Publications
Publications
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(1,731)
- Faculty Publications (554)
- March 2024
- Teaching Note
Sonder Holdings Inc.: Using Technology to Solve Hospitality's Frictions
By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 922-039. Digital disruption is challenging the hospitality industry. Traditional hotels face competition from platforms, most visibly Airbnb but also the homeshare divisions of online travel agencies such as Expedia and Booking.com, that... View Details
- March 2024 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Masterpiece for the Masses: The First Art Exchange ARTEX
By: Lauren Cohen, Anastasiya Siroochenko (Siro) and Sophia Pan
Yassir Benjelloun-Touimi, CEO of ARTEX, aspired to marry the world of art and finance. Hoping to promote transparent, fractionalized ownership of renowned artwork, the founder had spent years contemplating the birth of an art stock market. This exchange would allow... View Details
Keywords: Trading; Art Market; Art Fair; Tokenization; Democratization; Exchange Traded Fund; Price Monitoring; Trends And Opportunities; Financial Liquidity; Financial Markets; Arts; Financial Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Investment Return; Technological Innovation; Business Model; Trends; Stocks; Assets; Diversification; Trade; Financial Services Industry; Fine Arts Industry; Paris; France
- February 2024
- Case
Does “Matter” Matter? Amazon and Open Standards in the Smart Home Industry
By: Frank Nagle
In early 2023, the smart home industry stood at a pivotal juncture. The recent launch of “Matter” version 1.0, an ambitious interoperability standard developed by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), promised to unify a fragmented market plagued by incompatible... View Details
- February 2024
- Case
AGENTS.inc: Pathways to Growth at an AI Startup
By: Frank Nagle, Manuel Hoffmann, Karoline Ströhlein and Susan Pinckney
The case describes the history of AGENTS.inc. Despite being a small startup, with only four employees, that had never had a funding round, the company boasted an impressive client portfolio including multiple Fortune 500 companies. While AGENTS.inc had been an early... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Startups; Small Business; Transformation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decisions; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Financial Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Digital Platforms; Technological Innovation; Copyright; Management; Growth and Development; Market Timing; Ownership; Risk and Uncertainty; Competition; Open Source Distribution; Entrepreneurial Finance; Computer Industry; Europe; Germany
- February 2024 (Revised April 2024)
- Case
Uniswap: Fighting a Vampire Attack (A)
By: Shikhar Ghosh, Shweta Bagai and Liang Wu
This is the first of a three-case series that explores the challenges faced by Uniswap, a key player in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. Founded by Hayden Adams, the case traces Uniswap's rapid growth from a simple idea inspired by a Reddit post to becoming one... View Details
Keywords: Blockchain; Cryptocurrency; Crypto Economy; Community; Decentralization; Decentralized Exchange; Decentralized Finance; Open Platforms; Open-source Innovation; Market Distruption; Stablecoin; Vampire Attack; Web3; Token; Digital Platforms; Entrepreneurship; Governance; Technological Innovation; Competitive Strategy; Financial Liquidity; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; United States
- 2024
- Working Paper
Platform Information Provision and Consumer Search: A Field Experiment
By: Lu Fang, Yanyou Chen, Chiara Farronato, Zhe Yuan and Yitong Wang
Despite substantial efforts to help consumers search in more intuitive ways, text search remains the predominant tool for product discovery online. In this paper, we explore the effects of visual and textual cues for search refinement on consumer search and purchasing... View Details
- Working Paper
Visual Uniqueness in Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces: Machine Learning Model Development, Validation, and Application
By: Flora Feng, Charis Li and Shunyuan Zhang
Peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplaces have seen exponential growth in recent years featured by unique offerings from individual providers. Despite the perceived value of uniqueness, scalable quantification of visual uniqueness in P2P platforms like Airbnb has been largely... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised February 2024)
- Exercise
Travelogo: Understanding Customer Journeys
By: Eva Ascarza, Nicolas Padilla and Oded Netzer
In late May 2023, Sarah Merino, the newly appointed manager of the Customer Insights group at Travelogo—an online travel booking platform—initiates a comprehensive analysis of clickstream data to understand the varied behaviors and needs of their users. In preparation... View Details
- January 2024
- Article
Dog Eat Dog: Balancing Network Effects and Differentiation in a Digital Platform Merger
By: Chiara Farronato, Jessica Fong and Andrey Fradkin
Digital platforms are increasingly the subject of regulatory scrutiny. In comparison to multiple competitors, a single platform may increase consumer welfare if network effects are large or may decrease welfare due to higher prices or reduction in platform variety. We... View Details
- December 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Manufacturing Moderna's Future
By: Satish Tadikonda and William Marks
In 2019, Moderna faced long odds of survival having failed to develop a successful clinical program out of the vast platform technology they had built around mRNA. Nearly overnight, the company skyrocketed to success with a vaccine for COVID-19, leading to an extremely... View Details
- December 2023
- Case
TikTok: The Algorithm Will See You Now
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
In a world where attention is a scarce commodity, this case explores the meteoric rise of TikTok—an app that transformed from a niche platform for teens into the most visited domain by 2021—surpassing even Google. Its algorithm was a sophisticated mechanism for... View Details
- 2023
- Book
Beyond AI: ChatGPT, Web3, and the Business Landscape of Tomorrow
By: Ken Huang, Yang Wang, Feng Zhu, Xi Chen and Chunxiao Xing
This book explores the transformative potential of ChatGPT, Web3, and their impact on productivity and various industries. It delves into Generative AI (GenAI) and its representative platform ChatGPT, their synergy with Web3, and how they can revolutionize business... View Details
- November 2023
- Case
Will Fintechs and Central Banks Play in Emtech's Sandbox?
By: Daniel Isenberg and William R. Kerr
In February 2023, Emtech’s founder Carmelle Cadet is facing a dilemma. Rapidly running out of cash, Cadet has a term sheet from a leading VC but has a choice of how to structure the investment. The decision will have significant implications for Cadet’s own stake, as... View Details
- November 2023 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
Bridgit: Persevere or Pivot?
By: Reza Satchu and Patrick Sanguineti
In late 2012, Mallorie Brodie and Lauren Lake, two young women in their final year of college, founded Bridgit, a technology startup that developed solutions to simplify vital but laborious processes within the construction industry. In the Fall of 2013, after months... View Details
- November–December 2023
- Article
Look the Part? The Role of Profile Pictures in Online Labor Markets
By: Isamar Troncoso and Lan Luo
Profile pictures are a key component of many freelancing platforms, a design choice that can impact hiring and matching outcomes. In this paper, we examine how appearance-based perceptions of a freelancer’s fit for the job (i.e., whether a freelancer "looks the part"... 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
- October 2023 (Revised November 2023)
- Case
Rheaply: Circularity For Every Business
By: Rembrand Koning and Alicia Dadlani
In March 2023, Garry Cooper, cofounder and CEO of Chicago-based Rheaply, needed to demonstrate that Rheaply’s expanded vision could translate into building cash flows and metrics needed to raise a Series B and turn the business into a model for financial and... View Details
- October 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Fantuan
By: Feng Zhu and David Lane
In 2023, CEO Randy Wu was considering the optimal growth strategy for Fantuan, a restaurant food delivery platform that had expanded from its 2014 founding in Vancouver, Canada to serve the Chinese demand for Asian cuisine in urban markets across Australia, Canada, the... View Details
Keywords: Business Startups; Customer Focus and Relationships; Diasporas; Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Growth Management; Business Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Canada; United Kingdom; Australia