Publications

August 2001 (Revised September 2005)
Case

eBay (A): The Customer Marketplace

By: Frances X. Frei and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar

eBay, the popular Internet-based consumer-to-consumer marketplace, has recently become attractive to corporate customers. According to a vocal subset of eBay customers, the company has lost its way and is set to forsake its traditional business. Told from the... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Multi-Sided Platforms; Problems and Challenges; Opportunities; Trust; Internet; Web Services Industry

November 1998 (Revised July 2000)
Case

Deere & Company: Sustaining Value

By: Malcolm S. Salter and Marlowe Dayley

The question facing Deere & Co. is whether or not to adopt some of the organizational technologies of private equity investors (decentralized equity holdings, use of leverage to control the disposition of cash flows, the externalization of the capital budgeting... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Decision Choices and Conditions; Cash Flow; Private Equity; Wealth; Adoption; Manufacturing Industry

10 Aug 2010
News

A bitter health care pill

September 2021 (Revised December 2023)
Case

On the Bubble: Startup Bootstrapping

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Tom Quinn and Annelena Lobb

Bubble was a software company in the low-code/no-code market, making tools that allowed users without traditional programming backgrounds or technical skills to build software. The case covers cofounder Joshua Haas’s engineering background, as he experienced a high... View Details

19 Feb 2008
Research & Ideas

Radical Design, Radical Results

When furniture designer Herman Miller presented a prototype of its sleek, mesh Aeron chair to a consumer focus group, many asked if they could see a finished, upholstered version. Innovative product design can be a risky proposition. Yet as consumer purchases become... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Consumer Products

2024
Working Paper

Priceless: How to Create, Trade, and Protect What Matters Most

By: Debora L. Spar

This article explores the concept of the "sacred economy," a realm of human interactions and exchanges that transcends traditional market dynamics. It illustrates the emotional and relational aspects of human connections that cannot be quantified or traded like... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Relationships; Human Needs; Goods and Commodities

SSRN

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2018
Working Paper

Information Provision and Innovation: Natural Experiment of Herbal Patent Prior Art Adoption at the United States and European Patent Offices

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tarun Khanna

We exploit a natural experiment to study how codifying information about prior innovation affects subsequent innovation. A codified database of traditional Indian herbal formulations was adopted by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the U.S. Patent and Trademark... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Ethnicity; Health Care and Treatment; Pharmaceutical Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; China; India

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20 Oct 2021
Blog Post

Mobilizing Private Sector Action For Racial Equity in Milwaukee: SE Summer Fellow Zach Komes (MBA 2022)

The HBS Summer Fellows Program enables students to apply their classroom training as they explore career opportunities in roles or regions where compensation is generally lower than the traditional MBA level. We are connecting with some... View Details

Marco Iansiti

Marco Iansiti, David Sarnoff Professor of Business Administration,is a codirector of the Laboratory for Information Science at Harvard and of the Digital Initiative at HBS.

Prof. Iansiti's research examines the digital transformation of companies and... View Details

Keywords: automotive; computer; e-commerce industry; electronics; fiber optics; high technology; information; information technology industry; internet; semiconductor; software; telecommunications; venture capital industry

September 2003 (Revised November 2003)
Case

Raiser Organization, The

By: John A. Davis and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

Jennifer and Philip Raiser, a sibling partnership who inherited a real estate management and ownership company from their father, ponder the strategic and financial challenges facing their family business. Reviews the history of the business and asks what the best... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Family Business; Growth and Development Strategy; Real Estate Industry

September 2000
Case

Quokka Sports

By: Stephen P. Bradley, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Stephanie Mason Ogborne and Julie C. Toscano

Quokka Sports is an example of one of the new broadband services focused in total immersion sports. Quokka faces two issues: 1) the broadband infrastructure is emerging slowly so the type of services offered needs to be decided on. 2) Quokka faces an explosion of... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Decisions; Information Publishing; Infrastructure; Competition; Advertising Industry; Web Services Industry

Find at Harvard

10 Feb 2022
News

A Dirty Secret: Here’s Why Your ESG ETF Likely Owns Stock in Fossil-Fuel Companies

10 Aug 2021
News

Is Remote Work Here To Stay?

30 Aug 2019
News

Allocating capital to microentrepreneurs through community surveys in India

February 2000 (Revised April 2000)
Case

San Francisco Opera

By: John C. Sawhill and Elizabeth Kind

The San Francisco Opera, second largest in the United States, has embarked on a initiative to attract a larger audience and more support from Silicon Valley. Given that the opera's traditional constituency is the older, wealthier residents of San Francisco, this... View Details

Keywords: Arts; Nonprofit Organizations; Marketing Strategy; Internet; Fine Arts Industry; San Francisco

May 1987 (Revised November 1998)
Case

John Deere Component Works (A)

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The division has recognized the inadequacies of its existing, traditional cost system for estimating product costs. Describes the innovative activity-based system that was developed to more accurately trace overhead costs to individual products. Provides students with... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Cost Accounting; Cost Management; Cost vs Benefits; Production; Budgets and Budgeting; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Consumer Products Industry