Publications

July 2019 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Salary Finance

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In April 2019, Asesh Sarkar, co-founder and chief executive of Salary Finance Limited, a London-based FinTech, faced tough choices. Sarkar had founded Salary Finance with Dan Cobley and Daniel Shakhani in 2015. The company’s value proposition was quite simple: partner... View Details

Keywords: Credit; Financing and Loans; Wages; Innovation and Invention; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Services Industry

May 2008 (Revised March 2010)
Case

Palm (A): The Debate on Licensing Palm's OS (1997)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Kevin Boudreau and Jordan Mitchell

This case series looks at three important inflection points in Palm's history that relate to decisions about its platform: when the company was debating whether to open its operating system (OS) for licensing to third-party hardware manufacturers; 2001, when the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Debates; Decisions; Innovation and Invention; Product Launch; Production; Competition; Value Creation; Information Technology Industry

2025
Working Paper

Code-Washing: Evidence from Open-Source Blockchain Startups

By: Ofir Gefen, Daniel Rabetti, Yannan Sun and Che Zhang

This study examines startups' management of source code repositories, distinguishing authentic developers ("code-producers''), from those inflating activity to mislead investors ("code-washers''). Using global blockchain startup and GitHub data, we find that... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Open Source Distribution; Business Startups

SSRN

30 Aug 2011
First Look

First Look: August 30

rather than the level of joy impact viewer retention most. The effect of joy is asymmetric, with higher gains for increases than losses for decreases. Based on these findings, the authors develop representative emotion trajectories to support ad design and testing. ... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

25 Apr 2023
Op-Ed

How SHEIN and Temu Conquered Fast Fashion—and Forged a New Business Model

late 1970s, when China ramped up its manufacturing production and began to open its economy to the world, its small and mid-sized factories struggled to gain access to the large consumer markets of the United States and Europe. American... View Details

Keywords: by John Deighton; Fashion; Retail; Consumer Products

March 2008
Case

Cambrian House

By: Peter A. Coles, Karim R. Lakhani and Andrew P. McAfee

Cambrian House builds internet-based products and services by relying entirely on its user community for all aspects of its innovation and new product development process. Users suggest ideas for new products and services and also participate in a monthly voting... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Voting; Technological Innovation; Knowledge Management; Marketing Strategy; Open Source Distribution; Product Development; Strategic Planning; Business and Community Relations; Internet

18 Feb 2014
First Look

First Look: February 18

Publications August 2013 Oxford Handbook of Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship: Multilevel Linkages Innovating without Information Constraints: Organization, Communities, and Innovation When... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

17 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Money Isn’t Everything: The Dos and Don’ts of Motivating Employees

wouldn’t otherwise do, and good incentive systems create a market of sorts inside companies with a series of pressure points, Hall says. Whether it’s raising your hand for extra work, prioritizing innovative projects, or staying with a... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

12 Jun 2012
First Look

First Look: June 12

tailor their risk management processes to these different risk categories. A rules-based approach is effective for managing preventable risks, whereas strategy risks require a fundamentally different approach based on open and explicit... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

How Does Foreign Direct Investment Promote Economic Growth? Exploring the Effects of Financial Markets on Linkages (with Areendam Chanda, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Selin Sayek)

By: Laura Alfaro

The empirical literature finds mixed evidence on the existence of positive productivity externalities in the host country generated by foreign multinational companies. We propose a novel mechanism, which emphasizes the role of local financial markets in enabling... View Details

31 Mar 2009
First Look

First Look: March 31, 2009

Dilemma revolutionized the business world—presents The Innovator's Prescription, a comprehensive analysis of the strategies that will improve health care and make it affordable. Christensen applies the principles of disruptive innovation... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

10 Jan 2012
First Look

First Look: January 10

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/12-047.pdf Financing Risk and Innovation Authors:Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf Abstract Technological revolutions and waves of creative destruction are associated with new ventures and the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2019
Working Paper

Why Do User Communities Matter for Strategy?

By: Sonali K. Shah and Frank Nagle

User communities represent a unique organizing structure for the exchange of ideas and knowledge. They are organizations composed primarily of users working collaboratively, voluntarily, and with minimal oversight to freely and openly develop and exchange knowledge... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Management; Knowledge Sharing; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Organizations; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Strategy

SSRN

Read Now

09 Aug 2016
First Look

August 9, 2016

paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51309 Innovation under Regulatory Uncertainty: Evidence from Medical Technology By: Stern, Ariel Dora Abstract—This paper explores how the regulatory approval process affects View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

03 Oct 2023
What Do You Think?

Do Leaders Learn More From Success or Failure?

led us to a useful conclusion: that a strong culture logically could lead to either success or failure. It was, instead, the presence of values and behaviors—components of its culture—that encouraged openness and adaptability that was... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

22 Feb 2024
Research & Ideas

How to Make AI 'Forget' All the Private Data It Shouldn't Have

interact with the model via prompting, whereas for classifiers, typically they can only receive predictions, which can be exploited to develop more innovative privacy attacks. That's a tremendous amount of data that is memorized by the... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Technology; Information Technology

13 Dec 2011
First Look

First Look: Dec. 13

trusts. Read the paper: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03585522.2011.617574 Working PapersWhen to Sell Your Idea: Theory and Evidence from the Movie Industry Author:Hong Luo Abstract How completely should an innovator... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

May 2022
Supplement

Maestro Pizza (B): The Competition Awakens

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Fares Khrais

Maestro pizza opened its first store in 2013 after its founder, Khalid Al Omran, recognized an opportunity in Saudi Arabia to offer high quality pizza at affordable prices. The business grew rapidly and under the radar at first, but soon enough caught the attention of... View Details