Publications

August 2024
Case

Iogen: Decarbonizing Hard-to-Abate Sectors

By: George Serafeim, Charlotte Foody and John Mulliken

Brian Foody, CEO of Iogen Corporation, was an early leader in advanced biofuels, developing a range of technologies to transform agricultural waste into transportation fuel. With $100 million in revenue and 350 patents across various biofuel technologies, Iogen was... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Biofuel; Market Attractiveness; Decarbonization; Technological Innovation; Climate Change; Energy; Environmental Sustainability; Transformation; Market Entry and Exit; Strategy; Energy Industry; United States; United Kingdom

April 2017 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Korea Telecom: Building a GiGAtopia (A)

By: Shane Greenstein, Feng Zhu and Kerry Herman

Korea Telecom (KT) has committed $4 billion in investments and R&D to build a GiGAtopia, essentially ushering in the next generation of mobile (5G) and wired infrastructure. CEO Dr. Chang-Gyu Hwang, and his team are considering which areas to prioritize in terms of new... View Details

Keywords: Mobile and Wireless Technology; Technological Innovation; Infrastructure; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Telecommunications Industry

January 2025
Supplement

Wendell Weeks at Corning Inc.

By: Ryan Raffaelli

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Disruptive Innovation; Information Technology; Leadership; Health Pandemics; Technology Industry; United States; New York (city, NY)

01 Mar 2012
News

Learning to Speak the Language of Business

Mikitani Main article: Where Innovation Rules Case study: Englishnization at Rakuten From Pinterest to Kobo, how Japan's Rakuten is building a global internet giant (Wired.co.uk) You might call Hiroshi Mikitani (MBA 1993) the Jeff Bezos... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; e-commerce; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Retail Trade

2004
Working Paper

The Accidental Entrepreneur: The Emergent and Collective Process of User Entrepreneurship

We develop a process model of how users, an understudied source of entrepreneurship, create, evaluate, share, and commercialize their ideas. We compare and contrast our model to the classic model of the entrepreneurial process, highlighting the emergent and collective... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Commercialization; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention

Read Now

17 Nov 2016
News

Wrestler, Actor, Producer, Case Study Protagonist? Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson Stars In His Very Own Harvard Case

07 Dec 2009
Research & Ideas

Government’s Positive Role in Kick-Starting Entrepreneurship

Public Efforts to Boost Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed—and What to Do about It. Government has played similar catalytic roles in creating hubs of innovation is places such as Tel Aviv and Singapore. Such success stories... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

19 May 2003
Lessons from the Classroom

Business Plan Winner Targets India Dropouts

microfinance applied to the problems of education. Specifically, we came to believe that an innovative microfinance-based solution could have a meaningful impact on the reduction of the high dropout rates in primary schools that cause... View Details

Keywords: by Carla Tishler; Financial Services

December 2008 (Revised April 2010)
Case

Proteus Biomedical: Making Pigs Fly

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Lauren Barley and Ginger Graham

Proteus is a healthcare start-up that has developed technology to embed electronics for computing and sensing in existing medical devices and drugs. The technology could potentially change the basis of competition in the pharmaceutical industry. The company is... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Rights; Negotiation Deal; Business Strategy; Health Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

September 1989 (Revised January 1990)
Case

Vinod Khosla and Sun Microsystems (A)

Describes how Vinod Khosla got Sun Microsystems started, and a critical marketing challenge the company faced at the end of the first year. Objective is to illustrate how bold creative thinking can make or break start-ups. View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention; Information Technology Industry; Computer Industry

07 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

XTV: Xerox’s Attempted Recovery From “Fumbling the Future”

This confirmed the rationale back in 1970 for PARC's charter as a separate research center. As Robert Adams, then a Xerox senior vice president, recalled, "The laser printer alone paid for all of the other PARC research projects many times over. If some of the... View Details

Keywords: by Henry Chesbrough

01 Dec 2017
News

The Changing Nature of Research

Rivkin, the C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration and senior associate dean for research. “The world’s problems are becoming increasingly complex and no longer lend themselves to a single method of research.” View Details

05 Apr 2011
First Look

First Look: April 5

helps explain why platforms offering a restricted number of candidates can coexist alongside those offering a larger number of candidates, while charging higher prices. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/10-098.pdf View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Jun 2016
News

Prima Datarina

and more experimental pieces, Boston Ballet has to sell tickets, which is easier to do for a Saturday showing of Cinderella, for example, than a Wednesday evening performance of contemporary works. To address that challenge—and engage a broader audience—Hodges turned... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna

23 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

Partnering and the Balanced Scorecard

diverse units, employees, and constituencies. In this chapter, we describe how effective leaders customize their organization's measurement and management system to partner with their employees for strategy implementation. We also discuss... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton

01 Mar 2011
News

Where the Jobs Are

that the future is now for American manufacturing innovation. In a wide-ranging Q&A with Associate Editor Julia Hanna, Boeing CEO Jim McNerney (MBA ’75) says that innovation is the country’s “most sustainable competitive advantage.” And... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Manufacturing

October 2005 (Revised March 2006)
Case

Strategic Inflection: TiVo in 2005

By: David B. Yoffie, Pai-Ling Yin and Barbara Mack

In the late 1990s, TiVo pioneered the digital video recorder (DVR), a new consumer electronics category. By 2005, the company was the clear leader in technology and installed base. It had also built extraordinary loyalty among its customers. However, TiVo lost a half... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Competition; Partners and Partnerships; Information Infrastructure; Television Entertainment; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry; Electronics Industry