John Gourville

John Gourville is the Albert J. Weatherhead, Jr. Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.  He joined the HBS Marketing Unit in 1995 after receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in marketing and behavioral research.  He has recently returned to teaching in the Core Marketing course in the first year of the MBA program, a course for which he had previously been course head.  He has also taught the electives The Marketing of Innovations, Consumer Marketing, and Entrepreneurial Marketing in the second year of the MBA program.  In the HBS Executive Education program, he has chaired the Strategic Marketing Management program.  He also teaches in the Aligning Sales and Strategy program and the Program for Leadership Development, as well as a number of custom company programs. John also has participated in specialized executive education programs throughout the world.  Prior to receiving his Ph.D., John held management positions with Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Mobil Oil, and New York Telephone.

John''s research focuses on consumer decision making, especially in the areas of pricing and the adoption of innovations.  For instance, in several papers John has investigated subtle changes in the presentation of product price can lead to significant changes in a consumer''s decision to purchase and consume that product.  In other work, he has looked at the impact of product variety on consumer choice and finds that offering a wide assortment of goods often harms a brand.  Finally, his current research investigates when and why innovative new products fail to gain traction in the marketplace.  John''s research has appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Marketing Science, the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing Research, and in Marketing Letters.