Publications

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February 2023 (Revised March 2023)
Case

Hey, Insta & YouTube, Are You Watching TikTok?

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee

In early 2023, the entertainment app TikTok reached close to 1 billion users globally, placing it 4th behind the leading social networks of Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Featuring a sophisticated recommendation engine, TikTok mastered the art of keeping users... View Details

Keywords: Social Media; Applications and Software; Business Model; Competition; Organizational Change and Adaptation

July 2023
Supplement

Reimagining Enel: Enabling Sustainable Progress (A)

By: Michael Tushman and Kerry Herman

This case describes the transformation of Enel from a traditional “brown” or fossil fuel energy firm to a sustainable and green firm focused on renewables, and finally to an energy supplier and integrated energy services firm. It describes a set of capabilities... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Innovation and Invention; Transformation; Green Technology; Renewable Energy; Energy Industry

January 2015 (Revised May 2018)
Case

$19B 4 txt app WhatsApp...omg!

By: David Collis, Ashley Hartman and Aakash Mehta

In February 2014, Facebook announced the acquisition of WhatsApp for $19 billion. WhatsApp, founded in 2009, was a relatively young company that employed only 50 people and earned merely $10 million in revenue in 2013. It was one of many mobile messaging services that... View Details

April 2021 (Revised July 2021)
Case

Public Equities Impact Investing at BlackRock

By: Shawn A. Cole, Vikram S. Gandhi, Michael Norris and John Masko

In early 2021, BlackRock—the world’s largest asset manager with $9 trillion in assets under management (AUM)—sought to become a leader in promoting environmental and social sustainability. Over the previous ten years, CEO Larry Fink had written an annual open letter to... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Renewable Energy; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Equity; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Financial Management; Investment Funds; Investment Return; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financial Services Industry; United States

Research Summary

The Panama Canal

The Big Ditch is the first quantitative economic history of the Panama Canal and its effect on Panama, the United States, and the world economy. It makes three general arguments. First, that the Panama Canal was very important to... View Details

December 2007
Article

China + India: The Power of Two

By: Tarun Khanna

China and India are burying the hatchet after four-plus decades of hostility. A few companies from both nations have been quick to gain competitive advantages by viewing the two as symbiotic. If Western corporations fail to do the same, they will lose their competitive... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Economic Growth; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Multinational Firms and Management; Business History; Competitive Strategy; Cooperation; China; India

Find at Harvard

2009
Working Paper

Capitalizing On Innovation: The Case of Japan

By: Robert Dujarric and Andrei Hagiu

Japan's industrial landscape is characterized by hierarchical forms of industry organization, which are increasingly inadequate in modern sectors, where innovation relies on platforms and horizontal ecosystems of firms producing complementary products. Using three... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Markets and Industries; Government Legislation; Innovation and Invention; Industry Structures; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration; Manufacturing Industry; Japan

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October 2001 (Revised November 2001)
Background Note

Running and Growing the Small Company: Course Overview

Addresses challenges facing managers, presidents, and owners in generating and sustaining superior performance, especially as a company broadens its mix of goods and services, increases the volume of its sales, and enlarges the size of its workforce. The critical... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Talent and Talent Management

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16 Feb 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Platform Competition Under Partial Belief Advantage

Keywords: by Hanna Halaburda & Yaron Yehezkel; Consumer Products

16 Oct 2012
First Look

First Look: October 16

relationship is important, given that product architecture has been shown to be an important predictor of product performance, product variety, process flexibility, and even the path of industry evolution. We explore this relationship in the View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2011 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Building Watson: Not So Elementary, My Dear!

By: Willy Shih

This case is set inside IBM Research's efforts to build a computer that can successfully take on human challengers playing the game show Jeopardy! It opens with the machine named Watson offering the incorrect answer "Toronto" to a seemingly simple question during the... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Standards; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Mathematical Methods; Research and Development; Information Technology

08 Oct 2014
Working Paper Summaries

The Federal Reserve’s Abandonment of Its 1923 Principles

Keywords: by Julio J. Rotemberg; Banking; Legal Services

24 Jan 2024
Op-Ed

Why Boeing’s Problems with the 737 MAX Began More Than 25 Years Ago

discovered on other MAX 9s, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded the planes and opened an investigation into whether MAX is safe to fly, accompanied by a stern warning, saying, “This incident should have never happened, and... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George; Air Transportation; Transportation; Aerospace

2025
Book

Space to Grow: Unlocking the Final Economic Frontier

By: Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau

Your guide--using the compelling stories of changemakers and the tools of economics--to the transformation and future possibilities of the business and economics of space.

Space is a place of unparalleled possibility for humanity, and it's undergoing a... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Economics; Innovation and Invention; Market Entry and Exit; Aerospace Industry

September 2024
Case

InfraCredit and the Project Inception Facility

By: John Macomber, Namrata Arora and Maagatha Kalavadakken

Around the world, large infrastructure projects are frequently stymied by the high cost and high uncertainty of the project inception phase: the research and engineering and planning prior to financial close and start of construction. Could there be a new kind of... View Details

January 2023 (Revised December 2023)
Case

OhmConnect: Energizing the Future

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Jennifer Fonstad and Nicole Tempest Keller

Founded in 2013, OhmConnect was a free consumer web app that alerted customers about peak hours of electricity demand, and paid them to lower their energy use at home during these periods. The company sold the aggregated reductions generated by thousands of households... View Details

Keywords: App Development; Renewable Energy; Electricity Usage; Regulations; VC; Technology; Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC); Scalability; Applications and Software; Growth and Development Strategy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business Model; Venture Capital; Energy Industry; United States; California; Texas; Europe

20 Jul 2009
Research & Ideas

Markets or Communities? The Best Ways to Manage Outside Innovation

Thanks to technology and instant global communication, it has never been easier for companies to seek solutions to problems or find new ideas from sources outside their own corporate walls. But the art of managing these external... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

February 2011 (Revised July 2013)
Case

A123 Systems: Power. Safety. Life.

By: Richard H.K. Vietor

A123 Systems, the largest manufacturer of lithium ion batteries in North America, is producing and selling batteries for electric vehicles in China and electric buses in Europe and America. It just opened two plants in Michigan, partially funded by a grant from... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Diversification; Machinery and Machining; Renewable Energy; Transportation; Management Skills; Corporate Finance; Auto Industry; Battery Industry