Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,170)
- Faculty Publications (484)
- Article
Products to Platforms: Making the Leap
By: Feng Zhu and Nathan Furr
Following the path of companies such as Apple and Amazon, more and more firms are trying to become not just product purveyors but also platform providers, facilitating direct connections between customers and other groups. Although launching a platform can generate new... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
Big History, Global Corporations, Virtual Capitalism
By: Richard L. Nolan
Homo sapiens has mastered its environment so thoroughly that, for the first time in history, a small minority of the population is capable of creating enough food and fuels to support not only itself, but also a growing majority of the 6 billion people now living on... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Market
By: Feng Zhu
Strategy scholars have documented in various empirical settings that firms seek and leverage stronger institutions to mitigate hazards and gain competitive advantage. In this paper, we argue that such “institution-seeking” behavior may not be confined to the pursuit of... View Details
- 2016
- Book
Revolutionizing Innovation: Users, Communities, and Open Innovation
By: Dietmar Harhoff and Karim R. Lakhani
The last two decades have witnessed an extraordinary growth of new models of managing and organizing the innovation process, which emphasize users over producers. Large parts of the knowledge economy now routinely rely on users, communities, and open innovation... View Details
- December 2015 (Revised February 2016)
- Case
Ocado
By: José Alvarez, David E. Bell and Damien McLoughlin
In 2015, U.K.-based Ocado was the world's largest pure player in the online home-delivery grocery business and was gaining a growing share of the highly competitive U.K. grocery market. Ocado had made heavy investments in technology, including a highly automated... View Details
Keywords: Ocado; Grocery; Retail; Online Grocery; Supermarket; Delivery Models; Service Models; United Kingdom; Technology; Operations Management; Digital Platforms; Competition; Internet and the Web; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Supply Chain; Marketing; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United Kingdom
- November 2015
- Case
Upwork: Reimagining the Future of Work
By: Feng Zhu, Rory McDonald, Marco Iansiti and Aaron Smith
Upwork, the world's largest freelance talent platform, was the result of a merger between the two leading online freelancing companies in 2014, Elance and oDesk. After the merger, the company operated as Elance-oDesk and continued to manage two online... View Details
- November 2015 (Revised April 2018)
- Case
Flipkart (A): Transitioning to a Marketplace Model
By: Das Narayandas, Sunil Gupta and Rachna Tahilyani
In 2015, Sachin and Binny Bansal, co-founders of India’s largest e-commerce company, are wondering if it is time to move from a hybrid model to a full marketplace. While Amazon runs a hybrid model, Alibaba operates a marketplace. In addition, Flipkart has been losing... View Details
- October 2015
- Case
Bigbelly
By: Mitch Weiss and Christine Snively
To accelerate Bigbelly's sales growth and its "smart cities" positioning, its CEO planned to shift his company from equipment sales to a subscription service. Jack Kutner hoped to re-position Bigbelly's solar-powered trash compacting stations beyond trash and recycling... View Details
Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Smart Cities; Government Innovation; Internet Of Things; IoT; Anything As A Service; Platform As A Service; Infrastructure As A Service; PaaS; Xaas; Bigbelly; Jack Kutner; B2G; Civic Innovation; City Innovation; Government Technology; Govtech; Civic Technology; Entrepreneurship; Sales; Innovation and Invention; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Information Technology Industry; Public Administration Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Web Services Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Massachusetts; United States; Boston; Chicago; Philadelphia; New York (city, NY)
- October 2015
- Case
Facebook: The First Ten Years
By: Shane Greenstein, Marco Iansiti and Christine Snively
Facebook celebrated its ten year anniversary in February 2014. Over the past decade it has grown into the largest social network in the world with one billion users. After filing an IPO in 2012 at a $104 billion valuation (the third largest IPO in U.S. history), the... View Details
- August 2015 (Revised October 2023)
- Case
Eastman Kodak Company: Restructuring a Melting Ice Cube
By: Stuart C. Gilson, John D. Dionne and Sarah L. Abbott
In May 2013, senior managers of GSO Capital Partners, an $80 billion credit-oriented investment firm owned by The Blackstone Group, are considering what to do next with their investment in the senior secured debt of Eastman Kodak Company. Once a great company and an... View Details
- July 2015 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
Horst Dassler, Adidas, and the Commercialization of Sport
By: Geoffrey Jones, Michael Norris and Sophi Kim
The case focuses on the career of Horst Dassler, the son of the founder of the German-based sports shoe manufacturer Adidas. The origins of the firm were in the interwar years, and it rose to public prominence after it provided spikes for Jesse Owens, the famous... View Details
Keywords: Corruption; Economic History; Business History; Entertainment; Business; Strategy; Media; Digital Technology; Blockbuster; Superstar; Film; Television; Music; Publishing; Performing Arts; Nightlife; Crime and Corruption; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; History; Sports; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Fashion Industry; Sports Industry; Germany; South America; Europe; Asia; North and Central America
- June 2015 (Revised April 2018)
- Case
WeChat: A Global Platform?
