Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,589)
- Faculty Publications (214)
- November 2023
- Case
Open Source Machine Learning at Google
Set in early 2023, the case exposes students to the challenges of managing open source software at Google. The case focuses on the challenges for Alex Spinelli, Vice President of Product Management for Core Machine Learning. He must set priorities for Google’s efforts... View Details
- November 2023
- Case
UST's Adoption of Open Talent
By: Christopher Stanton and Kristen Senz
This case details the 2020 launch and subsequent scaling of UST’s Open Talent initiative, a program to integrate freelancers from digital platforms into its workforce. The case highlights how the shifting post-pandemic world, including layoffs, wage inflation, and... View Details
- November 2023
- Article
Open Source Software and Global Entrepreneurship
By: Nataliya Langburd Wright, Frank Nagle and Shane Greenstein
This is the first study to consider the relationship between open source software (OSS) and
entrepreneurship around the globe. This study measures whether country-level participation on
the GitHub OSS platform affects the founding of innovative ventures, and where it... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Toward a Better Understanding of Open Ecosystems: Implications for Policymakers
By: Feng Zhu and Carmelo Cennamo
The digital realm is undergoing a significant transformation, marked by the emergence of platform
business models and the concept of open ecosystems. This paper delves into the intricate nature of
ecosystem openness, underscoring the point that the openness of... View Details
- October 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
KOKO Networks: Bridging Energy Transition and Affordability with Carbon Financing
By: George Serafeim, Siko Sikochi and Namrata Arora
The problem was massive: two million hectares of African forests were lost annually to charcoal production for cooking, an area equivalent to 13 times Greater London, resulting in one billion tons of carbon emissions yearly. At the same time, an estimated 700,000... View Details
Keywords: Clean Tech; Digital; Carbon Credits; Carbon Offsetting; Climate Change; Entrepreneurship; Energy Sources; Environmental Sustainability; Health; Market Design; Business Startups; Transition; Environmental Regulation; Policy; Energy Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Africa; Kenya; Rwanda
- September 28, 2023
- Article
A Perspective on the Great Reallocation of Global Supply Chains
By: Laura Alfaro and Davin Chor
Previous optimism that cross-border supply chains would improve efficiency for firms and open up growth opportunities for countries has been tempered by concerns that global value chains now expose firms and countries to the risk of disruptions. This column analyses... View Details
- September 2023
- Technical Note
Free and Open Source Software and Hardware
By: Frank Nagle
This technical note surveys the concepts of free and open source software and hardware. It introduces the concepts in general, providing a brief history of their development and numerous examples of how companies employ them in practice. Further, it identifies various... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Better Keep the Twenty Dollars: Incentivizing Innovation in Open Source
By: Annamaria Conti, Vansh Gupta, Jorge Guzman and Maria P. Roche
Open source is key to innovation yet is assumed to be done largely through intrinsic motivation. How can we incentivize it? In this paper, we examine the impact of a program providing monetary incentives to motivate innovators to contribute to open source. The Sponsors... View Details
- August 2023 (Revised October 2023)
- Case
Beyond the Barricades: Chile 2023
Chile, often considered among Latin America's greatest economic success stories, suffered a shocking wave of protests in October 2019, as its citizens demanded reforms across healthcare and education systems, and protested inequality and rising costs of living. As... View Details
- 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
- July 2023
- Supplement
Reimagining Enel: Enabling Sustainable Progress (A)
By: Michael Tushman and Kerry Herman
This case describes the transformation of Enel from a traditional “brown” or fossil fuel energy firm to a sustainable and green firm focused on renewables, and finally to an energy supplier and integrated energy services firm. It describes a set of capabilities... View Details
- April 2023
- Supplement
Fresh Food Generation
By: Brian Trelstad
Instructors should consider the timing of making videos available to students, as they may reveal key case details.
This case highlights one of five BIPOC entrepreneuers in the Boston area as part of the HBS Impact Investment Fund. In fall 2021, a team of... View Details
This case highlights one of five BIPOC entrepreneuers in the Boston area as part of the HBS Impact Investment Fund. In fall 2021, a team of... View Details
- April 2023
- Article
Learning Down to Train Up: Mentors Are More Effective When They Value Insights from Below
By: Ting Zhang, Dan Wang and Adam D. Galinsky
Although mentorship is vital for individual success, potential mentors often view it as a costly burden. To understand what motivates mentors to overcome this barrier and more fully engage with their mentees, we introduce a new construct, learning direction, which... View Details
- January 2023 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
Digital Transformation at Tata Steel
By: Krishna Palepu, Das Narayandas, Radhika Kak and Rachna Tahilyani
T.V. Narendran, CEO of Tata Steel, India’s oldest steel manufacturing firm, had taken concrete business and cultural transformation steps to future-ready the firm since taking over in 2013. He had deleveraged and instilled financial discipline, acquired new businesses,... View Details
- December 2022
- Supplement
Freelancer, Ltd. Case Supplement
By: Christopher Stanton, Karim R. Lakhani, Jin Hyun Paik and Nina Cohodes
Over the course of the 2010s, the rapid advancement of mobile technologies and the rise of online freelancing platforms seemed to portend a radical transformation of labor markets into on-demand, flexible talent pools. Even though several Fortune 500 companies,... View Details
Keywords: Labor Markets; Freelancers; Change Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Globalized Firms and Management; Human Capital; Employment; Digital Platforms; Global Range; Adoption; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Growth and Development Strategy; Computer Industry; Electronics Industry; Employment Industry; Information Industry; Australia; United States; Philippines
- October 2022
- Case
Pricing at Echosec Systems
By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini, Annelena Lobb and Alexis Lefort
This case follows the evolution of pricing strategy at Echosec Systems, a Canadian open source intelligence firm. The case provides information on pricing as the company grows and diversifies its product offerings. View Details
- October 2022
- Case
Spaceport America, Public Sector Risk-taking, and Political Accountability (A)
By: Matthew Weinzierl, Dava Newman, Rebecca Browder and Angela Acocella
Sitting quietly in the heart of the New Mexico desert in the summer of 2014, Spaceport America (SA) housed little of the activity its supporters anticipated when opening its hangar doors in 2011. Despite $1 million in annual rent from Virgin Galactic, British... View Details
- 2022
- White Paper
The American Opportunity Index: A Corporate Scorecard of Worker Advancement
By: Matt Sigelman, Joseph Fuller, Nik Dawson and Gad Levanon
The American Opportunity Index: A Corporate Scorecard of Worker Advancement is a new effort to give companies and other stakeholders a set of robust tools that measure how well major employers are doing in fostering economic mobility for workers and how they could do... View Details
- September 2022
- Case
Proactive for Her
By: Rembrand Koning and Kairavi Dey
Proactive for Her began amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in August 2020 as a digital platform to provide accessible, evidence-based, primary, preventive non-judgmental healthcare services for Indian women, who were often dissuaded from seeking help as premarital sex and... View Details
- September 2022 (Revised August 2023)
- Case
Audrey Tang: Using Technology to Strengthen Democracy in Taiwan
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
Since the early days of the internet, Taiwan had a vibrant community of civic hackers and open-source programmers who engaged with social issues. Audrey Tang was one of them. She spearheaded the 2014 Sunflower Student Movement in Taiwan, where protestors peacefully... View Details