Publications

May 2016 (Revised March 2020)
Case

Fasten: Challenging Uber and Lyft with a New Business Model

By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella

Fasten, a new ridesharing start-up in Boston, entered the scene in September 2015 hoping its unique vision of transparency for both driver and passenger and strategy to keep riders' fares low and charge drivers a flat $0.99 fee per ride as opposed to the 20-30%... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Transportation; Business Startups; Business Model; Transportation Industry; Boston

18 May 2023
News

Research Handbook on Digital Strategy

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Placement - Doctoral

Management, 2022 Placement: Rice University, Jones Graduate School of Business Dissertation: Technological Coordination of Platform Ecosystems Advisors: Feng Zhu , Andy Wu , and Shane M. Greenstein 2020... View Details

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Faculty & Research - MBA

Wu OCTOBER 2024 Books Smart Rivals: How Innovative Companies Play Games That Tech Giants Can't Win By: Feng Zhu 20 Aug 2024 Deals: The Economic Structure of Business Transactions 19 Mar 2024 Baker Library |... View Details

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Harvard Business School Online Courses & Learning Platforms

Digital Platforms Professor Feng Zhu Explore digital platforms' unique properties, opportunities, and risks, and develop scalable strategies that drive growth and deliver a competitive advantage. 5 weeks,... View Details

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Technology & Operations Management Faculty - Faculty & Research

Christina R. Wing Senior Lecturer of Business Administration Feng Zhu MBA Class of 1958 Professor of Business Administration Unit Affiliates Tina Renee Opie Visiting Scholar Sam Ransbotham Visiting Scholar... View Details

September 2019 (Revised November 2019)
Case

Pinduoduo

By: Feng Zhu, Krishna G. Palepu, Bonnie Yining Cao and Dawn H. Lau

Founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneur, Colin Huang, Pinduoduo Inc. (PDD) had become China’s fastest-growing e-commerce platform in history. PDD pioneered a new approach to online shopping that allowed shoppers to share products, invite friends to form shopping teams,... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Competitive Advantage; Expansion; Strategy; E-commerce

26 May 2023
News

Harvard Business School Professors Win Wyss Awards for Excellence in Mentoring Doctoral Students

October 2018
Article

Competing with Complementors: An Empirical Look at Amazon.com

By: Feng Zhu and Qihong Liu

Platform owners sometimes enter complementors' product spaces to compete against them directly. Prior studies have offered two possible explanations for such entries: platform owners may target the most successful complementors so as to appropriate value from their... View Details

Keywords: Amazon; Complementors; Co-opetition; Entry; Platform-based Markets; Competition; Digital Platforms; Competitive Strategy

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Technology & Operations Management - Faculty & Research

Companies Play Games That Tech Giants Can't Win By: Feng Zhu and Bonnie Yining Cao More Harvard Business Publishing Seminars & Conferences There are no upcoming events. More Seminars & Conferences Faculty... View Details

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Online Business Courses & Certifications | HBS Online

Professor Michael Wheeler Master negotiation techniques to secure maximum value for yourself and your organization. 8 weeks, 4-5 hrs/week Enroll by November 7 $1,850 Certificate Winning with Digital Platforms Professor View Details

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Asia Pacific - Global

research, but a full range of MBA and Executive Education student programming. Through their ongoing work they have developed important links with governments, academic institutions, and corporations within a region that is assuming an increasingly vital role in the... View Details

October 2013
Article

Ad Revenue and Content Commercialization: Evidence from Blogs

By: Monic Sun and Feng Zhu

Many scholars argue that when incentivized by ad revenue, content providers are more likely to tailor their content to attract "eyeballs," and as a result, popular content may be excessively supplied. We empirically test this prediction by taking advantage of the... View Details

Keywords: Ad-sponsored Business Models; Media Content; Blog; Revenue Sharing; User-generated Content; Platform-based Markets; Blogs; Business Model; Digital Platforms; Commercialization; Digital Marketing

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Technology & Operations Management Awards & Honors - Faculty & Research

Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society (MSOM) for his article with Maria Ibanez, “How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections” ( Management Science , June 2020). Feng View Details

June 2015 (Revised April 2018)
Case

WeChat: A Global Platform?

By: Willy Shih, Howard Yu and Feng Liu

WeChat was developed by Tencent Holdings as a lightweight messaging platform. As it grew quickly to become the most popular messaging app in China, it added a range of products and services that sat on top that were designed to appeal to a broad range of consumers and... View Details

Keywords: Online Platforms; China; WeChat; Tencent Holdings; Globalization; Internet and the Web; Applications and Software; Digital Platforms; Telecommunications Industry; Information Industry; China

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About - Business & Environment

McKinsey & Company. Carolyn graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in applied mathematics and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. Philip Kuai (OPM 2023), Partner, YUE Accelerator Philip Kuai is collaborating with Feng... View Details

July 2022
Case

Yinglan Tan: Scaling a Venture Capital Firm in Southeast Asia

By: Josh Lerner and Richard Zhu

Yinglan Tan considered the future of his young Singapore-based venture capital firm. On the one hand, the intuition that was behind the initial creation of Insignia in 2017 had been proven correct. The venture capital market in Southeast Asia had grown rapidly, driven... View Details

Keywords: E-commerce; Scalability; Globalized Markets and Industries; Venture Capital; International Finance; Growth and Development; Expansion