Strategy
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- June 2025
- Article
Outcome and Process Frames: Strategic Renewal and Capability Reprioritization at the Federal Bureau of Investigation
[Research Summary]: Framing is critical for leaders who must build support for strategic renewal. While research has concentrated on renewal that replaces one set of capabilities with another, we explore a distinctive challenge: how leaders persuade stakeholders to endorse the reprioritization of resources toward a capability set that must coexist with an existing one. Moreover, while research has focused on how leaders build employee support for renewal, we examine how to persuade those overseeing resource allocation. Our study analyzes Director Robert Mueller's 12-year effort at the FBI—after the 9/11 terrorist attacks—to build up counterterrorism capabilities while maintaining existing law enforcement capabilities. We offer a novel distinction between outcome frames and process frames and discuss how each frame, sequenced properly, is relevant to strategic renewal. [Managerial Summary]: This study examines how leaders can build support for strategic renewal when an organization must develop new capabilities while maintaining existing ones. We analyze how FBI Director Robert Mueller, in the wake of 9/11, used strategic communication—or framing—to persuade members of Congress overseeing the FBI's budget to support the development of new counterterrorism capabilities alongside its traditional law enforcement mandate. We highlight two types of frames: outcome frames (focused on what the organization seeks to achieve) and process frames (emphasizing how the organization operates). Our findings reveal that sequencing these types of frames is essential. By using outcome frames to address immediate concerns and shifting to process frames to resolve longer-term tensions, leaders can build stakeholder support for complex resource reprioritization efforts.
- June 2025
- Article
Outcome and Process Frames: Strategic Renewal and Capability Reprioritization at the Federal Bureau of Investigation
[Research Summary]: Framing is critical for leaders who must build support for strategic renewal. While research has concentrated on renewal that replaces one set of capabilities with another, we explore a distinctive challenge: how leaders persuade stakeholders to endorse the reprioritization of resources toward a capability set that must coexist...
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- Summer 2025
- Article
Dynamic Competition for Customer Memberships
By: Cristian Chica, Julian Jimenez-Cardenas and Jorge TamayoA competitive two-period membership (subscription) market is analyzed. Two symmetric firms charge a “membership” fee that allows consumers to buy products or services at a given unit price for both periods. Firms can choose between long- or short-term memberships. When firms employ long-term membership, they have incentives to prevent their old customers from being poached by competitors, and to price-discriminate with their membership fee and unit price regarding customer purchase behavior. In contrast, with short-term membership, they do not discriminate between new and old customers with their unit price but only with their membership fees. Overall, the number of consumers poached is smaller with long-term memberships, but the equilibrium profits are higher when firms offer short-term memberships. Moreover, short-term membership is a Nash equilibrium.
- Summer 2025
- Article
Dynamic Competition for Customer Memberships
By: Cristian Chica, Julian Jimenez-Cardenas and Jorge TamayoA competitive two-period membership (subscription) market is analyzed. Two symmetric firms charge a “membership” fee that allows consumers to buy products or services at a given unit price for both periods. Firms can choose between long- or short-term memberships. When firms employ long-term membership, they have incentives to prevent their old...
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- May 2025
- Case
Boutiqaat: Influencing Retail in MENA
By: Juan Alcacer and Noor Al QadhiBoutiqaat, a Kuwait-based e-commerce platform, scaled an influencer-driven beauty retail model across MENA and now faces critical strategic choices about offline expansion and globalization. Founded in 2015, Boutiqaat combined social commerce, localized logistics, and private label products to build a differentiated digital platform. Students must evaluate whether Boutiqaat should establish flagship stores to deepen its omnichannel retail footprint or focus on expanding internationally beyond the Gulf and Jordan. The case explores platform strategy, influencer ecosystems, customer experience differentiation, and internationalization challenges in emerging markets. It is ideal for teaching courses in digital strategy, global entrepreneurship, scaling tech ventures, , and platform-based business models.
- May 2025
- Case
Boutiqaat: Influencing Retail in MENA
By: Juan Alcacer and Noor Al QadhiBoutiqaat, a Kuwait-based e-commerce platform, scaled an influencer-driven beauty retail model across MENA and now faces critical strategic choices about offline expansion and globalization. Founded in 2015, Boutiqaat combined social commerce, localized logistics, and private label products to build a differentiated digital platform. Students must...
About the Unit
The Strategy unit studies firms as competitors in an economic landscape. Key issues include: the development and effectiveness of firm strategy at both a business and corporate level; the analysis of the competitive environment; and the sustainability of strategy over time.
Our research, course development, and teaching draws on multiple disciplines, including economics, sociology, and political science, and focuses on both domestic and global competition. The objective of the work is to generate findings and develop concepts that will help managers improve their strategic decisions while advancing the state of knowledge in the academic study of strategy and related disciplines.
Recent Publications
Outcome and Process Frames: Strategic Renewal and Capability Reprioritization at the Federal Bureau of Investigation
- June 2025 |
- Article |
- Strategic Management Journal
Dynamic Competition for Customer Memberships
- Summer 2025 |
- Article |
- Journal of Economics & Management Strategy
Boutiqaat: Influencing Retail in MENA
- May 2025 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
Boutiqaat: Influencing Retail in MENA
- May 2025 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
On (B): The Cyclon Spins On
- May 2025 |
- Supplement |
- Faculty Research
From oneworld to a New World? LATAM’s High-Stakes Alliance Dilemma
- May 2025 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
From oneworld to a New World? LATAM’s High-Stakes Alliance Dilemma
- May 2025 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
BlackRock (A): Selling the Systems?
- May 2025 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
Harvard Business Publishing
Seminars & Conferences
There are no upcoming events.