Publications

August 2001 (Revised January 2002)
Case

Votia Empowerment AB (A)

The founder of a Swedish company specializing in e-democracy examines the economics of her business and the value proposition it delivers to customers, including municipalities, unions, and companies. View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Communication; Entrepreneurship; Government and Politics; Sweden

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20 Jan 2016
Research & Ideas

Maybe Uber isn't God's Gift to Mankind

It’s easy to understand why so many people embrace transportation network companies like Uber and the growing number of other ride-sourcing startups, which enable drivers to make money using their own vehicles. By allowing passengers to... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Transportation; Insurance

21 Oct 2024
Research & Ideas

What Happens in Vegas Could Shape the Metaverse

When science fiction writer Neal Stephenson dreamed of the metaverse—a term he coined in his 1992 novel Snow Crash—he envisioned a long city street that’s “always garish and brilliant, like Las Vegas freed from constraints View Details

Keywords: by Scott Nover; Computer; Information Technology

18 May 2015
News

Changing the conversation on US infrastructure challenges

Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s interest in US transportation and infrastructure began well before Boston’s record-setting 2015 snowstorms focused national attention on the downside of deferred maintenance for aging public transit systems. In... View Details

05 Sep 2006
First Look

First Look: September 5, 2006

helping intentions; in other words, those participants who did not dehumanize outgroup victims were the individuals most likely to report volunteering for hurricane relief efforts. Internet Companies' Growth Strategies: Determinants View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2006 (Revised January 2007)
Case

MercadoLibre.com

By: Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez, Joshua Bellin and James Robert Dillon

MercadoLibre.com, eBay's Latin-American partner, needed to decide how far it was going to follow eBay's practice of offering "free listing days" and discounted special-feature days. Was this type of promotion prudent, given MercadoLibre.com's customer base, revenue... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Auctions; Service Industry; Latin America

Profile

Hiroshi Mikitani

Europe, Latin America and Asia. “Our mission is to be the number one Internet company in the world,” Mikitani said. In a recent post on LinkedIn, Mikitani shared his thoughts on how to become a successful entrepreneur. He... View Details

September 2016 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Collage.com: Scaling a Distributed Organization

By: Christopher Stanton and Shikhar Ghosh

Kevin Borders and Joe Golden, co-founders and co-CEOs of Collage.com, must decide how to grow their custom photo-products startup in the face of fierce competition. From 2011 through 2016, the business evolved from a hobby to a startup with $22 million in revenue and... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Internet and the Web; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Employees; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Service Industry

April 2000
Background Note

e-Consulting

By: Ashish Nanda, Thomas J. DeLong, Thomas E. Agan and Scot H. Landry

Provides an overview of the history and development of the e-consulting industry, as well as the issues facing it. View Details

Keywords: History; Internet and the Web; Growth and Development; Consulting Industry

14 Feb 2005
Research & Ideas

The World in Your Palm?

both a car wax and dessert topping. At the moment, the cell phone is the closest thing we have to a fully converged device, said panelists, who represented device makers, telecom service providers, and operating system developers. Many... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

March 2020 (Revised July 2020)
Case

LULA: Transforming Transport and Mobility (A)

By: Siko Sikochi and Hayley (Le) Ma

Based in Cape Town, LULA was founded to create and operate a Mobility-as-a-Service platform with the aim to integrate different modes of transport through a one-ticket solution. LULA was “easy” in isiZulu, a language spoken in South Africa. Yet, it wasn’t easy for LULA... View Details

Keywords: Mobility; Transportation; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Problems and Challenges; Opportunities; South Africa

2019
Working Paper

Real Exchange Rate Behavior: New Evidence from Matched Retail Goods

By: Alberto Cavallo, Brent Neiman and Roberto Rigobon

We use a dataset containing daily prices for thousands of matched retail products in nine countries to study tradable-goods real exchange rates. Prices were collected from the websites of large multi-channel retailers and then carefully matched into narrowly-deﬁned... View Details

Keywords: Purchasing Power Parity; Online Prices; Real Exchange Rate; Macroeconomics; Currency Exchange Rate; Price; Internet and the Web

Read Now

04 Apr 2022
Research & Ideas

Tech Hubs: How Software Brought Talent and Prosperity to New Cities

rise of 3G, of the internet,” Kerr says. “You had a couple of wars, you had a great recession, you had 9/11. There's been lots and lots of View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

December 1998
Case

Casto Travel

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Susan Harmeling

Maryles Casto had the vision to build the largest travel agency in Silicon Valley, mirroring the growth pattern of the entire area. In 1997 the travel business changed dramatically as airlines chose not to pay travel agencies the fees they once did. Simultaneously, the... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Finance; Internet and the Web; Change Management; Markets; Travel Industry

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01 Jun 2001
News

Teaching for the Ages: the MBA Classroom in the 21st Century

different could things be?” It’s only been thirteen years since I graduated from HBS, and we in the Class of 1988 were remarkably forward-thinking about technology. Ours was the first class to have a subject... View Details

Keywords: Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Educational Services

May 2000 (Revised August 2000)
Case

Service and Value in e-Commerce

This collection of readings illustrates the importance of service and logistics in e-commerce, focusing on e-Toys' disastrous 1999 holiday season. View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Internet and the Web; Service Operations; Logistics; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry