Publications

September 2023 (Revised December 2023)
Case

TetraScience: Noise and Signal

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Tom Quinn

In 2019, TetraScience CEO “Spin” Wang needed advice. Five years earlier, he had cofounded a startup that saw early success with a hardware product designed to help laboratory scientists in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical spaces more easily collect data from... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Organization; Restructuring; Forecasting and Prediction; Digital Platforms; Analytics and Data Science; AI and Machine Learning; Organizational Structure; Network Effects; Competitive Strategy; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States; Boston

11 Feb 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Tommy Koh and the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement: A Multifront ‘Negotiation Campaign’

Keywords: by Laurence A. Green & James K. Sebenius

February 2019
Teaching Note

Haier in the U.S.: Transforming GE Appliances

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen

Chinese appliance company Haier's 2016 acquisition of iconic GE Appliances ushered in strategic and structural changes to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship at the U.S. company, and to help it grow. Haier, which had a model designed to bring the company closer... View Details

Keywords: Iconic Brands; Appliances; Digital; Innovation; Entrepreneur; Microenterprise; Management; Entrepreneurship; Transformation; Innovation and Management; Acquisition; Consumer Products Industry; United States; China

September 2000 (Revised March 2001)
Case

Old Mutual

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Kirsty O'Neil-Massaro

Designed to explore the demutualization and listing overseas of one of Africa's largest financial institutions, Old Mutual, and the effects that these actions have on South Africa's domestic capital markets. Explores the particular difficulties that arise as a result... View Details

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Structure; Global Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Capital Markets; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business Education; Financial Strategy; Business or Company Management; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; South Africa

Find at Harvard

October 2003
Case

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company: Building a Platform for Distributed Innovation

By: Marco Iansiti and Marcin Strojwas

Surging costs of building a state-of-the-art fabrication facility were pushing firms to outsource manufacturing while advanced technologies were requiring a tighter coupling between design and manufacturing. Explores the development of strategy in this environment.... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Business Model; Networks; Product Design; Production; Decisions; Customer Relationship Management; Supply Chain Management

April 2008 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Commonwealth Care Alliance: Elderly and Disabled Care

By: Michael E. Porter and Jennifer F Baron

Individuals enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid, known as dual eligibles, are among the highest-cost beneficiaries in the US. Commonwealth Care Alliance, a small nonprofit insurer and care delivery system in Massachusetts, operated under a public demonstration... View Details

Keywords: Programs; Public Sector; Alliances; Policy; Age; Service Delivery; Value; Health Care and Treatment; Welfare; Insurance Industry; Health Industry; Massachusetts

13 Mar 2025
HBS Seminar

Sonny Tambe, Wharton

October 2002 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Intermountain Health Care

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer, Amy C. Edmondson and Laura Feldman

Intermountain Health Care (IHC), an integrated delivery system based in Utah, has adopted a new strategy for managing health care delivery. The approach focuses management attention not only on the facilities where care takes place but also on physician decision making... View Details

Keywords: Ethnicity; Innovation Strategy; Cost Management; Information Technology; Organizational Structure; Technology Adoption; Performance Improvement; Problems and Challenges; Adoption; Change Management; Cost vs Benefits; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Utah

September – October 2008
Article

Care Platforms: A Basic Building Block for Care Delivery

By: Richard Bohmer and David Lawrence

Without significant operational reform within the nation's health care delivery organizations, new financing models, payment systems, or structures are unlikely to realize their promise. Adapting insights from high-performing companies in other high-risk, high-cost,... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Management Systems; Standards; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Business Processes; Organizational Design; Customization and Personalization; Health Industry

Find at Harvard

April 2015 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Japan's Missing Arrow?

