Publications

Research Summary

Competing on a Common Platform

Why have over 100 firms joined the Eclipse Foundation to collectively produce an open source platform and tools for software application development? What are they trying to accomplish? This research analyzes IBMs divestment of the Eclipse Java Integrated Development... View Details

September 2017 (Revised July 2023)
Case

Adaptive Platform Trials: The Clinical Trial of the Future?

By: Ariel D. Stern and Sarah Mehta

In July 2017, Dr. Brian M. Alexander, president and CEO of the AGILE Research Foundation, was preparing to launch a new type of clinical trial—an adaptive platform trial—to study potential therapies for glioblastoma (GBM), an aggressive form of brain cancer.... View Details

Keywords: Clinical Trials; Cancer; Adaptive Platform Trials; Platform Trials; Adaptive Trials; Glioblastoma; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Health Testing and Trials; Business Strategy; Innovation Strategy; Health Industry; United States

December 2020 (Revised March 2021)
Case

eXp Realty and the Virbela Platform

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Jan Bena, David Rowat and Emma Salomon

As he considered his plans for the future, Glenn Sanford, CEO of eXp World Holdings, Inc., faced an exciting conundrum. He had built the first all-remote real estate brokerage firm, eXp Realty, which had been growing exponentially and was thriving, even amidst the... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; All Remote; Virtual Platform; Internet and the Web; Strategy; Decision Making; Resource Allocation; Digital Platforms; Real Estate Industry; Technology Industry

October 2020 (Revised December 2020)
Case

AfricInvest: A Pan-African Investment Platform

By: Victoria Ivashina and Youssef Abdel Aal

The case is set in December 2018, when Ziad Oueslati, co-managing director and co-founder of AfricInvest, a leading pan-African private equity firm headquartered in Tunisia, was reflecting on the future direction of his firm. AfricInvest started as a traditional small... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Private Equity; Venture Capital; Strategy; Governance; Financial Services Industry; Tunisia; Africa; Middle East

July–August 2016
Article

Stick to the Strategy or Make the Sale?: A Manufacturer of High-tech Streetlights Considers an Exception to Its New Subscription Model

By: Mitchell Weiss

A manufacturer of high-tech streetlights considers an exception to its new subscription model. A fictionalized case study based on the HBS Case 816-005, "Bigbelly," by Mitchell Weiss and Christine Snively. This case is an example of public entrepreneurship. View Details

Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Smart Cities; Anything As A Service; Xaas; Bigbelly; Entrepreneurship

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10 Jul 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Platform Envelopment

Keywords: by Thomas Eisenmann, Geoffrey Parker & Marshall Van Alstyne; Technology

November 2022 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Hugging Face (A): Serving AI on a Platform

By: Shane Greenstein, Daniel Yue, Sarah Gulick and Kerry Herman

It is fall 2022, and open-source AI model company Hugging Face is considering its three areas of priorities: platform development, supporting the open-source community, and pursuing cutting-edge scientific research. As it expands services for enterprise clients, which... View Details

Keywords: Community; Open-source; AI and Machine Learning; Product Development; Networks; Service Delivery; Research; Governance; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Information Industry; Technology Industry; United States

December 2022
Article

Competition, Contracts, and Creativity: Evidence from Novel Writing in a Platform Market

By: Yanhui Wu and Feng Zhu

A growing number of people today are participating in the gig economy, working as independent contractors on short-term projects. We study the effects of competition on gig workers' effort and creativity on a Chinese novel-writing platform. Authors produce and sell... View Details

Keywords: Gig Workers; Platform-based Markets; Novel Writing; Creative Production; Platform Bias; Employment; Digital Platforms; Creativity; Books; Competition; Contracts

10 Dec 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Multi-sided Platforms

Keywords: by Andrei Hagiu & Julian Wright; Technology

October 2019
Article

Adaptive Platform Trials: Definition, Design, Conduct and Reporting Considerations

By: Derek C. Angus, Brian M. Alexander, Scott Berry, Meredith Buxton, Roger Lewis, Melissa Paoloni, Steven A. R. Webb, Steven Arnold, Anna Barker, Donald A. Berry, Marc J. M. Bonten, Mary Brophy, Christopher Butler, Timothy F. Cloughesy, Lennie P. G. Derde, Laura J. Esserman, Ryan Ferguson, Louis Fiore, Sarah C. Gaffey, J. Michael Gaziano, Kathy Giusti, Herman Goossens, Stephane Heritier, Bradley Hyman, Michael Krams, Kay Larholt, Lisa M. LaVange, Philip Lavori, Andrew W. Lo, Alexander J. London, Victoria Manax, Colin McArthur, Genevieve O’Neill, Giovanni Parmigiani, Jane Perlmutter, Elizabeth A. Petzold, Craig Ritchie, Kathryn M. Rowan, Christopher W. Seymour, Nathan I. Shapiro, Diane M. Simeone, Bradley Smith, Bradley Spellberg, Ariel Dora Stern, Lorenzo Trippa, Mark Trusheim, Kert Viele, Patrick Y. Wen and Janet Woodcock

Researchers, clinicians, policymakers, and patients are increasingly interested in questions about therapeutic interventions that are difficult or costly to answer with traditional, free-standing, parallel-group randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Examples include... View Details

Keywords: Adaptive Platform Trials; Health Testing and Trials

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January 2002 (Revised May 2002)
Case

Digital China Holdings Limited: ERP as a Platform for Building New Capabilities

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Guoqing Chen and Kai Reimers

This case analyzes a complex ERP implementation that takes place in one of the leading companies in China. The issues are indistinguishable from those facing a U.S. organization. View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Technology Adoption; Information Technology; Complexity; Problems and Challenges; China

June 2024
Case

Aidoc: Building a Hospital-Centric AI Platform

By: Ariel D. Stern and Susan Pinckney

In 2023, Israel-based AI health care company Aidoc evaluated its future. The company, founded in 2016, had grown from commercializing a single AI product for radiologists to a software platform that could detect 20 conditions and immediately notify care teams of... 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

September 2021 (Revised December 2021)
Case

Telepass: From Tolling to Mobility Platform

By: Chiara Farronato, Stefano Denicolai and Sarah Mehta

Telepass, until very recently the sole processor of electronic toll payments on Italy’s highways, has ambitions beyond tolling. Since the mid-2010s, the company has been expanding into adjacent services. In 2017, Telepass launched TelepassPay—a mobile payment... View Details

Research Summary

Platform Competition

Technology has challenged the underlying foundations of business, and firms must evaluate and change strategies accordingly. Professor Halaburda studies the interaction of technology and economic theory, and her findings indicate that conventional wisdom and rules... View Details

March 2022
Article

From Proprietary to Collective Governance: How Do Platform Participation Strategies Evolve?

By: Siobhan O'Mahony and Rebecca Karp

When platform leaders change the rules guiding who can access and control a platform, the strategies of those who create value from the platform can be upended. Little research examines how platform participants adapt their strategies when a platform leader changes the... View Details

Keywords: Platform Governance; Access; Crowdsourcing; Applications and Software; Employees; Leadership Style; Cybersecurity; Risk Management