understanding of the customer. But to be effective in practice, managers need both the self-assurance and ability to initiate and pursue, with rigor and... View Details

19 Mar 2007
Research & Ideas

Handicapping the Best Countries for Business

important and what are the keys to analyzing and understanding a country's near-term direction? A: Any business person is interested only in the future—in where markets and countries are heading. The only way to understand the near-term... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

October 2004 (Revised March 2005)
Case

Bright Dairy & Food Co., Ltd

By: David E. Bell and Hal Hogan

Bright Dairy has been growing rapidly since becoming a public company. The Chinese market for milk products is still wide open. What should it be doing to make sure it captures a significant share of the potential market? View Details

Keywords: Distribution; Marketing Strategy; Growth and Development; Public Ownership; Emerging Markets; Business Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; China

Web

Overview - Doctoral

Overview New Ideas for a Changing World PhD Programs Accounting & Management Business Economics (Includes Finance) Health Policy (Management) Marketing Organizational Behavior Strategy Technology & Operations Management At Harvard... View Details

August 1991 (Revised September 1994)
Background Note

What Is Industrial Marketing?

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Discusses the key distinguishing aspects of industrial as compared to consumer marketing. These differences are highlighted for organizational as well as marketing mix aspects. View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Innovation Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Marketplace Matching; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Core Relationships; Industrial Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry

January 1986 (Revised November 2006)
Case

Peripheral Products Company: The 'Gray Market' for Disk Drives

By: Frank V. Cespedes

In mid-1985, the vice president of marketing for a large manufacturer of disk drives is considering how to deal with a growing "gray market" for his company's products. The case provides good background material on the evolution of gray markets throughout the disk... View Details

Keywords: Price; Growth and Development; Code Law; Leadership; Marketing; Distribution; Production; Salesforce Management; Strategy; Distribution Industry

12 Mar 2019
Blog Post

What I Learned in the Africa Rising Short Intensive Program

sub-national markets they wanted to serve and developed tailored strategies to win in those markets. What lessons should the next generation of Africa-bound business leaders take note of as they plan their... View Details

2016
Book

Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon and David S. Duncan

The foremost authority on innovation and growth presents a path-breaking book every company needs to transform innovation from a game of chance to one in which they develop products and services that customers want to buy and are willing to purchase at a premium price.... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Consumer Behavior

Find at Harvard

09 Jan 2007
First Look

First Look: January 9, 2007

standard. We also develop and test two extensions of the earlier model: the presence of provisions mandating royalty-free licensing is negatively associated with disclosure requirements, and when there are only a limited number of SSOs,... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Article

Moment-to-moment Optimal Branding in TV Commercials: Preventing Avoidance by Pulsing

By: Thales S. Teixeira, Michel Wedel and Rik Pieters

We develop a conceptual framework for understanding the impact that branding activity (the audio-visual representation of brands) and consumers' dispersion of attention have on their moment-to-moment avoidance decisions during television advertising. It formalizes this... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Decision Choices and Conditions; Television Entertainment; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Mathematical Methods