Publications

August 2012 (Revised August 2013)
Background Note

Competency-Destroying Technology Transitions: Why the Transition to Digital Is Particularly Challenging

By: Willy Shih

Some technology transitions are exceedingly difficult for incumbent firms to execute. The bankruptcy filing by the Eastman Kodak Company highlighted the difficulty companies faced when their core business transitioned from an analog to a digital world. Kodak's business... View Details

April 2021
Teaching Note

Drinkworks: Home Bar by Keurig

By: Sunil Gupta and Jonathan Levav

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 521-010. In the summer of 2018, Drinkworks CEO Nathaniel Davis needed to make a number of go-to-market decisions ahead of his company’s upcoming product launch. Formed through a joint venture between Keurig Dr. Pepper and Anheuser-Busch... View Details

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

May 2017
Teaching Note

Hilti Fleet Management (A) and (B)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Oliver Gassmann and Roman Sauer

These notes are meant to accompany Hilti Fleet Management (A): Turning a Successful Business Model on Its Head (717-427) and Hilti Fleet Management (B): Towards a New Business Model (717-465).
This case explores the introduction of fleet management in the... View Details

Web

Marketing - Faculty & Research

for the 2022 John D. C. Little Award. They study the effect of Airbnb’s smart-pricing algorithm on the racial disparity in the daily revenue earned by Airbnb hosts. Their empirical strategy exploits Airbnb’s introduction of the algorithm and its voluntary View Details

09 Apr 2024
Book

Why Work Rituals Bring Teams Together and Create More Meaning

philosophy, and we not only have a heck of a good time with it, we work better because of it." Other companies have adopted more intense rituals, organizing treks into the wilderness, paintball competitions, corporate retreats, and group... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

27 Sep 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Ratcheting, Competition, and the Diffusion of Technological Change: The Case of Televisions Under an Energy Efficiency Program

Keywords: by Tomomichi Amano and Hiroshi Ohashi; Telecommunications; Entertainment & Recreation

25 Aug 2009
First Look

First Look: August 25

reduction in monopoly price leads to the production of units that cost less than their value to consumers (standard channel); (ii) regulation calms down existing consumers because a reduction in the profits of an "unkind" firm... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Web

Great American Business Leaders of the 20th Century - Leadership

Edward T. Bedford Corn Products Refining Company, 1906–1930 Edward J. Bednarz Pinkerton's, 1967–1979 Olive Ann M. Beech Beech Aircraft Corporation, 1950–1968 Eugene N. Beesley Eli Lilly & Company, 1969–1973 Hernand Behn International... View Details

2023
Article

Moral Escalation: Contested Category Emergence and Its Consequences in the Toy Industry

By: Ryann Noe

Preexisting research has outlined the cognitive, competitive, and economic barriers to market category emergence. Yet scholars have paid scant attention to the processes and consequences of moral resistance to nascent categories. Through a longitudinal, qualitative... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Market Entry and Exit; Product Positioning; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry

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February 2021
Case

Digital Manufacturing at Amgen

By: Shane Greenstein, Kyle R. Myers and Sarah Mehta

This case discusses efforts made by biotechnology (biotech) company Amgen to introduce digital technologies into its manufacturing processes. Doing so is complicated by the fact that the process for manufacturing biologics—or therapeutics made from living cells—is... View Details

09 May 2024
Research & Ideas

Called Back to the Office? How You Benefit from Ideas You Didn't Know You Were Missing

cross-pollinate through committees, seminars, speeches, athletic events, or even chance meetings. Zoom, Slack, and social media facilitate some virtual information sharing, but it’s unclear to what degree. While it’s still early days in the widespread View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

May 2006 (Revised November 2006)
Case

DVD War

By: David B. Yoffie and Michael Slind

In 2006, the DVD was the most popular storage medium in the entertainment and computer industries. The development of high-definition (HD) technology created a need for a format with greater storage capacity. Instead of agreeing on a single standard for a new HD disc,... View Details

Keywords: Disruption; Entertainment; Business History; Intellectual Property; Product; Competition; Technology Adoption; Electronics Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

March 2017 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Flashion: Art vs. Science in Fashion Retailing

By: Kris Ferreira and Karim R. Lakhani

Kate Wilson, retail analytics manager at Flashion, a fashion flash-sale site, is tasked with developing analytics to optimize pricing for first-exposure products on the site. Many in the industry have relied on years of experience and intuition to determine pricing—can... View Details

Keywords: Analytics; Pricing; Data; Service Operations; Forecasting and Prediction; Internet and the Web; Technology Adoption; Mathematical Methods; Decision Making; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Fashion Industry; United States

June 2005
Case

Furqan Nazeeri and the IMTrader Spin-Out

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Brian DeLacey

Furqan Nazeeri is looking to spin out a promising set of products and technologies from an established financial services firm. Designed as an exercise in negotiation. Includes material from the original business plan, and it is possible to simulate a negotiation... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business or Company Management; Negotiation Process; Product Development; Technology Adoption