Publications

August 1989 (Revised October 1989)
Case

Avon Co.

Avon engineers developed a new type of electric adjustable speed drive. Executives began to make long-range plans for production and marketing. Members of the sales department wondered what pricing recommendations they should make to management on the basis of... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Price; Product Development; Technology Industry

February 2023
Supplement

Astyanax Kanakakis at norbloc: A Founder's Experience with the DIFC Fintech Hive

By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag

norbloc was founded in 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden, by Astyanax Kanakakis and his co-founders, Vitalii Demianets and Sam Saatchi. Kanakakis and Demianets got to work to address a key gap in the industry: Know Your Customer (KYC) data sharing. As the first distributed KYC... View Details

01 Mar 2021
Blog Post

Climate Finance SIP

outlines how to make this change: “A successful transition plan leverages technological innovation and regulation. Many technologies are ready... View Details

03 Nov 2016
News

17 Ventures Join the Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab

university’s cross-disciplinary ecosystem for exploring innovation and entrepreneurship. Made possible by a gift from Judy (MBA 1983) and Steve Pagliuca (MBA 1982), the Life... View Details

Keywords: Scientific Research and Development Services

September 1994
Case

American Airlines: Object Oriented Flight Dispatching Systems

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Espen Andersen

American Airlines Describes has organized and developed their Systems Operation Control (SOC) center in Dallas, from which the day-to-day running of the airline takes place. This case details the decision support system used by the flight dispatchers, and the... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Product Development; Programs; Complexity; Technology Adoption; Air Transportation; Air Transportation Industry; United States

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November 2016 (Revised December 2016)
Case

Anthology: Pivoting the Business Model

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Christopher Payton

In July 2014, after 18 months and eight unsuccessful product launches, the CEO of Yabbly has agreed to sell his company to a larger, well-funded startup, providing a return of capital for his investors and a home for his team. Two weeks prior to the scheduled closing,... View Details

Keywords: Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Business Model; Business Plan; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Innovation Strategy; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Internet and the Web; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Exit or Shutdown; Fairness; Valuation; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; North America; United States; Seattle

12 May 2020
Cold Call Podcast

Autonomous Vehicles Are Ready to Disrupt Society, Business—and You

Keywords: Re: Elie Ofek & William R. Kerr; Auto

June 1999 (Revised May 2001)
Case

CardioThoracic Systems

CardioThoracic Systems, a company that has developed a new system for performing heart surgery on a beating heart, is facing marketing challenges. Discusses the numerous reasons for the system's low penetration (including existing techniques, surgeon resistance, and a... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Technological Innovation; Situation or Environment; Marketing Strategy; Sales; Health Care and Treatment; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; United States

April 2020
Case

TiVo 2020

By: David B. Yoffie and Daniel Fisher

This short case provides an update on TiVo from 2016-2020. The case covers TiVo merger with Rovi, the turnover of several CEOs, and struggles on how to reposition its product business (the digital video recorder). View Details

Keywords: Streaming; Media; Technological Innovation; Strategy; Media and Broadcasting Industry

August 2023 (Revised December 2023)
Case

Automating Morality: Ethics for Intelligent Machines

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and Tom Quinn

As autonomy became a more significant part of modern life – most notably in autonomous vehicles (AVs), such as Teslas – ethical debates about whether and how to impart ethics to machines heated up. Utilitarians pointed out that autonomous vehicles crashed much less... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Judgments; Fairness; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Disruptive Innovation; Technology Adoption; Risk and Uncertainty; Cognition and Thinking; Technological Innovation; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Africa; Asia; Europe; North and Central America; Oceania; South America

August 2021
Case

Wymsee

By: Julia Austin, Sarah Mehta and Tom Quinn

Wymsee was a company that aimed to develop a mobile application (app) that would allow television audience members to identify and purchase clothing or accessories worn by characters in the program they were watching, with the Wymsee founders taking a percentage of... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Plan; Business Startups; Film Entertainment; Television Entertainment; Technological Innovation; Knowledge Acquisition; Product Positioning; Opportunities; Adaptation; Mobile Technology; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; United States; New York (city, NY)

29 Sep 2011
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Leveraging Intellectual Property

a cure-all, but rather as a tool with both strengths and weaknesses. The increasing use of patent pools to share technology is one method for firms to avoid costly litigation arising from overlapping patent... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty

October 2000 (Revised November 2001)
Case

Garage.com (A)

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and Elizabeth Kind

Silicon Valley's Garage.com matches venture capital and corporate angel investors with high-tech start-ups that are looking for early stage funding. As a Web-based service, Garage.com fields inquiries from entrepreneurs and investors around the world, and is eager to... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Corporate Strategy; Business Growth and Maturation; Venture Capital; Investment; Internet and the Web; Expansion; Operations; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Global Strategy; Technological Innovation; Brands and Branding; Information Technology Industry

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October 2012 (Revised August 2013)
Case

Global Unichip Corporation (A)

By: Willy Shih and Chen-Fu Chien

Global Unichip Corporation (GUC) is a design services company that acts as a front-end to TSMC, the world's largest semiconductor foundry. In so doing, it masked the complexity of the latest process technologies, and reduced the entry barriers for small firms to... View Details

February 2017
Case

GE Digital

By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson

Known for manufacturing industrial equipment, GE has decided to invest in software and analytics capabilities to become a digital industrial company. They have also created a software platform that they hope will power the Industrial Internet. GE executives forecasted... View Details

Keywords: GE; General Electric; Manufacturing; Industrial Internet; Wind Power; Digital Manufacturing; Renewable Energy; Energy; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Applications and Software; Growth and Development Strategy; Transformation; Green Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry; North America

April 2001 (Revised July 2001)
Case

Zaplet, Inc.

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and Brian DeLacey

Start-up Zaplet, Inc., has radical software, prestigious venture capital funding, and a multitude of business opportunities. New CEO Alan Baratz must select a strategy and redesign the organization to deliver. This case describes the roles and philosophies of the... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Information Technology; Organizational Design; Venture Capital; Valuation; Business Strategy; Restructuring; Expansion; Product Development; Innovation Strategy; Human Resources; Information Technology Industry; California

27 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

What Happens When Ordinary People Get Creative?

innovation, and just by ordinary people in their everyday work lives or their everyday lives in their communities and societies.” Amabile’s paper cites research showing that View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

July 2015 (Revised April 2016)
Case

Lomography: Analog in a Digital World

By: John T. Gourville, Karol Misztal and Emer Moloney

In spite of the world's move to digital photography, in 2013 Lomography continues to design and offer analog (film) cameras to a loyal following of artistic photographers. Now it must decide whether to stick to its traditional offerings, to expand into artistic lenses... View Details

Keywords: Positioning; Product Lines; Product Line Management; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Technological Innovation; Brands and Branding; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Technology Industry

October 2000 (Revised April 2005)
Case

Z Corporation

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Matthew C. Lieb and Tom Clay

Tom Clay, president of Z Corp., and founder/CEO Marina Hatsopolous must decide between using a direct sales force or using a value-added reseller to begin selling the company's new 3-D printing prototype manufacturing system. View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Salesforce Management; Distribution Channels; Conflict and Resolution; Technology Industry