- 01 Jun 2023
- HBS Case
A Nike Executive Hid His Criminal Past to Turn His Life Around. What If He Didn't Have To?
Larry Miller committed murder as a teenager, but earned a college degree while serving time and set out to start a new life. Still, he had to conceal his record to get a job that would ultimately take him to the heights of sports marketing. A case study by Francesca Gino, Hise Gibson, and Frances Frei shows the barriers that formerly incarcerated Black men are up against and the potential talent they could bring to business.
- 27 Jul 2021
- Cold Call Podcast
Mixing Sports and Money: Adidas and the Commercialization of the Olympics
Horst Dassler, the son of the founder of Adidas, cultivated relationships with athletes and national associations—with the aim of expanding his family’s sports apparel business. In doing so, he created the first sports sponsorships for the Olympics, and ultimately became a key force behind the commercialization of sports today. Professor Geoffrey Jones explores the pros and cons of the globalization and commercialization of sport in his case, spanning from the 1930s to the 1970s, “Horst Dassler, Adidas, and the Commercialization of Sport.” Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 23 Feb 2021
- Research & Ideas
COVID-19 Shines New Light on Working Conditions in Supply Chains
Michael Toffel discusses how the coronavirus pandemic has renewed concerns about how suppliers treat employees, and how a new online resource can help. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 22 Feb 2021
- Working Paper Summaries
Auditor Independence and Outsourcing: Aligning Incentives to Mitigate Shilling and Shirking
Firms use external auditors to monitor the quality of difficult-to-observe aspects of their business partners’ performance, including the working conditions of their suppliers. Firms can improve monitoring accuracy by having their own employees conduct some audits, and by rotating across third-party auditing firms.
- 05 Mar 2019
- Working Paper Summaries
The Impacts of Increasing Search Frictions on Online Shopping Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment
This paper challenges the logic that making it easier for consumers to search across a wide assortment of products is the best strategy for online retailers. Experiments show that adding extra search costs to find discounted items can improve gross margins and sales by increasing the number of items inspected and serving as a self-selecting price discrimination mechanism among customers.
- 27 Sep 2018
- Research & Ideas
Religion in the Workplace: What Managers Need to Know
Two recent US Supreme Court cases demonstrate that religion in the workplace issues are increasing. How can managers be prepared? It starts with the right attitude, says Derek van Bever. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 22 May 2017
- Lessons from the Classroom
A Luxury Industry Veteran Teaches the Importance of Aesthetics to Budding Business Leaders
Pauline Brown, a former top executive with French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, now teaches a Harvard Business School course called The Business of Aesthetics, which culminates in a competition called “Aesthetic Idol.” Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 30 Jan 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
The Environmental Legacies of The North Face's Doug Tompkins and Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard
The contrasting strategies taken by founders of Patagonia and The North Face provide a new lens on current debates about the ability of business to contribute to environmentalism. This paper suggests that the strategies of both founders bring positive environmental benefits but with trade-offs and limitations. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 09 Dec 2015
- Research Event
How Do You Predict Demand and Set Prices For Products Never Sold Before?
How can a retailer use its own data to determine what to charge for its products on a day-to-day basis? Kris Ferreira explains the value of data-driven-pricing Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 02 Sep 2015
- What Do You Think?
What's Wrong With Amazon’s Low-Retention HR Strategy?
SUMMING UP Does Amazon's "only the strongest survive" employee-retention policy make for a better company or improved customer relationships? Jim Heskett's readers chime in. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 28 Jul 2015
- Working Paper Summaries
Technology Reemergence: Creating New Value for Old Technologies in Swiss Mechanical Watchmaking, 1970–2008
Focusing on Swiss watchmaking from 1970 to 2008, this study demonstrates key factors that contribute to, and influence, the re-emergence of market demand for a legacy technology in a mature institutional field. This paper shows how processes of preservation and transformation serve as necessary counterweights that encourage retaining some valued elements of the old institutional order alongside new elements that allow for change and survival. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 20 Jul 2015
- Research & Ideas
Globalization Hasn’t Killed the Manufacturing Cluster
In today's global markets, companies have many choices to procure what they need to develop, build, and sell product. So who needs a manufacturing cluster, such as Detroit? Research by Gary Pisano and Giulio Buciuni shows that in some industries, location still matters. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 29 Sep 2014
- Research & Ideas
Why Do Outlet Stores Exist?
