Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(5,367)
- Faculty Publications (1,016)
- March 2019 (Revised May 2019)
- Case
Fetchr: A New Way of Last Mile Delivery
By: V.G. Narayanan and Eren Kuzucu
By mid-2016, five years of aggressive growth had transformed Fetchr from a small logistics startup to a 1,000-employee, full-fledged last-mile delivery company operating across four countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Already beneficiaries of the... View Details
Keywords: Startup; Decision; Financial Strategy; UAE; KSA; MENA; Cost Accounting; Business Model; Business Startups; Transformation; Cost Management; Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Logistics; Service Delivery; Supply Chain Management; Performance Evaluation; Mathematical Methods; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Transportation Networks; Middle East; United Arab Emirates; Dubai; Bahrain; Egypt; Saudi Arabia; North Africa
- 2019
- Working Paper
How Rupert Murdoch Outfoxed Larry Tisch: Ten Enduring Lessons from the Negotiations that Wrested the NFL from CBS
A remarkable 1993 negotiation rocked the world of American football with aftershocks that have directly shaped today’s entertainment and media landscapes and even our polarized politics. In December of that year, Rupert Murdoch’s fledgling Fox Network unexpectedly... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Immigrant Networking and Collaboration: Survey Evidence from CIC
By: Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr
Networking and the giving and receiving of advice outside of one’s own firm are important features of entrepreneurship and innovation. We study how immigrants and natives utilize the potential networking opportunities provided by CIC, formerly known as the Cambridge... View Details
- 2019
- Article
Structural Balance Emerges and Explains Performance in Risky Decision-Making
By: Omid Askarisichani, Jacqueline N. Lane, Francesco Bullo, Noah E. Friedkin, Ambuj K. Singh and Brian Uzzi
Polarization affects many forms of social organization. A key issue focuses on which affective relationships are prone to change and how their change relates to performance. In this study,
we analyze a financial institutional over a two-year period that employed 66... View Details
- January–February 2019
- Article
Why Some Platforms Thrive and Others Don't
By: Feng Zhu and Marco Iansiti
In the digital economy, scale is no guarantee of continued success. After all, the same factors that help an online platform expand quickly—such as the low cost of adding new customers—work for challengers too. What, then, allows platforms to fight off rivals and grow... View Details
- December 2018 (Revised July 2023)
- Case
Instituto Dara: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty and Illness at Scale
By: Julie Battilana, Marissa Kimsey, Priscilla Zogbi and Johanna Mair
Dr. Vera Cordeiro founded the NGO Instituto Dara in 1991 to help poor families break the cycle of poverty and illness in Brazil. She and her team of employees and volunteers developed a holistic methodology to address the multidimensional sources of poverty based on... View Details
- December 2018 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Fishbowl: Scaling Up
By: Leslie K. John
Fishbowl is a social media app that allows professionals to connect with other relevant professionals both within their company and across industry. Unlike many other social media apps, on which users typically present idealized portraits of themselves, on Fishbowl,... View Details
Keywords: Communication Technologies; Customer Value; Value Chain; Interpersonal Communication; Talent and Talent Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Advertising; Product Marketing; Digital Platforms; Consumer Behavior; Network Effects; Emotions; Motivation and Incentives; Trust; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Social Media; Communications Industry; Employment Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; United States
- December 2018
- Case
Choosy
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Julia Kelley
Founded in 2017, Choosy is a data-driven fashion startup that uses algorithms to identify styles trending on social media. After manufacturing similar items using a China-based supply chain, Choosy sells them to consumers through its website and social media pages.... View Details
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Algorithms; Machine Learning; Neural Networks; Instagram; Influencer; Fast Fashion; Design; Customer Satisfaction; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Making; Cost vs Benefits; Innovation and Invention; Brands and Branding; Product Positioning; Demand and Consumers; Supply Chain; Production; Logistics; Business Model; Expansion; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Digital Platforms; Social Media; Technology Industry; Fashion Industry; North and Central America; United States; New York (state, US); New York (city, NY)
- December 2018
- Teaching Note
The Swedish Academy #MeToo Scandal and the Reputation of the Nobel Prize
By: Stephen A. Greyser and Mats Urde
