Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(565)
- Faculty Publications (90)
- June 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
The Lunar Gateway, Moon vs. Mars, and the Political Governance of Space Activities
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Mehak Sarang
In 2017, the Trump Administration made a bold claim—that they would return the next man and the first woman to the lunar surface by 2024, this time to establish a sustainable presence to enable further exploration in the solar system. With the Artemis Program, NASA has... View Details
Keywords: Space; Space Economy; Aerospace; Nasa; Governance; Policy; International Relations; Infrastructure
- April 2021 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Social Media War 2021: Snap vs. Facebook vs. TikTok
By: David B. Yoffie and Daniel Fisher
This case explores the competitive war between Snap, Facebook, and TikTok in 2021. The strategic focus is on Snapchat: how should it respond to the emergence of TikTok, and how should it compete with the dominant competitor in its space—Facebook. The case examines... View Details
- 2021
- Article
Leisure Beliefs and the Subjective Well-being of Nations
By: Lucia Macchia and A.V. Whillans
Here, we construct a data set of 79 countries (N = 220,000) and explore whether differences in the prioritization of time (leisure) vs. money (work) explain cross-country differences in happiness. Consistent with our predictions, countries whose citizens value leisure... View Details
Keywords: Leisure; Work; Subjective Well-being; Public Policy; Employment; Happiness; Governance; Policy
- 2020
- Working Paper
The Evolutionary Nature of Breakthrough Innovation: Re-Evaluating the Exploration vs. Exploitation Dichotomy
By: Dominika K. Sarnecka and Gary P. Pisano
Over the past few decades, a consensus has emerged that breakthrough innovations emerge from exploration of novel terrain while more routine innovations are the product of exploitation. In this paper, we revisit this explore versus exploit dichotomy with an analysis... View Details
- November 2020
- Article
Casting Conference Calls
By: Lauren Cohen, Dong Lou and Christopher J. Malloy
We explore a subtle but important mechanism through which firms can control information flow to the markets. We find that firms that “cast” their conference calls by disproportionately calling on bullish analysts tend to underperform in the future. Firms that call on... View Details
- October 2020 (Revised February 2025)
- Technical Note
Reinvention
By: Ryan Raffaelli
This note is designed to introduce students to the fundamental concepts of leading innovation in established organizations. Reinvention is a process whereby organizations respond to changes in the environment that threaten their core business model, technologies,... View Details
- July 2020 (Revised September 2021)
- Case
Mr. Five Percent: Calouste Gulbenkian and the Origins of Global Oil
By: Geoffrey Jones and Yazeed Al-Rashed
This case describes the business career of Calouste Gulbenkian, a skilled intermediary who was able to secure 5 percent of a vast oil concession covering much of the Middle East that was signed in 1928. Gulbenkian was an ethnic Armenian born in the Ottoman Empire,... View Details
Keywords: Oil; Globalization; Energy Sources; History; Biography; Energy Industry; Turkey; Central Asia; Middle East
- June 2020
- Article
Start-up Inertia versus Flexibility: The Role of Founder Identity in a Nascent Industry
By: Tiona Zuzul and Mary Tripsas
Through an inductive, comparative study of four early entrants in the nascent air taxi market, we examine why start-ups, generally characterized as flexible, malleable entities, might instead exhibit inertial behavior. While two of the firms engaged in ongoing... View Details
- April 2020 (Revised October 2021)
- Case
SpaceX, Economies of Scale, and a Revolution in Space Access
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl, Kylie Lucas and Mehak Sarang
From the time he transformed the world of online banking, Elon Musk established himself as a bold innovator. After selling X.com to PayPal in 2002, he founded a series of revolutionary start-ups, starting with Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX). Hoping to "make... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
No Line Left Behind: Assortative Matching Inside the Firm
By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Vittorio Bassi, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge Tamayo
How do firms pair workers with managers, and which constraints affect the allocation of labor within the firm? We characterize the sorting pattern of managers to workers in a large readymade garment manufacturer in India and then explore potential drivers of the... View Details
