Publications
Publications
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(2,119)
- Faculty Publications (393)
- January 2017 (Revised August 2019)
- Case
X Fire Paintball & Airsoft: Is Amazon a Friend or Foe? (A)
By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella
Three years after launching his brick-and-mortar store, X Fire Paintball and Airsoft, Steve Herbert Sr. and his sons began selling products on Amazon.com’s third-party Marketplace, and online sales expanded rapidly. Over time, X Fire noticed that products of which it... View Details
- January 2017 (Revised August 2019)
- Supplement
X Fire Paintball & Airsoft: Is Amazon a Friend or Foe? (B)
By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella
Three years after launching his brick-and-mortar store, X Fire Paintball and Airsoft, Steve Herbert Sr. and his sons began selling products on Amazon.com’s third-party Marketplace and online sales expanded rapidly. Over time, X Fire noticed that products of which it... View Details
- January 2017 (Revised April 2017)
- Supplement
Bridj and the Business of Urban Mobility (B): A New Model in Kansas City
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen
In late 2016, Bridj was expanding its digital platform to help address urban mobility problems faced by cities across the country and the world. Its founder and CEO, Matt George, weighed up several possible strategies for growth as he aimed to responsibly build the... View Details
Keywords: Mobility; Digital; Mobile App; Mobile; Data; Platform; Organization; Startup; Start-up Growth; Startup Management; Responsibility; Corporate Responsibility; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Transportation; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Platforms; Mobile and Wireless Technology; United States; District of Columbia; Massachusetts; Kansas; Mexico
- January 2017 (Revised March 2017)
- Case
IBM Transforming, 2012–2016: Ginni Rometty Steers Watson
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen
To transform IBM for the next technology wave, Ginni Rometty, who became CEO in 2012, led divestment of declining businesses, made acquisitions in digital innovation and cloud computing, formed partnerships with former competitors such as Apple and tech startups, and... View Details
- October 2016
- Case
Addicaid: Scaling a Digital Platform for Addiction Wellness and Recovery
By: Robert S. Huckman and Sarah Mehta
In 2013, Sam Frons founded Addicaid—a mobile application (app) that allowed people in addiction recovery to track their progress, check in with counselors, and connect with others in recovery programs. The app was grounded in cognitive behavioral therapy and used the... View Details
- October 2016 (Revised February 2019)
- Case
PTC: A Transformation to IoT
By: Rajiv Lal and Sarah McAra
In the 2010s, PTC, a leading provider of software for discrete manufacturers, faced maturing markets and changing customer needs as smart, connected products took hold—the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT). PTC saw a first mover advantage in entering the IoT space... View Details
- October 2016 (Revised March 2017)
- Case
Airbnb in Amsterdam (A)
By: Mitchell Weiss, Emer Moloney and Vincent Dessain
In February 2014, Amsterdam became the first city to issue new regulations specifically to allow home sharing. Airbnb's Molly Turner, global head of civic partnerships; her colleagues at the San Francisco–based home sharing platform; and her counterparts in Amsterdam's... View Details
Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Sharing Economy; Amsterdam; Airbnb; Molly Turner; Regulation; Homesharing; Tourism; Business And Government; Public-private Partnership; Entrepreneurship; Business and Government Relations; Government Administration; Public Sector; City; Tourism Industry; Public Administration Industry; Travel Industry; Netherlands; Europe
- September 2016 (Revised March 2020)
- Teaching Note
Fasten: Challenging Uber and Lyft with a New Business Model
By: Feng Zhu
Fasten, a new ridesharing start-up in Boston, entered the scene in September 2015 hoping its unique vision of transparency for both driver and passenger and strategy to keep riders' fares low and charge drivers a flat $0.99 fee per ride, as opposed to the 20%–30%... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Angie's List: Ratings Pioneer Turns 20
By: Robert J. Dolan and Ayelet Israeli
In 1995, before people “googled” or “yelped,” Angela Hicks (HBS, 2000) was establishing her Angie’s List as a pioneer in the accumulation and dissemination of consumer rating information. Hicks focused on the home repair and maintenance market and, as she put it,... View Details
Keywords: Pricing; Pricing Strategy; Services; Product Line Management; Growth; Conjoint Analysis; Market Research; Freemium; Growth Strategy; Two Sided Markets; Ecommerce; Platform; Platform Business; Platform Businesses; Platform Strategy; Platforms; Platforms And Ecosystems; Business Model; Internet and the Web; Business Growth and Maturation; Growth and Development Strategy; Price; Strategy; Digital Platforms; E-commerce; Service Industry; United States
- 2016
- Working Paper
Immigrant Entrepreneurship
By: Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr
