Publications

February 2010
Supplement

Lending Club case exhibits (CW)

By: Peter Tufano

A new entrant in the nascent online peer lending space, Lending Club must decide whether or not to register with the SEC. Lending Club provided a platform through which individual borrowers could receive loans funded by individuals who chose to invest in them. The... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Financing and Loans

February 1999 (Revised March 2001)
Case

Egghead to Egghead.com (A)

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Marie Bell

Over the course of 12 months in 1997 and 1998, Egghead senior management decided to shut down its 180 brick-and-mortar retail stores and move to an electronic store. The case describes the evolution of that process, and the role of its CEO George Orban, and poses... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Internet and the Web; Transformation; Decisions; Corporate Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Market Transactions; Buildings and Facilities; Retail Industry

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

01 Jun 2006
News

HBS Students Help Rebuild New Orleans

be a library of cases for use by communities coping with future disasters. “The idea is that we’d be able to fly in and talk to local business leaders and say, ‘These are some things that folks in New... View Details

Keywords: Construction of Buildings; Construction of Buildings; Construction of Buildings; Construction of Buildings; Construction of Buildings

2024
Working Paper

Webmunk: A New Tool for Studying Online Behavior and Digital Platforms

By: Chiara Farronato, Andrey Fradkin and Chris Karr

Understanding the behavior of users online is important for researchers, policymakers, and private companies alike. But observing online behavior and conducting experiments is difficult without direct access to the user base and software of technology companies. We... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Technology Adoption; Behavior; Research; Consumer Behavior; Internet and the Web

Find at Harvard

Read Now

February 2005 (Revised May 2005)
Case

Intelliseek

Intelliseek harvests, filters, and mines the content of messages posted by consumers online and on discussion boards and blogs. For any specified consumer product brand, Intelliseek measures the volume of work-of-mouth and its valence (proportion of positive and... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Information Technology; Consumer Behavior; Knowledge Management; Marketing Reference Programs; Web Services Industry

01 Apr 2001
News

Beyond the Rim: New Paths to Success in Asia

Voice of Experience A lot of people think that dot-coms in Asia are just taking U.S. technology and replicating the same business models. That may have been a valid criticism in the past, but View Details

Keywords: Alejandro Reyes and Deborah Blagg; David Lane; Educational Services

21 Oct 2008
First Look

First Look: October 21, 2008

free, bundled version of Hyper-V, an advanced virtualization platform product. Looming over the impending competition between these two companies was the story of the "browser wars," in which... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

01 Apr 2000
News

Marketing Muscle

chairman of Interactive Investor International (iii), Coutu said she relishes the opportunity to do things a little differently. Her Internet financial services company, for... View Details

21 Nov 2013
News

Case Study: BlackBerry and Thorsten Heins

of BlackBerry’s problems were sown well before Heins took on the CEO role. BlackBerry’s system had its roots in a mobile data architecture that came out of paging networks. By developing complimentary... View Details

Keywords: Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management of Companies and Enterprises

27 Aug 2007
Op-Ed

Mattel: Getting a Toy Recall Right

word out about the recall. Among other methods, the company is using bold red ads on high-traffic Internet sites such as Yahoo.com to find owners of the affected products and drive them to the Mattel Web... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Consumer Products

29 Apr 2020
Book

The Key to Powerful Social Change: Small Villages

Who will solve the great problems facing humanity, a list of critical issues that only begins with the current pandemic? In the interview below, Rosabeth Moss Kanter discusses her recent book, Think Outside the Building, and her view that solutions are most likely to... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

May 2020 (Revised August 2022)
Teaching Note

Direct to Consumer Brands

By: Sunil Gupta

In recent years, we have seen a dramatic rise of direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands. Many of these brands, such as Dollar Shave Club, Harry’s, Glossier, and Allbirds, entered mature markets dominated by established companies, and yet they grew rapidly to attain valuations... View Details

Keywords: Direct-to-consumer; Digital Marketing; Industry Evolution; Business Startups; Internet and the Web; Brands and Branding; Marketing; Change; Consumer Behavior

January 2019
Case

Data.gov (Abridged)

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Robert D. Austin and Yumi Yi

This case presents the logic and execution underlying the launch of Data.gov, an instantiation of President Obama's initiative for transparency and open government. The process used by Vivek Kundra, the federal CIO, and his team to rapidly develop the website and to... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Rights; Analytics and Data Science; Internet and the Web; Ethics; Cost vs Benefits; Innovation and Management; Information Management; Public Administration Industry; Information Industry; United States

01 Dec 2001
News

A Close-Up Look at the Men behind the Empire

herself, which is a very American thing to do. Bruce Llewellyn, an African-American entrepreneur of outstanding talent, also comes to mind. As a historian, my only advantage over other scholars in other... View Details

Keywords: Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information; Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices; Management

12 Sep 2007
Op-Ed

Building Sandcastles: The Subprime Adventure

negative amortization) turned millions of renters into homeowners. Subprime lending soared from near 0 in the early 1990s to 20.1 percent of all originations in 2006. The subprime lenders hawked their... View Details

Keywords: by Nicolas P. Retsinas; Banking; Construction; Real Estate

04 Jun 2013
First Look

First Look: June 4

suggest that highlighting the impact of prosocial spending can increase the emotional rewards of giving. Publisher's link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268113000176 2006 ABA Business... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2024
Case

Freelancer, Ltd.

By: Christopher Stanton, Karim R. Lakhani, Jin Hyun Paik and Nina Cohodes

Over the course of the 2010s, the rapid advancement of mobile technologies and the rise of online freelancing platforms seemed to portend a radical transformation of labor markets into on-demand, flexible talent pools. Even though several Fortune 500... View Details

Keywords: Freelancers; Labor Markets; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Human Capital; Change Management; Globalized Firms and Management; Employment; Global Range; Employment Industry

2016
Teaching Note

Advanced Leadership Pathways: David Weinstein and Write the World

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Tessa Natanay Hamilton and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

Teaching Note for Case 314-030. Following a successful career as a lawyer, Chief Administrative Officer of Fidelity Investments, and law school instructor, David Weinstein became a 2011 Advanced Leadership Fellow at Harvard University. During his Advanced Leadership... View Details

Keywords: Writing; Online Platform; Social Entrepreneurship; Education; Internet and the Web; Competency and Skills; Leadership; Change Management