Harvard Business School Case Study Explores E-Cigarettes
Harvard Business School has recently announced a new MBA case study ‘E-Cigarettes: Marketing Versus Public Health,’ which will see business and public health students at the school analyzing the growing popularity of the electronic cigarette market as well as looking at the tension between public health and marketing.
The case study will explore the ways in which tobacco companies and regulators are responding, while also considering how businesses can ensure corporate social responsibility and profit.
Public health advocates, who assert that the so-called cure to harmful cigarette addiction is not a cure at all, enabling further addiction and acting as a gateway for new – as well as reformed – smokers.
Electronic cigarettes have led to a net decrease in traditional smoking of 2.2 million in the US, or 5% of the smoking population. But these statistics only tell half of the story, failing to highlight the influence that the marketing of e-cigarettes has had.
John A. Quelch, a professor in business administration at Harvard Business School, who also holds a joint appointment with the Harvard School of Public Health, will be teaching the new MBA case study to all who enroll in the course, ‘Consumers, Corporations and Public Health’, debuting at the business school and the School of Public Health next year.
The question is how many nicotine addicts is it worth the risk of creating to have one tobacco smoker quit?
For more information please see Harvard Business School Working Knowledge: Are Electronic Cigarettes a Public Good or Health Hazard?