We examine immigrant entrepreneurship and the survival and growth of immigrant-founded businesses over time relative to native-founded companies. Our work quantifies immigrant contributions to new firm creation in a wide variety of fields using multiple definitions.... View Details
- Summer 2016
- Article
The Real Lessons From Kodak's Decline
By: Willy C. Shih
Eastman Kodak is often mischaracterized as a company whose managers didn't recognize soon enough that digital technology would decimate its traditional business. However, what really happened at Kodak is much more complicated—and instructive. Kodak suffered from a... View Details
- June 2016 (Revised August 2019)
- Case
Numenta: Inventing and (or) Commercializing AI
By: David B. Yoffie, Liz Kind and David Ben Shimol
In March 2016, Donna Dubinsky (co-founder and CEO) and Jeff Hawkins (co-founder) were struggling with a key question: Could Numenta be successful in both creating fundamental technology and building a commercial business? Located in Redwood City, CA, Numenta was... View Details
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Machine Intelligence; Machine Learning; Strategy; Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Information; Technological Innovation; Research; Research and Development; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Digital Platforms; Commercialization; AI and Machine Learning
- June 2016
- Case
Duff & Phelps: Scaling an Entrepreneurial Venture (A)
By: Lynda M. Applegate and David Lane
Having teamed up to launch their own financial services business, Noah Gottdiener and Jacob Silverman soon discover a venerable brand and viable business in an established bank subsidiary. They then work for many months to acquire the business as a platform for... View Details
- June 2016
- Case
Big Spaceship: The Evolving Agency
By: Boris Groysberg and Matthew G. Preble
This case discusses the evolution of Big Spaceship, an advertising and marketing agency, from a product-focused business to a relationship-oriented one as clients seek deeper and more meaningful long-term partnerships. The 15-year-old company had already evolved... View Details
- June 2016
- Case
Publicis Groupe 2016: Maurice and the Millennials
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen
Having built Publicis Groupe through acquisitions maintained as separate brands, CEO Maurice Lévy wanted to transform the advertising and marketing firm to an integrated digital-ready enterprise to address industry changes. In early 2016, following a reorganization, he... View Details
Keywords: Managing Change; Transformations; Digital; Millennials; Change; Innovation; Acquisitions; Merger; Culture; Advertising Agency; Reorganization; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Information Technology; Change Management; Restructuring; Management Succession; Marketing; Mergers and Acquisitions; Transformation; Innovation and Invention; Digital Marketing; Advertising Industry
- May 2016 (Revised March 2020)
- Case
Fasten: Challenging Uber and Lyft with a New Business Model
By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella
Fasten, a new ridesharing start-up in Boston, entered the scene in September 2015 hoping its unique vision of transparency for both driver and passenger and strategy to keep riders' fares low and charge drivers a flat $0.99 fee per ride as opposed to the 20-30%... View Details
- May 2016 (Revised April 2018)
- Case
Building the Digital Manufacturing Enterprise of the Future at Siemens
By: Willy Shih
This case describes the motivation for and the development of Siemens' digital manufacturing enterprise vision, which became the foundation for its implementation of Industrie 4.0. While the effort started with a purely defensive move by Anton Huber, head of the... View Details
Keywords: Big Data; Internet Of Things; Internet Of Everything; Industrie 4.0; Digital Factory; Digital Enterprise; Digital Manufacturing; Manufacturing; Production Management; Production Planning; Computer Software; Germany; German Manufacturing; Machinery and Machining; Information Technology; Digital Platforms; Technological Innovation; Production; Supply Chain; Applications and Software; Information Infrastructure; Internet and the Web; Analytics and Data Science; Manufacturing Industry; Germany
- Article
Crowdsourcing City Government: Using Tournaments to Improve Inspection Accuracy
By: Edward Glaeser, Andrew Hillis, Scott Duke Kominers and Michael Luca
The proliferation of big data makes it possible to better target city services like hygiene inspections, but city governments rarely have the in-house talent needed for developing prediction algorithms. Cities could hire consultants, but a cheaper alternative is to... View Details
- Article
Products to Platforms: Making the Leap
By: Feng Zhu and Nathan Furr
Following the path of companies such as Apple and Amazon, more and more firms are trying to become not just product purveyors but also platform providers, facilitating direct connections between customers and other groups. Although launching a platform can generate new... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Market
By: Feng Zhu
Strategy scholars have documented in various empirical settings that firms seek and leverage stronger institutions to mitigate hazards and gain competitive advantage. In this paper, we argue that such “institution-seeking” behavior may not be confined to the pursuit of... View Details