Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(401)
- Faculty Publications (117)
- 2023
- Working Paper
Centralization and Organization Reproduction: Ethnic Innovation in R&D Centers and Satellite Locations
By: William R. Kerr
We study the relationship between firm centralization and organizational reproduction in satellite locations. For decentralized firms, the ethnic compositions of inventors in satellite locations mostly resemble their host cities, with little link to the inventor... View Details
- September 2023
- Case
THREAD Research: Decentralized Clinical Trials and Beyond
By: Satish Tadikonda, Amanda McEwen and William Marks
- September 2023
- Case
Diamond Standard
By: Lauren H. Cohen, Zhaoheng Gong and Grace Headinger
Cormac Kinney, Founder and CEO of Diamond Standard, was on a mission to transform the U.S. diamond market through unlocking the precious gems as market-traded assets. As a serial FinTech entrepreneur, he hoped to add an additional service to his vault: Carats. The... View Details
Keywords: Tokenization; Fintech; Cryptocurrency; Liquidity; Digital; Rare Earth Minerals; Decentralized; Crypto Economy; Financial Product; Metals; Diamonds; Commodity; Assets; Financial Instruments; Financial Institutions; Financial Markets; Investment; Technological Innovation; Natural Resources; Business Startups; Currency; Financial Services Industry; United States
- July 13, 2023
- Article
Threads Foreshadows a Big—and Surprising—Shift in Social Media
By: Scott Duke Kominers and Liang Wu
Threads, Meta’s Twitter competitor, has become the fastest downloaded app in history. One of the reasons for this is because it allows users to port over their profiles and follows from the already popular social media platform Instagram, also owned by Meta—a feature... View Details
- January 12, 2023
- Article
Progressive Decentralization: A High-level Framework
By: Jad Esber and Scott Duke Kominers
We explain a high-level framework for designing for future decentralization up front, and offer some guidance about when and how to do so. The guidelines apply to both web3 projects and more traditional organizations. View Details
- December 7, 2022
- Article
Why Decentralized Crypto Platforms Are Weathering the Crash
By: Shai Bernstein and Scott Duke Kominers
In the past year, crypto markets dropped from $2.9 trillion in value to around $800 billion. In the wake of the collapse, crypto lenders and exchanges have been accused of fraud and other wrongdoing. What went wrong? One factor is competition. In theory, competition... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
The Limits of Decentralized Administrative Data Collection: Experimental Evidence from Colombia
By: Natalia Garbiras-Diaz and Tara Slough
States collect vast amounts of data for use in policymaking and public administration. To
do so, central governments frequently solicit data from decentralized bureaucrats. Because
central governments use these data in policymaking, decentralized bureaucrats may face... View Details
- August 2022
- Case
SuperRare: Turning an NFT Marketplace into a DAO
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Scott Duke Kominers and Amy Klopfenstein
In June 2021, John Crain and Jonathan Perkins, the founders of SuperRare, a marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), contemplate whether to transform their company into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). Crain and Perkins founded SuperRare in 2018 to... View Details
Keywords: NFTs; Crypto Economy; Alternative Assets; DAOs; Arts; Governance; Governance Controls; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Disruptive Innovation; Finance; Currency; Investment; Markets; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Demand and Consumers; Network Effects; Market Design; Market Transactions; Market Timing; Web Services Industry; North and Central America; United States
- July 28, 2022
- Article
DAO Governance Attacks, and How to Avoid Them
By: Pranav Garimidi, Scott Duke Kominers and Tim Roughgarden
Many web3 projects embrace permissionless voting using a fungible and tradable native token. Permissionless voting can offer many benefits, from lowering barriers to entry to increasing competition. Token holders can use their tokens to vote on a range of issues—from... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Do Collusive Norms Maximize Profits? Evidence From a Vegetable Market Experiment in India
By: Abhijit Banerjee, Greg Fischer, Dean Karlan, Matt Lowe and Benjamin N. Roth
Social norms have been shown to facilitate anti-competitive behavior in decentralized markets.
