Publications

Find at Harvard

June 2007 (Revised April 2009)
Case

Opening Pandora's Box

By: Willy C. Shih, Stephen P. Kaufman, Melissa Marie Blakeley and Marissa Wairy Dent

Pandora.com provided a highly customizable online radio service tailored to listeners' musical preferences and had registered explosive growth since its September 2005 launch. But proposed changes in royalty rates threatened to kill off many Internet radio sites,... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Intellectual Property; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Operations; Internet; Media and Broadcasting Industry

June 1999 (Revised May 2001)
Case

CardioThoracic Systems

CardioThoracic Systems, a company that has developed a new system for performing heart surgery on a beating heart, is facing marketing challenges. Discusses the numerous reasons for the system's low penetration (including existing techniques, surgeon resistance, and a... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Technological Innovation; Situation or Environment; Marketing Strategy; Sales; Health Care and Treatment; Technology Industry; Health Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; United States

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

winter 1989
Article

Split-Awards Procurement and Innovation

By: James J. Anton and Dennis A. Yao

In many procurement settings, it is possible for a buyer to split a production award between suppliers. In this article, we develop a model of split-award procurement auctions in which the split choice is endogenous. We characterize the set of equilibrium bids and... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Cost; Supply Chain; Investment; Balance and Stability

Find at Harvard

01 Sep 2011
News

Innovations Under Way Will Shape HBS’s Future

by Lisa Skeete Tatum (MBA '98), Alumni Board President Tatum I can’t remember a more exciting time at HBS. There is innovation happening in all facets of the School. First and foremost, we have a visionary new leader in Dean Nohria. His five priorities for HBS —... View Details

Keywords: Lisa Skeete Tatum; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

24 Aug 2017
News

Jeffrey Immelt: How I Remade GE

“For the past 16 years GE has been undergoing the most consequential makeover in its history,” departing CEO Jeff Immelt (MBA 1982) writes in Harvard Business Review. “We were a classic conglomerate. Now people are calling us a 125-year-old start-up—we’re a digital... View Details

13 Jul 2016
News

From Money to Ministry

Photography by Tori Soper Rodney Quainton (MBA 1970) had always wanted to be a banker. At Yale (Class of 1962), courses on money management and banking attracted him. “At that time,” he recalls, “banking was considered an honorable profession.” Right out of college, he... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley

01 Aug 2013
News

A Cure for Cold Storage

Michael Schrader The measles, says Vaxess CEO Michael Schrader (MBA 2012), is the perfect example of what's wrong with the modern vaccine. Despite the fact that a measles immunization has been available for more than 40 years, there are still several countries around... View Details

Keywords: Morrell, Daniel; vaccines; Ambulatory Health Care Services; Health, Social Assistance

18 Nov 2014
First Look

First Look: November 18

major technologies, looking across 55 countries, from 1870 to 2000. We find that greater depth in financial markets leads to faster technology diffusion for more capital-intensive technologies, but only in periods closer to the invention... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Mar 2014
Research & Ideas

Entrepreneurship and Multinationals Drive Globalization

the making of the global world over the last two centuries. Individual entrepreneurs and managers invented new products and shaped consumer demand. Firms created and diffused technologies and products, alongside the values in which they... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Beauty & Cosmetics; Manufacturing; Consumer Products; Pharmaceutical

01 Mar 2010
News

Lords of Strategy

Boston Consulting Group in 1963. It was BCG that would invent the strategy revolution’s key concept: “the experience curve,” a formulation with the power “to discipline a company’s thinking around the imperative to cut costs incessantly,”... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

February 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

TikTok in 2020: Super App or Supernova?

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Dan Maher and Dan O'Brien

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, was launched in 2012 around a simple idea – helping users entertain themselves on their smartphones while on the Beijing Subway. In less than a decade, it had become one of the world’s most valuable private companies, with investors... View Details

October 2019 (Revised April 2020)
Background Note

Note on Funding Deep Tech Startups

By: Karim Lakhani, Peter Barrett and Noubar Afeyan

This Background Note provides essential information on funding deep technologies—those technologies that were inherently capital intensive, time consuming, risky, and potentially disruptive. Both dilutive and non-dilutive sources of investment are highlighted, along... View Details

Teaching Interest

Overview

By: Dutch Leonard

Professor Leonard teaches about leadership and strategy for both private sector and social organizations. Topics covered in his courses include leadership and the design of strategy for social-mission organizations (including the corporate social responsibility efforts... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Strategy; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Risk Management; Crisis Management; Innovation and Management; Decision Making

March 2023 (Revised June 2023)
Case

Doing Business in Kigali, Rwanda

By: Andy Zelleke, A. Zelleke, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Wale Lawal

This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Rwanda. It highlights Rwanda's economic transformation in the decades leading up to 2023 in the context of its history, culture, and politics. The case gives an overview of some of the main... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Business and Government Relations; Technological Innovation; Foreign Direct Investment; Economic Growth; Transportation Industry; Tourism Industry; Rwanda

Forthcoming
Article

How Important Is Editorial Gatekeeping? Evidence from Top Biomedical Journals

By: Joshua L. Krieger, Kyle R. Myers and Ariel D. Stern

We examine editors' influence on the scientific content of academic journals by unpacking the role of three major forces: journals' missions, aggregate supply of and demand for specific topics, and scientific homophily via editorial gatekeeping. In a sample of top... View Details

Keywords: Editors; Biomedical Research; Editorial Gatekeeping; Scientific Homophily; Intellectual Capital; Mission and Purpose; Journals and Magazines; Intellectual Property; Innovation and Invention; Human Capital; Higher Education; Publishing Industry

October 2018 (Revised July 2019)
Case

Sidewalk Labs: Privacy in a City Built from the Internet Up

By: Leslie K. John, Mitchell Weiss and Julia Kelley

Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.

By the time Dan Doctoroff, CEO of Sidewalk Labs, began hosting a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session in January 2018, he had only nine months remaining to convince the people... View Details

September 2016 (Revised September 2016)
Case

Spectio: A Digital Lighting Company

By: Rajiv Lal and Sarah McAra

Spectio Tech, founded in 2005, developed and implemented intelligent LED lighting solutions for the industrial market. Sensors and wireless connectivity embedded in its LED fixtures not only significantly reduced lighting-related energy use—by up to 90% in some... View Details

Keywords: Internet Of Things; IoT; LED Lighting; Start-up; Energy Efficiency; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Technological Innovation; Business Startups; Internet and the Web

February 1995 (Revised October 1995)
Case

Doing Business in a Distributed World: Clients, Servers, and the Stuff in Between

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Geoffrey Bock

Examines business computing as it is evolving in the 1990s. Compares the highly centralized and tightly controlled systems of the past with today's flexible, networked, client/server technology. Serves as an introduction to client/server terminology and technology. View Details

Keywords: Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Performance Improvement; Transformation; Technological Innovation; Business Strategy; Adoption; Information Technology Industry