Publications

January – February 2011
Article

How to Design a Winning Business Model

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Joan E. Ricart

Most executives believe that competing through business models is critical for success, but few have come to grips with how best to do so. One common mistake is enterprises' unwavering focus on creating innovative models and evaluating their efficacy in standalone... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Design; Strength and Weakness; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage

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Program

Managing Turbulence

all-out war for scarce talent. How do the best business leaders manage through these disruptions? What strategies have proven successful in unstable environments with few certainties? How do leaders continue to grow when faced with... View Details

Nitin Nohria

Nitin Nohria served as the tenth dean of Harvard Business School from 2010-2020. He previously served as co-chair of the Leadership Initiative, Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Development, and Head of the Organizational Behavior unit.

As Dean, building on... View Details

27 Aug 2013
Working Paper Summaries

The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Market

Keywords: by Yongwook Paik & Feng Zhu; Legal Services

November 1993 (Revised March 1995)
Case

Marsh Supermarkets, Inc. (A): The Marsh Super Study

In response to recent trends in grocery retailing, Marsh Supermarkets has completed an intensive 65-week study of the activity at 5 superstores in the midwest United States. The study tracked the sales, profits, space, and promotion dynamics of the entire store: dry... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Analysis; Consumer Behavior; Retail Industry

September 2006 (Revised April 2007)
Case

Tim Keller at Katzenbach Partners LLC (A)

By: Boris Groysberg, Christopher Marquis and Ayesha Kanji

Tracks of the first 6 months of a recent MBA grad, Tim Keller, at Katzenbach Partners, a boutique consulting firm focused on organizational change and strategy. Covers how Keller initially struggles with his assignment and ends with a question of whether or not he... View Details

Keywords: Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Personal Development and Career; Work-Life Balance; Projects; Situation or Environment; Strategy

December 2013
Case

Grupo Beta San Miguel

By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred

In November 2013, Dr. Jose Pinto, head of Grupo Beta San Miguel (BSM), Mexico's largest private sugar producer, is weighing the future prospects of the Mexican sugar industry as he considers whether BSM should bid on one of the state-owned sugar mills slated for... View Details

Keywords: Mexico; Jose Pinto; Beta San Miguel; Polycrom; Sugar; World Sugar Trade; NAFTA; Strategy; Trade; Futures and Commodity Futures; Agribusiness; Price; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Mexico; United States; North America

Profile

Evelyne White

Bookalokal continue to focus only on small and midsized cities. The company seems likely to confront winner-take-all competitive dynamics at the city level, because network effects are strong—more diners will attract more hosts, and vice... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Services

2020
Working Paper

Reverse Information Sharing: Reducing Costs in Supply Chains with Yield Uncertainty

By: Pavithra Harsha, Ashish Jagmohan, Retsef Levi, Elisabeth Paulson and Georgia Perakis

Supply uncertainty in produce supply chains presents major challenges to retailers. Supply shortages create frequent disruptions in terms of promised delivery times, quantity and quality delivered. To alleviate these challenges, dual sourcing--a strategy in which... View Details

Keywords: Information Sharing; Yield Uncertainty; Ration Gaming; Blockchain; Supply Chain; Risk and Uncertainty

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11 Sep 2000
Research & Ideas

Riding the Internet Fast Track

Take a seat and hold on tightly. You're aboard the Internet Express, where speed is the order of the day and profit but a remote destination. For firms that ride the rails of the Internet's fast track, getting big fast—whatever its cost—is the View Details

Keywords: by Peter Jacobs

March 2000
Exercise

Developing Products on Internet Time: A Process Design Exercise

By: Stefan H. Thomke

This team exercise allows students to experience some of the dynamics of developing products in the fast-paced Internet environment and was inspired by the browser war between Netscape and Microsoft. Designed to be taught in a single class session, the exercise... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Internet and the Web; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Design; Decisions; Management Practices and Processes; Integration; Organizations; Competition

September 1993 (Revised July 1995)
Background Note

Public Policy and the Manager: Conceptual Framework

By: Willis M. Emmons III

Government intervention in markets may have significant effects--both positive and negative--on a firm's strategic options and its performance outcomes. Thus the ability to analyze the origins, implications, and dynamics of public policy is a critical managerial skill... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Management Skills; Government and Politics; Adoption; Business Strategy; Performance Evaluation; Economic Systems

February 2019 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Honda Innovations: Leveraging External Insights to Accelerate Creation

By: Antonio Davila

Nick Sugimoto, CEO of Honda Innovations—the open innovation organization of Honda, has to decide how to extend his organization’s approach to innovation across the world. Honda Innovations dates back to 2000 when Honda created Honda Research Institute in Silicon... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Radical Innovation; Corporate Venturing; Corporate Innovation; Organization Structure; Management Control; Business Units; Disruption; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Global Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Structure; Strategy; Auto Industry; San Francisco; Japan

February 23, 2022
Article

Can WEB3 Bring Back Competition to Digital Platforms?

By: Christian Catalini and Scott Duke Kominers

Like the early Internet, blockchain and Web3 applications promise a new wave of decentralization and competition—yet at the same time, it is unclear which of the dynamics that drove concentration in online platforms and services will remain in force under the Web3... View Details

Keywords: Web3; Blockchain; Interoperability; Internet and the Web; Technological Innovation; Competition; Digital Platforms

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05 Oct 2009
Research & Ideas

The Vanguard Corporation

They differentiated themseves in the marketplace by centering their strategy around social and environmental responsibility. They said, they don't want to be a "green" bank—they are a for-profit endeavor—but they want to do the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

July 2013 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Carl Zeiss and Free-Form Production: Can We See Clearly Yet?

By: Willy Shih

The prescription eyeglass lens industry was complicated and highly fragmented, and even though many of the tools and techniques employed have been relatively unchanged over the last century, there was still a surprising pace of innovation. An aging population around... View Details

Keywords: History; Demand and Consumers; Disruptive Innovation; Vertical Integration; Theory; Technology Adoption; Health Industry

March 2011
Supplement

BioPasteur: Instructions for the group discussion

By: Giovanni Gavetti and Francesca Gino

The purpose of this exercise is to let students experience a few biases that can be deleterious to strategic decision-making. In particular, students are induced to fall into a confirmatory trap, and to experience other biases such as anchoring and sampling bias.... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Groups and Teams; Prejudice and Bias; Strategy