Publications

SSRN

June 2022 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Dollar Tree: Breaking the Buck

By: Jill Avery and Marco Bertini

For thirty-five years, Dollar Tree, a discount retail chain selling general merchandise, had held its fixed price point steady, pricing all of its household items, food, stationery, books, seasonal items, gifts, toys, and clothing that made up its diverse and... View Details

Keywords: Retailing; Pricing; Pricing Strategy; Discount Retailing; Discount Store; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Price; Inflation and Deflation; Consumer Behavior; Retail Industry; United States

September–October 2022
Article

Should Your Company Sell on Amazon?: Reach Comes at a Price

By: Ayelet Israeli, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Matt Higgins and Sabir Semerkant

Selling on Amazon allows brands to reach millions of consumers—but that exposure comes with costs. They include smaller margins, more competition, the risk of commoditization, and less knowledge about customers. In this article, the authors present a scorecard to... View Details

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09 Mar 2022
Research & Ideas

War in Ukraine: Soaring Gas Prices and the Return of Stagflation?

are already seeing higher prices at the pump, for one thing—and in some areas, those prices could spike even higher, says Harvard Business School Professor Rawi Abdelal. Abdelal, HBS’s Herbert F. Johnson... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman; Energy

04 Feb 2002
Research & Ideas

How a Juicy Brand Came Back to Life

price most observers found generous. The debacle cost both the chairman and president of Quaker their jobs and hastened the end of Quaker's independent existence (it's now a unit of PepsiCo). But that's not the end of the story. In... View Details

Keywords: by John Deighton; Food & Beverage

13 Mar 2017
Research & Ideas

Hiding Products From Customers May Ultimately Boost Sales

on rapid rotations. New research considers the wisdom of frequent assortment rotation in cases in which a retailer has many new varieties of a product to sell—nine different silver necklaces, say, or 17 different toaster ovens. Is it View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail; Fashion

07 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

Obama’s Clean Power Plan: Can Nuclear Power Beat the Global Threat of Coal?

This week, President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency released the final version of the Clean Power Plan, a major set of rules and incentives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from America's power plants. The plan requires each state to meet a... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Energy; Utilities

17 Feb 2003
Research & Ideas

Rating Fund Managers by the Company They Keep

data helping managers, it depends on how they use it. The most obvious application is for managers to try to copy their more skilled colleagues. This could be an effective strategy, and lead to more efficiently priced stocks, if markets... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen

10 Jun 2002
Research & Ideas

How to Look at Globalization Now

theoretical model that looks beyond its idiosyncratic elements. Looking at prices alone is insufficient to look at the relative viability of globally standardized vs. locally customized products.— Pankaj Ghemawat The case concerns STAR... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

July 2012 (Revised April 2014)
Case

Research In Motion: The Mobile OS Platform War

By: Alan MacCormack, Brian Dunn and Chris F. Kemerer

The case describes competition in the market for smart phones in the US, and the position of one player, Research In Motion (RIM) who manufacture the popular Blackberry line of products. Early in 2011, RIM is in trouble. Its stock price has plummeted, amidst poor... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Product Development; Technology Strategy; Platform Strategy; Software; Hardware; Technological Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Information Infrastructure; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Digital Platforms; Applications and Software; Telecommunications Industry; Technology Industry; Canada; United States

2010
Book

The New Science of Retailing: How Analytics Are Transforming the Supply Chain and Improving Performance

By: Marshall Fisher and Ananth Raman

Retailers today are drowning in data but lacking in insight: They have huge volumes of information at their disposal. But they're unsure of how to sort through it and use it to make smart decisions. The result? They're struggling with profit-sapping supply chain... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Logistics; Supply Chain Management; Mathematical Methods; Retail Industry

25 May 2021
Research & Ideas

White Airbnb Hosts Earn More. Can AI Shrink the Racial Gap?

uncovered a problem that prevented greater racial equity gains: Black hosts were 41 percent less likely than white hosts to take advantage of the smart pricing application. And for the Black hosts who didn’t... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Technology; Accommodations

December 2018 (Revised May 2021)
Background Note

Making UK Energy Smarter

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

This case describes the history of the United Kingdom's domestic energy industry and the country's efforts to create a more competitive, greener, and distributed power sector. On July 24, 2017, the United Kingdom government and the industry regulator, the Office of Gas... View Details

April 2021
Case

Transforming BlackBerry: From Smartphones to Software

By: Ranjay Gulati and Nicole Tempest Keller

On the verge of failure, BlackBerry brought in John Chen as CEO in 2013 to orchestrate a bold turnaround of the company. Once an iconic leader in the smartphone market, BlackBerry was best known for its tactile QWERTY keyboard, strong security, and a focus on business... View Details

Keywords: Pivot; Managing Change; Turnaround; Smartphone; Change Management; Leading Change; Transformation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Platforms; Change; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Competitive Strategy; Cybersecurity; Technology Industry; Transportation Industry; Canada

June 2012 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Best Buy in Crisis

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

In June 2012, Best Buy was in crisis. In 1996, Best Buy overtook Circuit City as the world's leader in consumer electronics retailing; however, 18 years later, Best Buy now found this position threatened. With $51 billion in revenues, it was still the biggest CE... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Forecasting and Prediction; Competitive Strategy; Ethics; Management Teams; Consumer Products Industry; Electronics Industry; Retail Industry

October 2013
Article

Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Dina Wang and Derek C. M. van Bever

Consulting fundamental business model has not changed in more than 100 years: very smart outsiders go into organizations for a finite period of time and recommend solutions for the most difficult problems confronting their clients. But at traditional... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Consulting Industry