Publications

June 2025
Article

Integral Outside: The Financial Curb Market, the Electric Telegraph, and the Politics of Pricing in Second Empire France

By: Charlotte Robertson

Financial markets in nineteenth-century France were far more complex than an analysis of the official Bourse or its state-authorized brokers would suggest. Most financial transactions occurred on an illegal yet tacitly tolerated curb market called the coulisse, which... View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; History; Communication Technology; Knowledge Dissemination; France

21 Feb 2012
First Look

First Look: Feb. 21

information is a central determinant of a firm's demand function, even for purchases as large as college attendance. When Do User Innovators Start Firms? A Theory of User Entrepreneurship Authors:Sonali Shah and Mary Tripsas... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

24 Nov 2009
Working Paper Summaries

From Strategy to Business Models and to Tactics

Keywords: by Ramon Casadesus-Masanell & Joan Enric Ricart

March 2022 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Proximie: Using XR Technology to Create Borderless Operating Rooms

By: Ariel D. Stern and Alpana Thapar

In mid-January 2022, Nadine Hachach-Haram, founder and CEO of Proximie, was thinking about the company’s growth plans. Launched in 2016, Proximie was a platform that enabled clinicians, proctors, and medical device company personnel to be virtually present in operating... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Technological Innovation; Partners and Partnerships; Strategic Planning; Health Care and Treatment; Analytics and Data Science; Digital Platforms; Health Industry; Lebanon; United Kingdom; United States

25 Jun 2014
Lessons from the Classroom

FIELD Trip: Conquering the Gap Between Knowing and Doing

benefit from a fresh and open perspective. For students, meanwhile, the experience of generating insights that could have real-world repercussions in a foreign country is empowering, says MacCormack, even if they never plan to work... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Education

06 Feb 2006
Research & Ideas

Sorting Out the Patent Craze

products. The need to work with other manufacturers was quite limited. Today, the world is much more complicated. Not only are many more firms pursuing innovations in key technologies, but firms are much more willing to patent these... View Details

Keywords: by Sara Grant; Technology

28 Aug 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, August 28, 2018

scant direct empirical research on how human interaction patterns change as a result of these architectural changes. In two intervention-based field studies of corporate headquarters transitioning to more open office spaces, we... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

Research Summary

Competing on a Common Platform

Why have over 100 firms joined the Eclipse Foundation to collectively produce an open source platform and tools for software application development? What are they trying to accomplish? This research analyzes IBMs divestment of the Eclipse Java Integrated Development... View Details

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Nagle studies how competitors can collaborate on the creation of core technologies, while still competing on the products and services built on top of them. His research falls into the broader categories of the futures of work, the economics of IT, and... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Strategy; Technological Innovation; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Economic Growth; Entrepreneurship; Technology; Internet; Mobile Technology; Online Technology; Technology Adoption; Technology Networks

04 Feb 2014
Working Paper Summaries

From Crowds to Collaborators: Initiating Effort and Catalyzing Interactions Among Online Creative Workers

Keywords: by Kevin J. Boudreau, Patrick Gaule, Karim R. Lakhani, Christoph Riedl & Anita Williams Woolley

June 2019 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Eric Hawkins Leading Agile Teams @ Digitally-Born AppFolio (A)

By: Tsedal Neeley, Paul Leonardi and Michael Norris

Eric Hawkins, director of engineering at AppFolio—a digital technology firm that offered cloud-based business software to small and medium sized companies—was shocked by an unusual request from his senior leadership team. Could Hawkins and one of his agile teams build... View Details

Keywords: Values; Agile; Vision; Corporate Culture; Leadership; Values and Beliefs; Organizational Culture; Decision Choices and Conditions; Digital Transformation; Technology Industry; United States; California

April 2001 (Revised July 2001)
Case

Verge Software (A)

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and Elizabeth Kind

Scott Rozic, CEO of start-up Verge Software, has just told his board that he is taking the company in a totally new direction, moving from enterprise knowledge management software to Internet direct marketing. This case covers the start-up of the business, and Rozic's... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Investment; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Business Strategy; Technological Innovation; Applications and Software; Management Teams; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Product Development; Information Technology Industry; United States

May 2008 (Revised March 2010)
Supplement

Palm (D): Epilogue as of 2008

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Kevin Boudreau and Jordan Mitchell

This case series looks at three important inflection points in Palm's history that relate to decisions about its platform: when the company was debating whether to open its operating system (OS) for licensing to third-party hardware manufacturers; 2001, when the... View Details

Keywords: History; Decisions; Business Model; Technological Innovation; Value Creation; Digital Platforms; Rights; Competition

Spring 2016
Article

Performance Responses to Competition Across Skill-Levels in Rank Order Tournaments: Field Evidence and Implications for Tournament Design

By: Kevin J. Boudreau, Karim R. Lakhani and Michael E. Menietti

Tournaments are widely used in the economy to organize production and innovation. We study individual contestant-level data from 2,796 contestants in 774 software algorithm design contests with random assignment. Precisely conforming to theory predictions, the... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Innovation Strategy

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May 2008 (Revised March 2010)
Supplement

Palm (C): 2005

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Kevin Boudreau and Jordan Mitchell

This case series looks at three important inflection points in Palm's history that relate to decisions about its platform: when the company was debating whether to open its operating system (OS) for licensing to third-party hardware manufacturers; 2001, when the... View Details

Keywords: History; Decisions; Business Model; Technological Innovation; Value Creation; Digital Platforms; Rights; Competition

02 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

10 Trends to Watch in 2024

The lightning-fast ascent of generative AI isn’t the only sea change on the horizon for businesses in the new year. The global economy is in flux as war, climate change, trade issues, and infrastructure problems demand attention. Many companies continue to struggle to... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

February 2024
Case

Horizon Quantum Computing

By: Paul A. Gompers and Billy Chan

In 2023, the Singapore-based startup company Horizon Quantum Computing was on the cusp of fast expansion and the founder faced the challenge to decide where to open the second office outside Singapore. To make a choice from the list of 10 countries, the founder had to... View Details

Keywords: Business Plan; Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurial Finance; Disruptive Innovation; Business Offices; Business Startups; Talent and Talent Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Partners and Partnerships; Expansion; Information Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Singapore; Asia

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