We demonstrate that these norms can also reduce aggregate profits. First, we present
descriptive evidence of competition-suppressing norms in Kolkata vegetable markets.... View Details
- June 2022 (Revised January 2023)
- Case
Buurtzorg
By: Ethan Bernstein, Tatiana Sandino, Joost Minnaar and Annelena Lobb
As co-founders of home nursing company Buurtzorg, Jos de Blok and Gonnie Kronenberg prized both self-management and organizational learning. Buurtzorg’s 10,000 nurses across 950 neighborhood nursing teams in the Netherlands were empowered to manage themselves, both in... View Details
Keywords: Healthcare; Best Practices; Best Practices Transfer; Flat Organization; Self-Managed Organizations; Self-Managed Teams; Organizational Learning; Knowledge Management; Learning; Management Practices and Processes; Human Resources; Communication; Organizational Structure; Organizational Design; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Groups and Teams; Networks; Health Industry; Netherlands; Europe
- March 2022 (Revised August 2022)
- Case
LooksRare: The Decentralized, Tokenized, NFT Marketplace
By: Scott Duke Kominers, Shai Bernstein and George Gonzalez
LooksRare launched a decentralized and anonymous organization to compete against NFT marketplace leader OpenSea. By launching its own cryptocurrency, LooksRare attempted to lure users with a digital rewards program. The nature of the organization and its business... View Details
- 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
- January 2022 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
Steem Versus Hive: Testing Blockchain Governance
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
This case examines a pivotal governance conflict that occurred in 2020 when Justin Sun, founder of the TRON blockchain, acquired Steemit Inc., the company behind a popular social media platform operating on the Steem blockchain. Steem, launched in 2016 by Daniel... View Details
- January 2022
- Article
Artificial Intelligence, Data-Driven Learning, and the Decentralized Structure of Platform Ecosystems
By: David R. Clough and Andy Wu
Gregory, Henfridsson, Kaganer, and Kyriakou (2020) highlight the important role of data and AI as strategic resources that platforms may use to enhance user value. However, their article overlooks a significant conceptual distinction: the installed base of... View Details
- November 18, 2021
- Article
With Decentralized Identity, Your Reputation Travels with You Across Cyberspace
By: Scott Duke Kominers and Jad Esber
- September 24, 2021
- Article
A Labor Movement for the Platform Economy
By: Li Jin, Scott Duke Kominers and Lila Shroff
Platforms are fundamentally changing the contract between workers and companies—and the workers and creatives that create value for platform companies, and rely on platforms for their livelihoods, often have little power when it comes to getting their concerns... View Details
- January 2021
- Article
Turbulence, Firm Decentralization and Growth in Bad Times
By: Philippe Aghion, Nicholas Bloom, Brian Lucking, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
What is the optimal form of firm organization during “bad times”? We present a model of delegation within the firm to show that the effect is ambiguous. The greater turbulence following macro shocks may benefit decentralized firms because the value of local information... View Details
- July–September 2020
- Article
Innovation Contest: Effect of Perceived Support for Learning on Participation
By: Olivia Jung, Andrea Blasco and Karim R. Lakhani
Background: Frontline staff are well positioned to conceive improvement opportunities based on first-hand knowledge of what works and does not work. The innovation contest may be a relevant and useful vehicle to elicit staff ideas. However, the success of the... View Details
- July 2020
- Article
Who Should Select New Employees, Headquarters or the Unit Manager? Consequences of Centralizing Hiring at a Retail Chain
By: Carolyn Deller and Tatiana Sandino
We examine how changing the allocation of hiring decision rights in a multiunit organization affects employee-firm match quality, contingent on a unit’s circumstances. Our research site, a U.S. retail chain, switched from a decentralized hiring model (hiring by... View Details