Publications

Find at Harvard

March 2008 (Revised June 2011)
Case

MySpace

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, David T. Chen and Carin-Isabel Knoop

The case, set in late 2007, examines what MySpace—the largest online social network—should do to respond to its agile competitor, Facebook. Since its inception MySpace had experienced phenomenal growth, acquiring 20 million members in its first 20 months of operation,... View Details

Keywords: Open Source Distribution; Partners and Partnerships; Social and Collaborative Networks; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Information Technology Industry

November 2013
Teaching Note

Barnes & Noble: Managing the E-Book Revolution

By: Alan MacCormack, Brian Kimball Dunn and Chris F. Kemerer

In 2012, Barnes & Noble found itself in a difficult position. While the company had weathered the advent of online retailing relatively well, the arrival of electronic books (e-books) threatened the company's viability. Primary competitor Borders had already fallen by... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Internet and the Web; Adaptation; Books; Retail Industry

20 Oct 2003
Research & Ideas

Gaps in the Historical Record: Development of the Electronics Industry

the world's foremost commercializer of products of new technologies in consumer electronics including the Walkman, Triton Color TV, the VCR, the CD (and CD-ROM), and the DVD. Matsushita became the industry's... View Details

Keywords: by Alfred D. Chandler Jr.; Consumer Products

29 Oct 2020
Blog Post

Delving Deeper into Development with the MBA/MPA-ID Program – a Q+A with Zainab Raji (MBA/MPA-ID 2022)

in Winter 2019 I joined Deloitte’s Risk Advisory practice in Atlanta shortly after graduating from Emory with the goal of deepening my accounting expertise. At Deloitte, I designed and tested risk controls for leading Enterprise View Details

Web

Building Entrepreneurial Organizations - Health Care

innovating new health care ventures on topics chosen by the students or from those made available by the faculty. For Students & Alumni Arthur Rock Center For Entrepreneurship Blavatnik Fellowship in Life Science Entrepreneurship Harvard... View Details

15 Sep 2021
News

Answer to U.S. Labor Shortage? ‘Hidden’ Workforce

26 Oct 2021
News

The Time Facebook Contemplated Life Without Zuckerberg

Web

Wyss House | About

was rededicated in 2006 to honor Hansjörg Wyss (MBA 1965), chairman and former CEO of Synthes, Inc., a pioneering company in the field of medical technology and devices. In 2004, Wyss established the Hansjörg Wyss Endowment for Doctoral... View Details

Web

ARD - Georges F. Doriot : Educating Leaders, Building Companies, Baker Library, Harvard Business School

in the development of new technologies and industries during the war, the US government had assumed significant risk," HBS Professor Tom Nicholas asserts. "The fact that several of these risks paid off–in... View Details

03 Jun 2014
First Look

First Look: June 3

looks to build a mobile technology product development team by executing an "acquisition-hire" (i.e., "acqui-hire") to acquire New York City-based start-up Stamped, a mobile application... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

03 Mar 2008
Research & Ideas

Marketing Your Way Through a Recession

Must-have features of yesterday are today's can-live-withouts. Trusted brands are especially valued and they can still launch new products successfully, but interest in new brands and View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

June 2011 (Revised October 2012)
Case

IBM China Development Lab Shanghai: Capability by Design

By: Willy Shih, Kamen Bliznashki and Fan Zhao

When IBM shifted from a traditional territory-based multinational organization to what it called a globally integrated enterprise, it established its headquarters for "Growth Markets" in Shanghai and "Established Markets" in New York. This positioned its China... View Details

Keywords: Diversification; Corporate Strategy; Global Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Research and Development; Emerging Markets; Product Development; Information Technology Industry; China

October 1986 (Revised January 1991)
Case

Manac Systems International Ltd.

Manac Systems International is confronting a decision about how best to market one of its computer software product lines to small law firms. In the past, Manac has focused on traditional personal selling approaches to market software products that ran on IBM... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Communications; Marketing Channels; Software; Product Marketing; Information Technology Industry

October 2023
Case

Fixie and Conversational AI Sidekicks

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Carin-Isabel Knoop

In March 2023, Fixie Co-Founder and Chief Architect Matt Welsh and co-founders had the kind of meeting no founders want to have. The president of leading artificial intelligence (AI) research and deployment firm OpenAI, which had catapulted into fame with its ChatGPT... View Details

Keywords: Large Language Model; Entrepreneurship; Decision Choices and Conditions; AI and Machine Learning; Technological Innovation; Competitive Strategy; Technology Industry; United States

August 2016 (Revised November 2019)
Supplement

eSig: Growth Analysis

By: Mark N. Roberge and Thomas R. Eisenmann

eSig, an early-stage startup, offers an electronic signature application as a "freemium" product, i.e., users can upgrade from a free basic version to a premium version by paying a subscription fee. Using 9 months of data from 50,000 user activations, available as a... View Details

Keywords: Esignature; Computer Software; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Management; Marketing Channels; Applications and Software; Computer Industry; United States

March 2015
Case

BOLT: Seed Venture Capital Firm

By: William A. Sahlman and Robert F. White

BOLT is a different kind of seed venture capital firm built to serve the needs of early-stage startups at the intersection of hardware and software.

In the past decade, the cost of entrepreneurial experimentation has dropped dramatically, particularly in web... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Accelerator; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Venture Capital; Applications and Software; Information Infrastructure; Strategy