Created in the 1930s, outlet stores allowed retailers to dispose of unpopular items at fire-sale prices. Today, outlets seem outmoded and unnecessary—stores have bargain racks, after all. Donald K. Ngwe explains why outlets still exist. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 09 Jun 2014
- Research & Ideas
The Manager in Red Sneakers
Wearing the corporate uniform may not be the best way to dress for success. Research by Silvia Bellezza, Francesca Gino, and Anat Keinan shows there may be prestige advantages when you stand out rather than fit in. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 06 Jan 2014
- Working Paper Summaries
Mechanisms of Technology Re-Emergence and Identity Change in a Mature Field: Swiss Watchmaking, 1970-2008
According to most theories of technological change, old technologies tend to disappear when newer ones arrive. As this paper argues, however, market demand for old technologies may wane only to emerge again at a later point in time, as seems to be the case for products like Swiss watches, fountain pens, streetcars, independent bookstores, and vinyl records, which have all begun to claim significant market interest again. Looking specifically at watchmaking, the author examines dynamics of technology re-emergence and the mechanisms whereby this re-emergence occurs in mature industries and fields. Swiss watchmakers had dominated their industry and the mechanical watch movement for nearly two centuries, but their reign ended abruptly in the mid-1970s at the onset of the "Quartz Revolution" (also known as the "Quartz Crisis"). By 1983, two-thirds of all watch industry jobs in Switzerland were gone. More recently, however, as the field has moved toward a focus on luxury, a "re-coupling" of product, organizational, and community identity has allowed master craftsmen to continue building their works of art. The study makes three main contributions: 1) It highlights the importance of studying technology-in-practice as a lens on viewing organizational and institutional change. 2) It extends the theorization of identity to products, organizations, and communities and embeds these within cycles of technology change. 3) It suggests the importance of understanding field-level change as tentative and time-bound: This perspective may allow deeper insights into the mechanisms that propel emergence, and even re-emergence, of seemingly "dead" technologies and industries. (Read an interview with Ryan Raffaelli about his research.) Key concepts include: The value of some products may go beyond pure functionality to embrace non-functional aspects that can influence consumer buying behaviors. Introducing a new technology is not always the only way to get ahead of the curve when older technologies or industries appear to be reaching the end of their life. Industries that successfully re-emerge are able to redefine their competitive set - the group of organizations upon which they want to compete and the value proposition that they send to the consumer. There is significant interplay among community, organization, and product identities. Swiss watches—as well as fountain pens, streetcars, independent bookstores and vinyl records—are all examples of technologies once considered dead that have rematerialized to claim significant market interest. For Swiss watchmakers, "who we are" (as a community) and "what we do" (as watch producers) were mutually constitutive and may have been a potent force in the processes that sought re-coupling in the face of the de-coupling precipitated by technological change. Although new or discontinuous technologies tend to displace older ones, legacy technologies can re-emerge, coexist with, and even come to dominate newer technologies. Core to this process is the creation—and recreation—of product, organization, and community identities that resonate with the re-emergence of markets for legacy technologies. Substantial economic change may not be contained only within organizational or industry boundaries, but also extend outward to include broader forces related to field-level change. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 06 Jan 2014
- Research & Ideas
Technology Re-Emergence: Creating New Value for Old Innovations
Every once in a while, an old technology rises from the ashes and finds new life. Ryan Raffaelli explains how the Swiss watch industry saved itself by reinventing its identity. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 06 Jun 2013
- Op-Ed
How to Do Away with the Dangers of Outsourcing
The collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh should be a warning to companies that embrace outsourcing, says Professor Ranjay Gulati. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 19 Oct 2010
- Working Paper Summaries
The Impact of Supply Learning on Customer Demand: Model and Estimation Methodology
"Supply learning" is the process by which customers predict a company's ability to fulfill product orders in the future using information about how well the company fulfilled orders in the past. A new paper investigates how and whether a customer's assumptions about future supplier performance will affect the likelihood that the customer will order from that supplier in the future. Research, based on data from apparel manufacturer Hugo Boss, was conducted by Nathan Craig and Ananth Raman of Harvard Business School, and Nicole DeHoratius of the University of Portland. Key concepts include: Two key measures of supplier performance include "consistency", which is the likelihood that a company will continue to keep items in stock and meet demand, and "recovery", which is the likelihood that a company will deliver on time in spite of past stock-outs. Improvements in consistency and recovery are associated with increases in orders from retail customers. Increasing the level of service may lead to an increase in orders, even when the service level is already nearly perfect. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 14 May 2008
- Research & Ideas
Getting Down to the Business of Creativity
Business leaders must manage and support creativity just as they would any other asset. Harvard Business School professors Teresa Amabile, Mary Tripsas, and Mukti Khaire discuss where creativity comes from, how entrepreneurs use it, and why innovation is often a team sport. From the HBS Alumni Bulletin. Key concepts include: People have their best days and do their best work when they are allowed to make progress. Whenever a firm introduces a truly novel product, suppliers, complementary producers, distribution channels, and consumers must often develop new capabilities, beliefs, and behaviors for the product to succeed, creating a challenge for the innovator. The perception exists that creative businesses can just start up, when in fact it takes a while for an entire ecosystem to actually generate an industry. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
Tommy Hilfiger’s Adaptive Clothing Line: Making Fashion Inclusive
In 2017, Tommy Hilfiger launched its adaptive fashion line to provide fashion apparel that aims to make dressing easier. By 2020, it was still a relatively unknown line in the U.S. and the Tommy Hilfiger team was continuing to learn more about how to serve these new customers. Should the team make adaptive clothing available beyond the U.S., or is a global expansion premature? Assistant Professor Elizabeth Keenan discusses the opportunities and challenges that accompanied the introduction of a new product line that effectively serves an entirely new customer while simultaneously starting a movement to provide fashion for all in the case, “Tommy Hilfiger Adaptive: Fashion for All.”