Publications

December 2007 (Revised July 2008)
Case

Montague Corporation: Unfolding the Future in Cycling

Montague has developed a major innovation that creates a new sub-category in the bicycle industry: a full-sized, high-quality bicycle that folds. In contrast to existing small-wheeled folding bicycles that are portable, but with inferior performance characteristics,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Product Positioning; Demand and Consumers; Adoption; Bicycle Industry

1985
Working Paper

Sequential Innovation and Market Structure

By: Jerry R. Green and Jean-Jacques Laffont

This paper concerns the introduction of a sequence of new, higher-quality durable products in a market in which there already exists a lower-quality substitute. The product has the further attribute that a real resource cost is incurred at the time a higher-quality... View Details

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April 2008
Case

TerraCog Global Positioning Systems: Conflict and Communication on Project Aerial

By: Michael Beer and Sunru Yong

TerraCog, a successful privately held high-tech firm that develops GPS (global positioning system) and similar products for consumer markets, has recently been caught off-guard by a competitor's new product that makes novel use of satellite imagery. When TerraCog... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Meetings; Decision Making; Group Dynamics; Human Resource Management; Conflict; Information Technology; Leadership; Conflict Management; Competition; Groups and Teams; Organizational Culture; Human Resources; Communication; Decision Choices and Conditions; Crisis Management; Technology Industry

May 2024
Article

Design of Off-Grid Lighting Business Models to Serve the Poor: Field Experiments and Structural Analysis

By: Bhavani Shanker Uppari, Serguei Netessine, Ioanna Popescu and Rowan P. Clarke

A significant proportion of the world's population has no access to grid-based electricity and so relies on off-grid lighting solutions. Rechargeable lamp technology is gaining popularity as an alternative off-grid lighting model in developing countries. In this paper,... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Developing Countries and Economies; Consumer Behavior; Poverty; Logistics; Business Model; Utilities Industry

07 Dec 2022
Blog Post

2022 Climate Symposium: Tackling Climate Together

The theme of the 2022 Annual Climate Symposium was “Tackling Climate Together” with a focus on the intersectionality of climate change and the critical need for businesses, individuals, policy makers, and consumers to come together to... View Details

2014
Case

Changhong: Journey to Shared Services

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Haiyan Zhang and Guo Jia

Founded in 1958 and headquartered in Mianyang - an emerging inland science and technology city in Sichuan Province, Changhong Electric Co., Ltd., started from the military industry. It then entered the color TV industry and subsequently expanded to a wide range of... View Details

Keywords: China; Appliances; Finance ＆ Insurance; China

14 Sep 2016
Research & Ideas

Web Surfers Have a Schedule and Stick to It

sites. Our online visits often come in short bursts rather than extended leisurely strolls through cyberspace. People with higher incomes spend less time online than those making less. In other words, consumers behave online in a much... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail; Web Services

16 Sep 2021
News

OpenSea, Amid Insider Trading Controversy, Rolls Out NFT Marketplace App

Research Summary

Retailing: Past, Present, and Future

Walter J. Salmon is working on several retailing-related research and course development projects, including a study (with Gwen K. Ortmeyer) of the evolution and future of American department stores, and a case book (with DAVID E. BELL) for use in graduate... View Details

April 2009 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Backchannelmedia: Making Television 'Clickable'

By: Sunil Gupta, Kavita Shukla and Zachary Scott Clayton

Backchannelmedia (BCM), a three-year-old start-up, intended to completely disrupt the world of advertising by transforming the way Americans watched television. BCM had developed a technology to make television "clickable," enabling viewers to interact with the content... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Investment; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Marketing Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Competition

May 2016 (Revised January 2018)
Case

Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Acquiring the First Thousand Customers

By: Thales S. Teixeira and Morgan Brown

By 2016, two-sided online platforms (or marketplaces) were pervasive among the highest growing internet startups around. These marketplaces sought to match suppliers of assets for rent, physical products or services with customers demanding them. Among the most notable... View Details

Keywords: Airbnb; Etsy; Uber; Growth Hacking; Two-sided Market; Internet and the Web; Marketing Strategy; Digital Platforms; Digital Marketing; Business Startups; Transportation Industry; Accommodations Industry

June 1998 (Revised August 2000)
Case

Microsoft CarPoint

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

CarPoint.com was Microsoft's Web-based entry into on-line automobile retailing. While it could not, in fact, "sell" or deliver any cars, it could shift much of consumer search, comparison, and decision-making, including pricing, the traditional car dealer to the Web.... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Service Operations; Market Entry and Exit; Consumer Behavior; Auto Industry; Retail Industry

03 Mar 2008
Research & Ideas

Marketing Your Way Through a Recession

thresholds for quantity discounts, extend credit to long-standing customers, and price smaller pack sizes more aggressively. In tough times, price cuts attract more consumer support than promotions such as sweepstakes and mail-in offers.... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

Jeremy Yang

Jeremy Yang is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Marketing Unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches Marketing in the MBA required curriculum. He develops data products for... View Details

Keywords: consumer products; consumer products; consumer products; consumer products; consumer products

04 Sep 2007
Research & Ideas

Jumpstarting Innovation: Using Disruption to Your Advantage

the business environment cause economic shifts that destabilize industries, companies, and even countries. They allow new entrants or forward-thinking established players to introduce innovations—in products, markets, or processes—that transform the way companies do... View Details

Keywords: by Lynda M. Applegate

September 2021
Article

Network Interconnectivity and Entry into Platform Markets

By: Feng Zhu, Xinxin Li, Ehsan Valavi and Marco Iansiti

Digital technologies have led to the emergence of many platforms in our economy today. In certain platform networks, buyers in one market purchase services from providers in many other markets, whereas in others, buyers primarily purchase services from providers within... View Details

Keywords: Network Interconnectivity; Platform Competition; Market Entry; Networks; Digital Platforms; Competition; Market Entry and Exit

January 2009 (Revised July 2009)
Case

Alibaba's Taobao (A)

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Julie M. Wulf

This case examines the decision of Alibaba Group to diversify from an international business-to-business (B2B) exchange (Alibaba.com) into a B2C and C2C exchange (Taobao.com) for Chinese retailers and consumers. In China, Taobao had managed to displace the once... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Demand and Consumers; Market Transactions; Service Operations; Diversification; Internet and the Web; China

01 Dec 2015
First Look

December 1, 2015

within the firm. The inventor team composition has important consequences for how the new knowledge is exploited within and outside of the firm. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50098 2015 The Cambridge Handbook of View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 1996 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Virtual Vineyards

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Alvin J. Silk, Lisa Klein Pearo and Thomas A. Gerace

Virtual Vineyards markets wine from small California vineyards directly to consumers through its site on the World Wide Web. It also facilitates fulfillment of customer orders. The case focuses on the ways in which Virtual Vineyards provides value to end consumers... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Technological Innovation; Management; Service Operations; Internet and the Web