Publications

SSRN

April 2025
Case

Salesforce Agentforce: The Limitless Workforce

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Allison Ciechanover and George Gonzalez

In early 2025, Salesforce was a global leader in cloud-based enterprise software, best known for pioneering customer relationship management (CRM) delivered as a service. Over the past two decades, the company had expanded into marketing, customer service, analytics,... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Customer Relationship Management; Price; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Sales; Business Strategy; Ethics; Product Launch; Technology Industry; United States

March 2012
Article

Enriching the Ecosystem

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter

To remain a leader in innovation, the United States needs the support of foundational institutions that help seed, grow, and renew enterprises. Historically, these institutions-such as universities, venture creators, labor markets, and job-training programs-have tended... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Organizations; Research and Development; Social and Collaborative Networks; Growth and Development Strategy; United States

Program

Competing in the Age of AI—Virtual

on service delivery Digital officers, technology officers, and individuals building and launching data science and analytics Attend with a team from your organization to foster fruitful collaboration and amplify the program's impact on... View Details

July 2004 (Revised October 2018)
Case

Opium and Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth Century

By: Geoffrey Jones, Elisabeth Koll and Alexis Gendron

This case examines the role of Jardine Matheson, a trading company founded by two Scottish merchants, in the opium trade between India and China during the nineteenth century. The two Opium Wars fought between Western powers and China, which sought to stop opium... View Details

Keywords: History; Globalized Economies and Regions; Ethnicity; Multinational Firms and Management; Groups and Teams; Trade; Social and Collaborative Networks; China; United Kingdom

Lynda M. Applegate is a Baker Foundation Professor at HBS and is Chair of the Advisory Committee for Harvard University’s Masters Degree of Liberal Arts in Finance and Management at the Harvard University Extension School. She has also played a... View Details

14 Jan 2014
First Look

First Look: January 14

that colleagues support one another's efforts to do the best work they can. That has always been true for efficiency reasons, but collaborative helping becomes even more vital in an era of knowledge work, when positive business outcomes... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2008 (Revised December 2011)
Case

Weber Shandwick: The Client Relationship Leader Program

By: Robert G. Eccles and Kerry Herman

In 2002 Weber Shandwick, a leading global public relations agency, instituted a Client Relationship Leader (CRL) Program for its top 32 global accounts. The purpose of the program is to ensure that all of the firm's resources across geographies, practice areas, and... View Details

Keywords: Blogs; Competency and Skills; Customer Relationship Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Social and Collaborative Networks; Competitive Advantage; Public Relations Industry

March 2022
Teaching Note

Farfetch: Digital Transformation for Luxury Brands

By: Jill Avery and Sunil Gupta

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 522-051. Farfetch, a global luxury technology platform and digital marketplace had been surfing the wave of digital transformation in the luxury fashion industry since 2008. While the company’s stock price and market valuation had... View Details

Keywords: Brand Management; Retailing; Two Sided Markets; SaaS; Online Marketing; Marketing; Marketing Channels; Brands and Branding; Luxury; Digital Transformation; E-commerce; Digital Marketing; Retail Industry; Fashion Industry; London; United Kingdom; Portugal

September–October 2024
Article

The Crowdless Future? Generative AI and Creative Problem-Solving

By: Léonard Boussioux, Jacqueline N. Lane, Miaomiao Zhang, Vladimir Jacimovic and Karim R. Lakhani

The rapid advances in generative artificial intelligence (AI) open up attractive opportunities for creative problem-solving through human-guided AI partnerships. To explore this potential, we initiated a crowdsourcing challenge focused on sustainable, circular economy... View Details

Keywords: Large Language Models; Generative Ai; Crowdsourcing; AI and Machine Learning; Creativity; Technological Innovation

Read Now

14 Sep 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Ethnic Innovation and US Multinational Firm Activity

Keywords: by C. Fritz Foley & William R. Kerr

06 Feb 2012
Research & Ideas

Kodak: A Parable of American Competitiveness

operations has been occurring for decades, based on the assumption that moving grunt work overseas wouldn't affect US companies' competitive edge in the global marketplace. But this assumption is wrong, and the fallout has been... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Manufacturing

Producing Prosperity: Why America Needs a Manufacturing Renaissance

Companies compete on the decisions they make. For years—even decades—in response to intensifying global competition, companies decided to outsource their manufacturing operations in order to reduce costs. But we are now seeing the alarming long-term effect of those... View Details

10 May 2004
Research & Ideas

Rethink the Value of Joint Ventures

more than 3,000 American transnationals suggests that JVs are falling out of favor. Why? Increasing forces of globalization such as increasingly fragmented production processes make the decision not to View Details

Keywords: by Cynthia Churchwell

June 2024
Case

Building Innovation at VINCI

By: Dennis Campbell, Aluna Wang and Carlota Moniz

This case study explores how the VINCI Group, a French multinational operating in concessions, energy, and construction, bolstered awareness and adoption rates of new technologies within the organization. Through its separate innovation hub, Leonard, VINCI aimed to... View Details

07 Nov 2006
First Look

First Look: November 7, 2006

market in over-the-counter derivatives. Others focus on the social consequences of globalization and new modes of communication, evaluating the introduction of new information technologies into African communities and the View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Web

Admissions Process

Researching Our Program Offerings Offered in both virtual and in-person formats, our executive development programs enable you to deepen your knowledge, broaden your skill set, and collaborate with a global... View Details

Web

Academic Programs | About

Academic Programs Whether on campus, online, or within an intensive certificate program, Harvard Business School combines bold ideas, powerful pedagogy, and collaborative cohort-based learning to deliver unparalleled management education... View Details

October 2020
Case

Israelis, Palestinians and the Technology Bridge Between Them: A Work in Progress

By: Elie Ofek and Lia Weiner

In Israel of 2020 the demand for software engineers was endless. Meanwhile just miles away, Palestinian universities were graduating 3,000 engineers a year, and many of them could not find jobs in the still nascent Palestinian tech sector. Could these dots be... View Details

Keywords: Geopolitics; Technology Ecosystem; Software Engineers; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Business Startups; International Relations; Cooperation; Opportunities; Problems and Challenges; Technology Industry; Israel; Palestinian state