Publications

2015
Working Paper

Build It, Buy It or Both? Rethinking the Sourcing of Advertising Services

By: Alvin J. Silk and Marta M. Stiglin

This paper provides an update on the current state of in-house agencies. Whereas traditional consideration of internalizing advertising services was framed as a binary choice of build or buy, today's advertisers frequently pursue hybrid policies of build and buy to... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Advertising

SSRN

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Research Summary

Overview

Prof. Altman's research interests include innovation, strategy, organizational change, platform-based businesses and their related ecosystems. Her work focuses on the impact to incumbent organizations as platform-based highly networked business models become more... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Management; Multi-sided Platforms; Business Ecosystems; Organizational Change; Paradox; Organizational Identity

19 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

Fed Up Workers and Supply Woes: What's Next for Dollar Stores?

able to make it into stores by Christmas after I get through the inbound trade-lane delays into the distribution centers. We have a terrible mess in intermodal rail. There are bottlenecks all along the system. Gazette:You co-wrote a case study on Dollar General, one of... View Details

Keywords: by Christine Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Retail

25 Aug 2009
First Look

First Look: August 25

Working PapersAnger and Regulation Authors:Rafael Di Tella and Juan DubraNBER Working Paper Series, No. 15201, August 2009 Abstract We propose a model where voters experience an emotional cost when they observe a firm that has displayed... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

June 2017
Case

AT&T Versus Verizon: A Financial Comparison

By: V.G. Narayanan and Joel L. Heilprin

This case asks students to prepare a report comparing the financial and operating performance of AT&T and Verizon. Taking the perspective of a communications industry analyst, they must also consider the differences between and implications of the companies' business... View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Operations; Analysis; Business Model; Accounting; Performance Effectiveness; Telecommunications Industry

November 2022 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Hugging Face (A): Serving AI on a Platform

By: Shane Greenstein, Daniel Yue, Sarah Gulick and Kerry Herman

It is fall 2022, and open-source AI model company Hugging Face is considering its three areas of priorities: platform development, supporting the open-source community, and pursuing cutting-edge scientific research. As it expands services for enterprise clients, which... View Details

Keywords: Community; Open-source; AI and Machine Learning; Product Development; Networks; Service Delivery; Research; Governance; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Information Industry; Technology Industry; United States

21 Aug 2000
Research & Ideas

Inside the OR: Disrupted Routines and New Technologies

Why did a group of Harvard Business School professors become interested in an innovative new heart surgery technique? It turns out that a hospital's operating room provides an excellent controlled arena from which to explore the role that... View Details

Keywords: by Hilah Geer

January 2017 (Revised January 2019)
Case

Shisong Cardiac Center: Kumbo, Cameroon

By: Kevin Schulman and Nelly-Ange Konthcou

Shisong Cardiac Center in Kumbo, Cameroon, is a regional cardiac referral center in central Africa. As the continent transitions from communicable to non-communicable diseases, there is a critical shortage of surgical care required to treat these conditions. This case... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Operations; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Africa

August 2018 (Revised September 2018)
Case

National Storage Affiliates: The REIT IPO Decision

By: Charles F. Wu, Max de la Bruyére and Gregory D. Himmel

In 2015, two years after founding National Storage Affiliates (NSA), Arlen Nordhagen and Tamara Fischer had an important decision to make. Should they proceed with NSA’s IPO? Although they had targeted to receive $15–17 a share, it was now apparent that the figure was... View Details

Keywords: Initial Public Offering; Problems and Challenges; Decision Making; Real Estate Industry

January 2018
Supplement

Jumia Nigeria PowerPoint Supplement

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

Founded in 2012, Jumia Nigeria, a startup effort by Germany-based Rocket Internet, aimed to become an African Amazon. The company entered the nascent market and immediately enjoyed an uptick in consumer spending fueled by the strength of Nigeria’s oil-based economy. By... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Marketplace; Inventory; Nigeria; Africa; Ecommerce; Funding; Business Ecosystems; Business Ecosystem; Competition; Business Model; Globalization; Emerging Markets; Expansion; Logistics; E-commerce; Retail Industry; India; Nigeria; Africa

