Publications

23 Nov 2021
Research & Ideas

The Vinyl Renaissance: Take Those Old Records Off the Shelf

seeing with vinyl, with fountain pens, with independent bookstores, and with mechanical watches. Technology re-emergence is really a redefinition strategy. It’s redefining the product as something more than... View Details

Keywords: by Christine Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Music

April 2001 (Revised February 2003)
Case

Moore Medical Corporation

Moore Medical is a medium-sized distributor of medical supplies to practitioners, such as podiatrists and emergency medical technicians. At the time of the case, it has relied on traditional customer channels such as catalogs, phones, and faxes to communicate product... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Internet and the Web; Marketing Communications; Information Technology; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Distribution Industry

14 Jul 2023
Blog Post

Harvard Business School Announces Its 2023-2024 Blavatnik Fellows

industries, including: a novel enzymatic RNA synthesis platform, an immune system-driven dendritic cell therapy to combat cancer, new molecular technologies for the delivery of transdermal formulations, a lipid-targeting drug to treat... View Details

April 2020
Teaching Note

Tailor Brands: Artificial Intelligence-Driven Branding

By: Jill Avery

Using proprietary artificial intelligence technology, startup Tailor Brands set out to democratize branding by allowing small businesses to create their brand identities by automatically generating logos in just minutes at minimal cost with no branding or design skills... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; United States; North America

October 2005
Case

Saskatchewan Wheat Pool 2005

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Mary L. Shelman

CEO Mayo Schmidt had just guided his firm through five difficult years. Survival had come with the difficult decision to change the 80-year-old agricultural cooperative into a Canadian business corporation. The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool (SWP) now faced the future with a... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Capital; Technological Innovation; Leading Change; Demand and Consumers; Partners and Partnerships; Expansion; Technology Adoption; Food and Beverage Industry; Canada

Find at Harvard

November 2021 (Revised April 2022)
Case

EbonyLife Media (A)

By: Andy Wu, Feng Zhu, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Wale Lawal

Founded by Mosunmola “Mo” Abudu in 2012 with a mission to bring high-quality African stories to the world, EbonyLife was the company behind many of Nigeria’s biggest films and TV shows. The company began as a television channel on the Africa-wide direct broadcast... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Mission and Purpose; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Platforms; Consumer Behavior; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Nigeria; Africa

September 2023
Case

Ada: Cultivating Investors

By: Reza Satchu and Patrick Sanguineti

Mike Murchison, co-founder and CEO of Ada, has an enviable dilemma. Launched in 2016 by Murchison and his co-founder David Hariri, Ada is an AI-native company that aims to revolutionize how businesses approach customer service. The company has already attracted a buzz,... View Details

Keywords: Founder; Fundraising; Business Startups; Decisions; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Industry

24 Apr 2022
News

Artificial Intelligence Is Stuck In A Narrow Rut

2010
Working Paper

The Architecture of Complex Systems: Do Core-periphery Structures Dominate?

By: Alan MacCormack, Carliss Y. Baldwin and John Rusnak

Any complex technological system can be decomposed into a number of subsystems and associated components, some of which are core to system function while others are only peripheral. The dynamics of how such "core-periphery" structures evolve and become embedded in a... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Product Design; Practice; Core Relationships; Software; Information Technology Industry

Read Now

2011
Teaching Note

UFIDA (D) (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Ping He, Xiohua Wu and Lijuan Liu

This case describes the financing decisions of a software company at difference stages of its development. Started from 1988 as an individual business, along with the "Reform and Open" policy of China, the firm has experienced tremendous growth, and has become a... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Computer Software; Emerging Markets; Financial Strategy; IPO; Investments; China; Applications and Software; China

06 Feb 2020
Research & Ideas

What We Learned from Reading Jeff Bezos’ Patents

answer is yes. The founder’s early fascination with innovation proved key because he remains an active inventor with many patents to his name. Bezos has been known to view Amazon as “a technology company pioneering e-commerce, not a... View Details

Keywords: by Tricia Gregg and Boris Groysberg; Retail

09 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Organizations

design process. This design rule is easy to state, but it is difficult to follow for two basic reasons. First, some core production technologies are less amenable to applying the rule than others. Second,... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Lawrence & Nitin Nohria

01 Jun 2023
News

From Big Pharma to Startup

pitch their experience and skills to each other. That’s how Goble met Dr. Wayne Lencer, a Harvard Medical School professor who had spent a decade developing technology to enable the oral delivery of biological medicines—therapies created... View Details

Keywords: April White

13 May 2014
News

Arianna Huffington's Tips on How to Feel Better and Get More Done

Web

Social Enterprise - Faculty & Research

improvement in occupational health and safety. This tradeoff is more pronounced in factories with unions and high-powered productivity incentives, suggesting internal governance structures shape how suppliers respond to social movement... View Details

14 Jul 2009
First Look

First Look: July 14

firms face market uncertainty about consumers' preferences for innovation on two product attributes and technology uncertainty about the success of their R&D investments. Firms can conduct costly market... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

26 Nov 2007
Research & Ideas

Best Practices of Global Innovators

trend? Alan MacCormack: There are 3 main drivers. First, the complexity of products is increasing, in terms of the breadth and number of technologies they include. Cars send maintenance data wirelessly to... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

2003
Case

E-Business Innovation at Cisco

By: Vijay Govindarajan, Philip Anderson, Chris Trimble and Katrina Veerman

As of March 2001, Cisco Systems prides itself as an "end-to-end networking company." The phrase describes not only their product line but the way they run their business. They created many of the e-business practices that later became cornerstones of the software... View Details

Keywords: Technology Networks; Technological Innovation; Innovation and Management; Business Strategy; Web Services Industry