- January 2020
- Article
Gifts of the Immigrants, Woes of the Natives: Lessons from the Age of Mass Migration
By: Marco Tabellini
In this paper, I jointly investigate the political and the economic effects of immigration and study the causes of anti-immigrant sentiments. I exploit exogenous variation in European immigration to U.S. cities between 1910 and 1930 induced by World War I and the... View Details
- 2020
- Chapter
Ethical Business, Corruption and Economic Development in Comparative Perspective
By: Janet Hunter and G. Jones
This chapter contextualises the drivers of corruption in Turkish business through comparisons with Japan and India in the late 19th century. It identifies the developmental state as a common driver of corruption. Catching up by using extensive state intervention had... View Details
Keywords: Corruption; Crime and Corruption; Economic Growth; Turkey; Middle East; Central Asia; Japan; India
- September 2019
- Article
Bankruptcy Spillovers
By: Shai Bernstein, Emanuele Colonnelli, Xavier Giroud and Benjamin Iverson
How do different bankruptcy approaches affect the local economy? Using U.S. Census microdata, we explore the spillover effects of reorganization and liquidation on geographically proximate firms. We exploit the random assignment of bankruptcy judges as a source of... View Details
- 2019
- Book
The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power
By: Michael A. Cusumano, Annabelle Gawer and David B. Yoffie
The Business of Platforms explores the strategic, economic, and technology management challenges of digital platform businesses. We have five major themes in the book: 1) The world’s most valuable companies are all platforms, in part because platforms have... View Details
- January 2019 (Revised May 2019)
- Case
When Trolls Attack: Carbonite vs. Oasis Research
By: Lauren H. Cohen, Umit G. Gurun, Scott Duke Kominers and Sarah Mehta
This case, set in October 2017, follows Danielle Sheer, general counsel for Carbonite, as she defends the company against claims of patent infringement. It provides a broad overview of the U.S. patent system and explores the impact that non-practicing entities... View Details
- August 28, 2018
- Article
How Intermittent Breaks in Interaction Improve Collective Intelligence
By: Ethan Bernstein, Jesse Shore and David Lazer
People influence each other when they interact to solve problems. Such social influence introduces both benefits (higher average solution quality due to exploitation of existing answers through social learning) and costs (lower maximum solution quality due to a... View Details
Keywords: Transparency; Social Influence; Collective Intelligence; Interaction; Problem Solving; Collaboration; Intermittant; Breaks; Always On; Communication Technologies; Communication; Design; Information; Management; Leadership; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Performance; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information Technology
- December 2017
- Supplement
CEO Succession at Cisco: Video Supplement
By: Boris Groysberg and J. Yo-Jud Cheng
Excerpts of videotaped class visits and an interview with former Cisco CEO John Chambers about Cisco’s CEO succession planning process. Topics include Chambers’ reflections on the process; the roles of the incumbent CEO, board of directors, executive search, and the... View Details
- November–December 2017
- Article
Innovation Streams and Executive Leadership
By: Michael Tushman
Incumbent firms face steep challenges in dealing with technological change and associated innovation streams. The firm's senior leadership team, and especially R&D leadership, plays a central role in shaping a firm's ability to both exploit existing capabilities and... View Details
- April 2017 (Revised July 2017)
- Case
ISRO: Explore Space or Exploit CubeSats?
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Karim Lakhani and Rachna Tahilyani
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) achieved global acclaim by launching successful missions to the moon and Mars at a fraction of the cost of prior Western missions. It is now faced with an important strategic dilemma—whether to continue exploring deep space... View Details
- December 2016
- Article
Industry Window Dressing
By: Huaizhi Chen, Lauren Cohen and Dong Lou
We explore a new mechanism by which investors take correlated shortcuts and present evidence that managers undertake actions—in the form of sales management—to take advantage of these shortcuts. Specifically, we exploit a regulatory provision wherein a firm’s primary... View Details