January 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Teaching Note

Jumia Nigeria: from Retail to Marketplace (A) and (B)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

Founded in 2012, Jumia Nigeria, a startup effort by Germany-based Rocket Internet, aimed to become an African Amazon. The company entered the nascent market and immediately enjoyed an uptick in consumer spending fueled by the strength of Nigeria’s oil-based economy. By... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Marketplace; Inventory; Ecommerce; Funding; Business Ecosystems; Competition; Business Model; Globalization; Emerging Markets; Expansion; Logistics; E-commerce; Retail Industry; India; Nigeria; Africa

17 May 2010
Research & Ideas

What Brazil Teaches About Investor Protection

The current debate in the United States about how to regulate Wall Street focuses on laws, regulations, and monitoring. But lawmakers may want to look to history for guidance, to Brazil 100 years ago, when transparent governance and investor protections came from... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Banking; Financial Services

November 2021 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Babban Gona: Great Farm

By: Kristin Fabbe, Tarun Khanna, Caroline M. Elkins, Zeke Gillman, Eleni Kyrkopoulou and Thomaz Teodorovicz

In 2020, Babban Gona was one of the world’s largest farming operations with over 140,000 acres of maize farms, an area over ten times as large as Manhattan, and over 80,000 member-farmers in Nigeria. According to the company, the average Nigerian farmer’s net income... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Value Creation; Agribusiness; Capital Budgeting; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Nigeria; Africa

Research Summary

Optimal Decision Making Under Uncertainty

Inventory control problems in supply chains. In this stream of theoretical research, Professor Goh has investigated how inventory should be optimally managed in supply chains. Specifically, he has studied how supply chains can make decisions to operate... View Details

Article

An Integrated Decision-Making Approach for Improving European Air Traffic Management

By: Yael Grushka-Cockayne, Bert De Reyck and Zeger Degraeve

We develop a multistakeholder, multicriteria decision-making framework for Eurocontrol, the European air traffic management organization, for evaluating and selecting operational improvements to the air traffic management system. The selected set of improvements will... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Framework; Operations; Performance Improvement; Government Administration; Air Transportation Industry; Europe

Find at Harvard

December 2019 (Revised November 2021)
Course Overview Note

The Entrepreneurial Manager: Spring 2022

By: Mitchell Weiss and Benjamin Henkes

This is the course overview note for “The Entrepreneurial Manager,” taught in the first year at Harvard Business School. Students will learn how to be opportunity-driven managers and how to lead under uncertainty. They'll learn how to identify opportunities, how to... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurship; Management

June 2014
Teaching Note

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd.: Driving Change Through Internal Communication

By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah L. Abbott and Robin Abrahams

Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL), confronted in 2003 with an urgent need to change how it operated externally, adopted a highly innovative approach to communicating internally. This case, set in 2010, presents an overview of the new, more interactive model of employee... View Details

Keywords: Communication Strategy; Change Management; Communication; Change; Leadership; Management; Energy Industry; India

March 2014
Teaching Note

Intuit QuickBooks: From Product to Platform

By: Andrei Hagiu and Elizabeth J. Altman

This case focuses on the challenges and opportunities faced by a successful incumbent organization attempting to transform a large portion of its business from a traditionally product-centric operating mode to a platform-based one that leverages network effects to... View Details

2018
Working Paper

Opportunistic Returns and Dynamic Pricing: Empirical Evidence from Online Retailing in Emerging Markets

By: Chaithanya Bandi, Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe and Zhiji Xu

We investigate how dynamic pricing can lead to higher operational costs through more product returns in the online retail industry. Dynamic pricing has been widely applied by many online retailers. Research has shown that, in response to dynamic pricing, some customers... View Details

Keywords: Price; Policy; Consumer Behavior; Cost Management; Emerging Markets; Retail Industry