By: Laura Alfaro and Hilary White

In late December 2014, Shinzo Abe was elected to another term as the prime minister of Japan. His re-election was largely interpreted as a vote of confidence for his economics policies, collectively referred to as "Abenomics." Comprised of three "arrows," including... View Details

Summer 2013
Article

IP Modularity: Profiting from Innovation by Aligning Product Architecture with Intellectual Property

By: Joachim Henkel, Carliss Y. Baldwin and Willy C. Shih

Firms seeking to take advantage of distributed innovation and outsourcing can bridge the tension between value creation and value capture by modifying the modular structure of their technical systems. Specifically, this article introduces the concept of "IP... View Details

Keywords: Modularity; Value Appropriation; Distributed Innovation; Open Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Intellectual Property; Value

Find at Harvard

Research Summary

Biform Games (with Harborne Stuart)

Real-world games often involve both structured and unstructured interaction. For the clearly delineated moves and countermoves in such games, a non-cooperative game model can be used. But for unstructured interaction, when the moves are more fluid and free-form, a... View Details

February 23, 2022
Article

Can WEB3 Bring Back Competition to Digital Platforms?

By: Christian Catalini and Scott Duke Kominers

Like the early Internet, blockchain and Web3 applications promise a new wave of decentralization and competition—yet at the same time, it is unclear which of the dynamics that drove concentration in online platforms and services will remain in force under the Web3... View Details

Keywords: Web3; Blockchain; Interoperability; Internet and the Web; Technological Innovation; Competition; Digital Platforms

Read Now

17 Jun 2008
First Look

First Look: June 17, 2008

are impacted most by regulation are those measuring working status, social networks, business skills, and attitudes toward risk. Download the paper from SSRN ($5): http://papers.nber.org/papers/w14012 Bank Structure and the Terms of... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

29 Oct 2013
First Look

First Look: October 29

products. This case exercise provides a hands-on way to experience the design process and offers a structured approach for incorporating key considerations that can aid in effective design. Students are... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2013 (Revised August 2013)
Background Note

Note on Pension Guarantee Funds

By: Robert C. Pozen and Patricia Bissett Higgins

The United States and the United Kingdom both had quasi-government agencies that provided back-up insurance for individuals participating in defined benefit ("DB") pension plans. This note compares and contrasts the United Kingdom's Pension Protection Fund ("PPF") with... View Details

Keywords: Pensions; Pension Guarantee Funds; Pension Protection Fund; Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation; Employee Retirement Income Security Act; PBGC; ERISA; MAP-21; Legislation; Insurance; Saving; Retirement; Labor; Labor and Management Relations; Employees; Insurance Industry; United States; United Kingdom

02 May 2022
Video

Entrepreneurship in Life Sciences: Course Overview with Senior Lecturer Satish Tadikonda

February 2019 (Revised July 2019)
Case

Sales Force Management at Nobel Ilac

By: Doug J. Chung and Gamze Yucaoglu

Nobel Ilac was a Turkish generic pharmaceutical company marketing more than 100 drugs in 20 countries and, as of 2017, had over 2,500 employees worldwide. Nobel had implemented a transformation strategy—more specifically, a customer segmentation plan—whereby the sales... View Details

Keywords: Sales Strategy; Compensation; Employee Retention; Recruiting; Pharmaceuticals; Salesforce Management; Strategy; Organizational Design; Human Resources; Compensation and Benefits; Employees; Retention; Recruitment; Pharmaceutical Industry; Turkey

2015
Working Paper

Crowdfunding as 'Donations': Theory & Evidence

By: Kevin J. Boudreau, Lars Bo Jeppesen, Toke Reichstein and Francesco Rullani

For a wide class of crowdfunding approaches, we argue that the reward structure (for funders) is closer to that of charitable donations to public goods than it is to traditional entrepreneurial finance. Many features of the design of crowdfunding platforms can... View Details

Keywords: Crowdfunding Platforms; Entrepreneurial Finance; Free-riding; Voluntary Contributions To Public Goods; Online Technology; Entrepreneurship; Social and Collaborative Networks; Finance; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving