Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(119,516)
- Faculty Publications (113)
- January 2017
- Background Note
Making Virtual Reality Real
By: Feng Zhu, Sarah Mehta and David Lane
This note describes virtual reality and augmented reality technologies and describes the main consumer products on offer in 2016 as well as their manufacturers. It also surveys existing applications of virtual and augment reality technologies. View Details
- November 7, 2016
- Article
How Wikipedia Keeps Political Discourse from Turning Ugly
By: Shane Greenstein and Feng Zhu
- November–December 2016
- Article
The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Industry
By: Yongwook Paik and Feng Zhu
Strategy scholars have documented in various empirical settings that firms seek and leverage stronger institutions to mitigate hazards and gain competitive advantage. In this paper, we argue that such “institution-seeking” behavior may not be confined to the pursuit of... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised March 2020)
- Teaching Note
Fasten: Challenging Uber and Lyft with a New Business Model
By: Feng Zhu
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
- Summer 2016
- Article
Open Content, Linus' Law, and Neutral Point of View
By: Shane Greenstein and Feng Zhu
The diffusion of the Internet and digital technologies has enabled many organizations to use the open-content production model to produce and disseminate knowledge. While several prior studies have shown that the open-content production model can lead to high-quality... View Details
- 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
- Article
Products to Platforms: Making the Leap
By: Feng Zhu and Nathan Furr
Following the path of companies such as Apple and Amazon, more and more firms are trying to become not just product purveyors but also platform providers, facilitating direct connections between customers and other groups. Although launching a platform can generate new... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Market
By: Feng Zhu
Strategy scholars have documented in various empirical settings that firms seek and leverage stronger institutions to mitigate hazards and gain competitive advantage. In this paper, we argue that such “institution-seeking” behavior may not be confined to the pursuit of... View Details
- November 2015
- Case
Upwork: Reimagining the Future of Work
By: Feng Zhu, Rory McDonald, Marco Iansiti and Aaron Smith
Upwork, the world's largest freelance talent platform, was the result of a merger between the two leading online freelancing companies in 2014, Elance and oDesk. After the merger, the company operated as Elance-oDesk and continued to manage two online... View Details
- November 2015
- Article
Cannibalization and Option Value Effects of Secondary Markets: Evidence from the U.S. Concert Industry
By: Victor Manuel Bennett, Robert Seamans and Feng Zhu
We examine how reducing search frictions in secondary markets affects the value appropriated by firms in primary markets. We characterize two effects on primary market firms caused by intermediaries entering secondary markets: the "cannibalization" and "option value"... View Details
- August 2015 (Revised January 2017)
- Technical Note
From Correlation to Causation
By: Feng Zhu and Karim R. Lakhani
To make sound business decisions, managers must be comfortable with the concepts of correlation and causation. This background note provides an overview of correlation and causation using examples and explains why the former does not imply the latter. It also describes... View Details
- August 2015 (Revised May 2017)
- Case
TSG Hoffenheim: Football in the Age of Analytics
By: Feng Zhu, Karim R. Lakhani, Sascha L. Schmidt and Kerry Herman
In 2015, Dietmar Hopp, owner of Germany's Bundesliga football team TSG Hoffenheim and co-founder of the global enterprise software company SAP, was considering how to ensure long-term sustainability and competitiveness for TSG Hoffenheim. While historically a small... View Details
- August 2015 (Revised February 2020)
- Teaching Note
Qihoo
By: Feng Zhu
- July 2015 (Revised July 2016)
- Case
SF Express: From Delivery to E-Commerce
By: Feng Zhu and David Lane
Shunfeng Express (SF), China's leading express delivery firm, in May 2014 opened the first 500 of several thousand Heike stores, which allowed consumers to buy and try out SF's own e-commerce offerings, in addition to other services. As an example of China's... View Details
Keywords: Shunfeng Express; Heike; Express Delivery; Alibaba; Tencent; JD.com; China; O2O; Logistics; Strategy; Service Delivery; China
- March 2015 (Revised September 2016)
- Technical Note
Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent: The Three Kingdoms of the Chinese Internet
By: Feng Zhu and Aaron Smith
This note provides an overview of the Chinese Internet by describing its leading three companies: Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (BAT). While BAT had previously focused their respective businesses on distinct sectors of the online economy—Baidu for search, Alibaba for... View Details
- December 2014 (Revised August 2024)
- Case
HomeAway: Organizing the Vacation Rental Industry
By: Rory McDonald, Feng Zhu and Cheng Gao
In less than 10 years, cofounders Brian Sharples and Carl Shepherd had transformed HomeAway from just another Internet startup into the world's leading vacation-rental marketplace—a global online platform that links customers seeking vacation-home rentals to the... View Details
- July 2014 (Revised August 2015)
- Case
Qihoo
By: Feng Zhu
Qihoo, one of the largest Internet companies in China today, was founded in 2005. The company started its business by offering a security software product, and quickly dominated the market in China after its unusual move of giving its product away for free in 2009.... View Details
- February 2014
- Article
Responses to Entry in Multi-Sided Markets: The Impact of Craigslist on Local Newspapers
By: Robert Seamans and Feng Zhu
How do firms respond to entry in multi-sided markets? We address this question by studying the impact of Craigslist, a website providing classified-advertising services, on local U.S. newspapers. We exploit temporal and geographical variation in Craigslist's entry to... 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