Publications

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March 2022 (Revised July 2022)
Case

Nexleaf Analytics: Saving the World Using the Internet of Things

By: Frank Nagle

In 2019, a decade after co-founding Nexleaf Analytics, CEO Nithya Ramanathan faced an important decision that would impact the ability of the small, but growing, not-for-profit organization to thrive for another decade. Their sensor technologies and big data analytics... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Nonprofit Organizations; Competitive Strategy; Patents; Expansion; Information Technology; Health Industry; Information Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Technology Industry

04 Aug 2006
What Do You Think?

What Happens When the Economics of Scarcity Meets the Economics of Abundance?

of scarcity has not been repealed by the digital Long Tail prices are set by demand, not the constraints of supply." Edward Hare opened an aspect of the debate that several commented on when he said, "The rules of economics have... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

June 2004 (Revised June 2006)
Case

Scientific-Atlanta, Inc.

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Scientific-Atlantia (S-A), a leading manufacturer of cable TV equipment, is confronting strategic challenges in mid-2004. For decades, cable operators have faced high switching costs that have locked them into exclusive supply relationships with either S-A or its... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Competition; Industry Structures; Television Entertainment; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Manufacturing Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry

August 2023 (Revised October 2023)
Case

Beyond the Barricades: Chile 2023

By: Debora Spar, Willis Emmons, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Ruth Costas

Chile, often considered among Latin America's greatest economic success stories, suffered a shocking wave of protests in October 2019, as its citizens demanded reforms across healthcare and education systems, and protested inequality and rising costs of living. As... View Details

Keywords: Government Administration; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth; Social Issues; Wealth and Poverty; Public Opinion; Equality and Inequality; Public Administration Industry; Chile; Latin America; South America

13 Feb 2007
First Look

First Look: February 13, 2007

Working PapersAdding Bricks to Clicks: The Effects of Store Openings on Sales through Direct Channels Authors:Jill Avery, Mary Caravella, John Deighton, and Thomas Steenburgh Abstract We assess the effect of View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Throwing Your Opponent: Strategies for the Internet Age

the dynamic introduced by companies like Netscape that have helped build the information infrastructure of the Internet age. Yoffie and Cusumano point out, for example, that one of Netscape's pioneering achievements was reducing the typical development time for new... View Details

Keywords: by Daniel Penrice

Innovation Without Borders; Innovations, Summer 2007

The willingness to connect with an external network is key in an environment where products and services are themselves increasingly inter-connected. We see trends in this direction for a variety of reasons, either because uses of multiple products are complementary... View Details

Program

Competing in the Age of AI—Virtual

the creation of algorithms, software infrastructure, data pipelines, and experimentation platforms Guide your organization in the development of sophisticated data platforms and artificial intelligence capabilities and enable higher... View Details

13 Mar 2012
First Look

First Look: March 13

census. We document a shift to smaller shops following a 1996 regulatory change that increased the costs of opening large stores. Our analysis suggests that total factor productivity (TFP) of multi-store retail chains fell after the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

06 Aug 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Buy Local? The Geography of Successful and Unsuccessful Venture Capital Expansion

Keywords: by Henry Chen, Paul A. Gompers, Anna Kovner & Josh Lerner

2009
Chapter

Collaboration Across Knowledge Boundaries within Diverse Teams: Reciprocal Expertise Affirmation as an Enabling Condition

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Kate Roloff and Lucy H. MacPhail

We review research on expertise diversity, psychological safety, team collaboration, and role identity to propose a model in which reciprocal affirmations of expertise identity among team members—a feature of the team environment that we conceptualize as a dimension of... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Experience and Expertise; Learning; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Groups and Teams; Familiarity; Identity; Cooperation

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Porter’s Perspective: Competing in the Global Economy

matter? A: Absolutely. It's a very interesting paradox. In a global economy where it's easy to move goods and information around the world, these things become givens available to any enterprise. As a result, they are no longer a source... View Details

Keywords: Re: Michael E. Porter

03 Apr 2009
What Do You Think?

How Much Obsolescence Can Business and Society Absorb?

viewpoint will become more isolated and narrow." Brenda Walker, who chided me for not supplying the Internet link to the David Brooks column that I referenced, suggested that "trusted sources of information filtering will have... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Publishing; Journalism & News

October 2015 (Revised October 2016)
Case

Building Watson: Not So Elementary, My Dear! (Abridged)

By: Willy C. 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: Analytics; Big Data; Business Analytics; Product Development Strategy; Machine Learning; Machine Intelligence; Artificial Intelligence; Product Development; AI and Machine Learning; Information Technology; Analytics and Data Science; Information Technology Industry; United States

Web

HBS Working Knowledge – Harvard Business School Faculty Research

people do. Julian De Freitas and colleagues pit humans against machines in a video game to study AI's current limits and mine insights for the real world. Open Source Software: The $9 Trillion Resource... View Details

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

2016
Working Paper

The Skills Gap and the Near-Far Problem in Executive Education and Leadership Development

By: Mihnea Moldoveanu and Das Narayandas

Executive development programs have entered a period of rapid transformation, driven on one side by the proliferation of a new technological, cultural, and economic landscape commonly referred to as “digital disruption” and on the other by a widening gap between the... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Executive Education; Disruption; Management Skills

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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