Publications
Publications
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(15,520)
- Faculty Publications (4,846)
- February 2024
- Article
Diversification as an Adaptive Learning Process: An Empirical Study of General-Purpose and Market-Specific Technological Know-How in New Market Entry
By: Dominika Kinga Randle and Gary P. Pisano
An enduring trait of modern corporations is their propensity to diversify into multiple lines of business. Penrosian theories conceptualize diversification as a strategy to exploit a firm’s fungible, yet “untradeable”, resources and point to redeployment of... View Details
- February 2024
- Case
FIGS: Scrubbing the Status Quo
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Nicole Tempest Keller
In October 2023, FIGS had revolutionized the medical scrubs industry with its fashionable and functional designs, but the venture was at a critical juncture. The digitally native vertical brand (DNVB) had gone public in a successful IPO in 2021 and reached $500 million... View Details
- 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
- 2025
- Working Paper
Warnings and Endorsements: Improving Human-AI Collaboration in the Presence of Outliers
By: Matthew DosSantos DiSorbo, Kris Ferreira, Maya Balakrishnan and Jordan Tong
Problem definition: While artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms may perform well on data that are representative of the training set (inliers), they may err when extrapolating on non-representative data (outliers). How can humans and algorithms work together to make... View Details
- January 2024
- Case
Fusion Industry Association: Igniting the Future of Clean Energy
Fusion energy is evolving from a scientific idea to a commercial possibility, drawing large investments and regulatory discussions; how should the FIA navigate this evolution?
The Fusion Industry Association (FIA) is at the forefront of transforming fusion... View Details
The Fusion Industry Association (FIA) is at the forefront of transforming fusion... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised April 2024)
- Case
Target Malaria: Editing Mosquitoes through Gene Drives
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
Target Malaria, a non-profit research consortium, is exploring the application of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology to combat malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its approach uses gene drives, a revolutionary tool, to suppress the population of malaria-carrying... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised July 2024)
- Case
CloudEats: Revolutionizing the Cloud Kitchen in Southeast Asia
By: Paul A. Gompers and Adina Wong
Philippines-headquartered cloud kitchen CloudEats harbored the ambition of becoming the largest cloud kitchen in Southeast Asia, but it was considering several strategic paths forward. View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
The Wandering Scholars: Understanding the Heterogeneity of University Commercialization
By: Josh Lerner, Henry Manley, Carolyn Stein and Heidi Williams
University-based scientific research has long been argued to be a central source of
commercial innovation and economic growth. Yet at the same time, there have been
long-held concerns that many university-based discoveries never realize their potential
social... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised October 2024)
- Case
DO & CO: Crafting Luxury in the Fast Lane (A)
By: Juan Alcácer, Esel Cekin, Michael Lee and Noah Roberson
In July 2023, Attila Dogudan, the chairman of DO & CO, a renowned international catering firm, found himself in a deep conversation with his two sons about a potential new venture: catering for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, a significant step beyond their 31-year history... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised June 2024)
- Case
School of Rock: Tuning into Structured Empowerment (A)
By: Tatiana Sandino, Jeffrey Rayport, Samuel Grad and Stacy Straaberg
In summer 2021, School of Rock was a youth-oriented music education company with 291 franchise- and company-owned schools globally. Before CEO Rob Price’s hire in 2017, School of Rock’s nonconformist rock ‘n’ roll culture led to variability in teaching styles,... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Plan; Change Management; Transformation; Communication Strategy; Decisions; Curriculum and Courses; Teaching; Employee Relationship Management; Knowledge Sharing; Leadership Style; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Style; Marketing Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Franchise Ownership; Performance Expectations; Performance Improvement; Strategic Planning; Attitudes; Conflict Management; Corporate Strategy; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Education Industry; Music Industry; Massachusetts; United States
- January 2024 (Revised June 2024)
- Supplement
School of Rock: Tuning into Structured Empowerment (B)
By: Tatiana Sandino, Jeffrey Rayport, Samuel Grad and Stacy Straaberg
In September 2022, Price and his team evaluated the past year’s strategies to increase Method App adoption and discussed new initiatives to consider. View Details
- January 2024
- Case
Flashfood: The Magic of Commitment
By: Reza Satchu and Patrick Sanguineti
Josh Domingues had accomplished what countless young entrepreneurs long to achieve: founding a promising company that aspires to make the world a tangibly better place. Shocked to learn that international food waste cumulatively amounted to the world’s third largest... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised January 2025)
- Case
Huawei: Resilience amid Autarky and Adversity
By: William C. Kirby and Daniel Fu
In September 2023, Huawei made a dramatic return to the global smartphone space with the launch of its Mate 60 Pro smartphone, equipped with an indigenously designed, 7nm chip. This came despite a myriad of export controls and restrictions imposed against the company... View Details
Keywords: International Strategy; Semiconductors; Smartphone; Government And Politics; Government And Business; Digital Infrastructure; 5G; Political Risk; Business and Government Relations; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; AI and Machine Learning; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Leadership; Retirement; Corporate Strategy; Technology Industry; China; United States; Europe; Asia; Middle East
- 2024
- Working Paper
Contributing to Growth? The Role of Open Source Software for Global Startups
By: Nataliya Langburd Wright, Frank Nagle and Shane Greenstein
How does participating in open source software (OSS) communities spur entrepreneurial growth?
To address this question, we analyze novel data matching accounts from GitHub—the largest OSS
hosting platform—to the universe of global software venture-backed firms... View Details
- January 2024
- Case
The Financial Times (FT) and Generative AI
By: Andrew Rashbass, Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Jordan Mitchell
In September 2023, John Ridding, CEO of the Financial Times, was considering the possible impact of Generative AI on the industry and his business. Having navigated successfully the seismic shift from print to digital, and reporting record results, the company... View Details
- January 2024
- Background Note
Making Strategic Choices
By: Jan W. Rivkin
This note lays out a process that students and business leaders can follow to make well-integrated sets of strategic choices. View Details
- January 2024 (Revised January 2025)
- Case
Colbún and Chile's Energy Transition
By: Forest Reinhardt, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Mariana Cal
In May 2023, Colbún, Chile’s second-largest electricity generator, plans capacity expansions using renewable energy and storage. This strategy supports Chile’s commitment to carbon neutrality (also known as net zero emissions) by 2050. The case delves into the... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised February 2024)
- Course Overview Note
Managing Customers for Growth: Course Overview for Students
By: Eva Ascarza
Managing Customers for Growth (MCG) is a 14-session elective course for second-year MBA students at Harvard Business School. It is designed for business professionals engaged in roles centered on customer-driven growth activities. The course explores the dynamics of... View Details
- January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Pioneer Natural Resources: Enhancing the Capital Return Strategy with Variable Dividends
In February 2021, Scott Sheffield, the CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources (an independent oil and gas company based in Texas), was considering the possibility of enhancing the firm’s capital return strategy by introducing a variable dividend tied to cash flows in... View Details