A classroom guide to teaching the case, “The Swedish Academy #MeToo Scandal and the Reputation of the Nobel Prize” (HBS No. 5-919-410). A fictional case protagonist must present his evaluation to the Nobel Foundation of the scandal affecting one of the Nobel... View Details
- December 2018
- Case
The Swedish Academy #MeToo Scandal and the Reputation of the Nobel Prize
By: Stephen A. Greyser and Mats Urde
This case focuses on the potential for “reputational contagion” to the Nobel Prize from a scandal affecting one of its independent network member entities, the Swedish Academy. The latter is responsible for selecting the Nobel Prize in Literature, by appointment of... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
OTC Intermediaries
By: Andrea L. Eisfeldt, Bernard Herskovic, Sriram Rajan and Emil Siriwardane
Over-the-counter (OTC) markets for financial assets are dominated by a relatively small number of core intermediaries and a large number of peripheral customers. In this paper, we develop a model of trade in a core-periphery network and estimate its key structural... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Platform Competition: Betfair and the U.K. Market for Sports Betting
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Neil Campbell
We examine two episodes of strategic interaction in the U.K. betting industry: (i) Betfair (an entrant multi-sided platform or MSP) vs. Flutter (also an MSP), and (ii) Betfair vs. traditional bookmakers. We find that although Betfair was an underfunded second mover in... View Details
- November 2018
- Case
Goldman Sachs: The 10,000 Small Businesses Program
By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and Aldo Sesia
In 2008, Goldman Sachs started the 10,000 Small Businesses program to help small businesses in the United States by providing education and a network of support—at no cost —and access to capital. It required the firm to create a new business ecosystem with a wide... View Details
- November 2018 (Revised December 2020)
- Technical Note
Initial Coin Offerings in 2018
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Nathaniel Schwalb
In 2018, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) were an emerging fundraising method for blockchain-based projects. As the ecosystem grew, there were many open questions on regulation, pricing, and even which projects were a good fit for blockchain. However, there was already... View Details
- November 2018
- Case
Swissgrid: Enterprise Risk Management in a Digital Age
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Anette Mikes
Kurt Meyer, chief risk officer of Swissgrid, the Swiss national electricity transmission system operator, reflects on the risk management system he installed after the deregulation and liberalization of the European energy market. With 41 connections to other European... View Details
- November–December 2018
- Article
Online Network Revenue Management Using Thompson Sampling
By: Kris J. Ferreira, David Simchi-Levi and He Wang
We consider a network revenue management problem where an online retailer aims to maximize revenue from multiple products with limited inventory constraints. As common in practice, the retailer does not know the consumer's purchase probability at each price and must... View Details
- October 2018
- Case
Accomplice: Scaling Early Stage Finance
By: Ramana Nanda, Raffaella Sadun and Olivia Hull
Accomplice, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Boston, is raising its second fund in November 2017. Since 2009, the firm has followed a seed-led investment model, investing in tech companies at the earliest stages, often when products and business models are... View Details
Keywords: Early Stage Finance; Seed Finance; Scouts; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Private Equity; Investment Portfolio; Organizational Structure; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Partners and Partnerships; Networks; Adaptation; Corporate Strategy; Technology; Financial Services Industry; Massachusetts; Boston; Cambridge; United States
- 2018
- Working Paper
Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 5 Complementarity
The purpose of this chapter is to relate the theory of task networks and technology set forth in previous chapters to theories of firm boundaries from economics and management. Complementary goods have more value when used together than separately. Complementarity may... View Details
Keywords: Complementarity
- September 2018
- Case
OYO: Creating Effective Spaces
By: Das Narayandas, Sunil Gupta, Rachna Tahilyani and Mahima Rao-Kachroo
Twenty-four-year old Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of India-based online hotel branding network OYO Rooms, has tackled the issue of unreliability in India's highly fragmented budget hotel industry. In 2018, OYO branded 8,500 properties across 200 cities and managed... View Details
- September 2018 (Revised April 2019)
- Case
Sigfox: Building a Global IoT Network
By: Rajiv Lal, Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej and Emilie Billaud
In 2018, Ludovic Le Moan and Christophe Fourtet, co-founders of the French tech startup Sigfox, reflected on the evolution of their venture and the way forward. Founded in 2009, Sigfox was a company that provided a global connectivity network for devices connected to... View Details