By: Willy Shih, Howard Yu and Feng Liu
WeChat was developed by Tencent Holdings as a lightweight messaging platform. As it grew quickly to become the most popular messaging app in China, it added a range of products and services that sat on top that were designed to appeal to a broad range of consumers and... View Details
- Summer 2015
- Article
Investment Incentives in Open-Source and Proprietary Two-Sided Platforms
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Gaston Llanes
We study incentives to invest in platform quality in open-source and proprietary two-sided platforms. Open platforms have open access, and developers invest to improve the platform. Proprietary platforms have closed access, and investment is done by the platform owner.... View Details
- May 2015 (Revised September 2015)
- Case
Philips Healthcare: Marketing the HealthSuite Digital Platform
By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez
In June 2014, leading healthcare and consumer technology company, Royal Philips ("Philips"), announced its HealthSuite Digital Platform to house healthcare data and enable applications used by physicians and patients. Philips had strong equity in the healthcare... View Details
- 2015
- Book
Economic Analysis of the Digital Economy
By: Avi Goldfarb, Shane Greenstein and Catherine Tucker
As the cost of storing, sharing, and analyzing data has decreased, economic activity has become increasingly digital. But while the effects of digital technology and improved digital communication have been explored in a variety of contexts, the impact on economic... View Details
- March 2015 (Revised April 2015)
- Case
The Heat Is On: Emerging Ecosystems in the Thermostat Industry
By: David Collis and Ashley Hartman
Beth Wozniak, President of Honeywell Environmental and Combustion Controls (ECC) at Honeywell International Inc., spun around in her office chair, reflecting about how the classic, mature thermostat industry was rapidly evolving. In February 2014, Google paid $3.2... View Details
Keywords: Honeywell; Thermostats; Internet Of Things; Smart Thermostats; Google; Nest; Apple; HomeKit; SmartThings; Partnerships; Platforms And Ecosystems; Linkages; Communication Protocols; Strategy; Technology; Home Automation; Connected Home; Buildings and Facilities; Energy; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Partners and Partnerships; Manufacturing Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Energy Industry; Electronics Industry; Consumer Products Industry
- March 2015 (Revised December 2016)
- Case
American Well: The DTC Decision
By: Elie Ofek and Natalie Kindred
In late 2013, telehealth company American Well, which developed a digital platform that allowed patients to conduct online medical consultations with physicians, is considering pursuing a direct-to-consumer (DTC) strategy. Founded in 2006, American Well had, to date,... View Details
Keywords: Health Care; Telehealth; Telemedicine; American Well; Schoenberg; Boston; Israel; Technology; Online Care; Direct-to-consumer; DTC; Health Insurance; Affordable Care Act; Health Care Reform; Accountable Care Organizations; Technology Change; Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Digital Marketing; Strategy; Competition; Information Technology; Marketing; Technological Innovation; Technology Adoption; Entrepreneurship; Marketing Strategy; Health Industry; Technology Industry; Boston; Massachusetts; United States; Israel
- March 2015
- Case
Twine Health
By: Robert S. Huckman, Ariel D. Stern and Matthew G. Preble
In late 2014, Dr. John Moore (CEO), Frank Moss (chairman), and Scott Gilroy (CTO) of Twine Health (Twine) had to resolve several challenges that threatened to restrict the widespread dissemination of its sole product, Twine. Twine was a cloud-based platform that... View Details
- February 2015
- Case
TouchTunes and the Connected Digital Jukebox Platform
By: Alan MacCormack and Noah Fisher
The case describes innovation and new product development at TouchTunes, the leader in the Digital Jukebox market. In March 2013, after releasing its innovative "Virtuo" jukebox developed in collaboration with frog design, TouchTunes was at a crossroads. Having... View Details