Publications

14 Aug 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 14, 2018

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=54794 Harvard Business School Case 518-047 Armarium: Luxury Fashion Brands for Rent Armarium, a two-sided online platform that offered consumers the opportunity to rent the most coveted, current season View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

22 Jun 2017
News

Silicon Valley Investors Flexed Their Muscles in Uber Fight

March 2018 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Cadre

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Scott Duke Kominers and David Lane

Late in 2017, CEO Ryan Williams and his team debated whether Cadre should become not only a technology-enabled investment manager, but also an online trading exchange providing high levels of liquidity for investors in commercial real estate (CRE) equity. Cadre was a... View Details

Keywords: ＂Cadre,＂; Entrepreneurship; Market Design; Digital Platforms; Strategy; Internet and the Web; Private Equity; Financial Services Industry; Real Estate Industry; United States

June 2007 (Revised April 2009)
Case

Intel 2006: Rising to the Graphics Challenge

By: Willy C. Shih and Elie Ofek

Examines the evolution of the PC hardware industry over the span of two and a half decades. The open architecture design of the IBM Personal Computer followed by the rapid appearance of clones drove a high level of standardization and modularity in the industry, and... View Details

Keywords: History; Customer Value and Value Chain; Decision Choices and Conditions; Information Infrastructure; Competitive Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Technology Industry

April 1999 (Revised September 2000)
Case

Interep National Radio Sales, Inc.

By: Benson P. Shapiro, Stephen X. Doyle and Wade Myers

Interep must mobilize sales information technology, organizational structures, and sales management processes to protect and enhance its strong position as a radio advertising sales firm. Opportunities and risks are high in this complex, rapidly changing sales agency... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Sales; Strategy; Information Technology; Advertising; Risk and Uncertainty; Opportunities; Fluctuation; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Advertising Industry; New York (state, US)

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February 1991 (Revised April 1991)
Case

Zenith and High-Definition Television--1990

By: Benjamin Gomes-Casseres, David B. Yoffie and Heather A. Hazard

Describes Zenith's strategy in HDTV and high resolution monitors. Includes overview of HDTV industry with profiles of major competitors worldwide and policies of U.S., Japanese, and European governments. Focuses on competition over standards setting, industrial policy,... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Standards; Production; Corporate Strategy; Customization and Personalization; Technology Industry; Technology Industry

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September 1999
Background Note

Revolution in the Communications Switching Industry

By: Jay O. Light, Lynda M. Applegate and Daniel J. Green

As data packet switches threatened the voice circuit switch industry in 1999, major switch and router vendors began paying high premiums to acquire venture-backed switch companies. This note explains what a switch is and suggests why large vendors might be so anxious... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Restructuring; Capital; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Communications Industry; Electronics Industry

22 Jun 2021
Research & Ideas

The COVID-19 Mutiny: When Teams Leave and Take Their Clients

remember how you resigned. Industries in flux mean that you may run into someone again in who knows what role, and people working from home with unlimited access to communication technology means that stories will spread like, well,... View Details

Keywords: by Robin Abrahams, Boris Groysberg, and Steven L. Manchel

06 Sep 2022
Blog Post

To Go-Go: A Foodtech Startup Serves Up Scale in Latin America

For all their variety, restaurants have two things in common: a kitchen where food is prepared and a dining area where customers consume it. But what if you could use technology to ditch the dining area and just keep the kitchen, trimming... View Details

03 Mar 2003
Research & Ideas

The Basics of Consumer Marketing in Asia

professor of international business at the Ming Hsin University of Science and Technology in Taiwan, per-capita income varies from $380 to $5,000 annually in different regions. "You have to realize that China is very, very... View Details

Keywords: by Julie Jette

Web

The Five Forces - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

or Services A substitute is another product or service that meets the same underlying need that the industry’s product meets in a different way. Videoconferencing is a substitute for travel. Email is a substitute for express mail. The threat of a substitute is View Details

2003
Book

The Slow Pace of Fast Change: Bringing Innovations to Market in a Connected World

By: Bhaskar Chakravorti

Innovation's encounter with the market results in a game of both high risk and high stakes. Often its outcome defies common sense: Superior new products flop, unlikely ideas become runaway hits, and—despite rapid technological advances and intense... View Details

Keywords: Game Theory; Network Effects; Innovation and Invention; Product Marketing; Economics

July–August 2016
Article

Beyond the Holacracy Hype: The Overwrought Claims—and Actual Promise—of the Next Generation of Self-Managed Teams

By: Ethan Bernstein, John Bunch, Niko Canner and Michael Lee

Holacracy and other forms of self-organization have been getting a lot of press. Proponents hail them as "flat" environments that foster flexibility, engagement, productivity, and efficiency. Critics say they're naive, unrealistic experiments. We argue, using evidence... View Details

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September 2021 (Revised December 2023)
Case

On the Bubble: Startup Bootstrapping

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Tom Quinn and Annelena Lobb

Bubble was a software company in the low-code/no-code market, making tools that allowed users without traditional programming backgrounds or technical skills to build software. The case covers cofounder Joshua Haas’s engineering background, as he experienced a high... View Details

Roberto Verganti is in the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches Design Theory and Practice for the double degree program MS/MBA conducted jointly by the Harvard Business School and the... View Details

Keywords: high technology; high technology; high technology; high technology; high technology; high technology; high technology; high technology; high technology; high technology; high technology; high technology; high technology; high technology; high technology

2020
Working Paper

Determinants of Early-Stage Startup Performance: Survey Results

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

To explore determinants of new venture performance, the CEOs of 470 early-stage startups were surveyed regarding a broad range of factors related to their venture’s customer value proposition, product management, marketing, technology and operations, financial... View Details

Keywords: Startups; Survey Research; Performance Analysis; Entrepreneurship; Performance; Analysis; Business Startups; Failure; Surveys

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2011
Working Paper

The Organization of Firms Across Countries

By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

We argue that social capital as proxied by trust increases aggregate productivity by affecting the organization of firms. To do this we collect new data on the decentralization of investment, hiring, production, and sales decisions from Corporate Headquarters to local... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Multinational Firms and Management; Organizational Structure; Performance Productivity; Trust; Asia; Europe; United States