Publications

March 2019 (Revised March 2020)
Case

Choosing the Right Esports Business Model

By: David Collis and Alexander MacKay

Two esports entrepreneurs must choose on which business model to focus their time and money. After successfully launching an online esports coaching platform, a number of new opportunities emerge in the rapidly growing esports space that now has close to one billion... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Ecosystems; Business Development; Esports; Business Ventures; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Management; Strategy; Sports; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Information Technology Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Sports Industry; Video Game Industry; North and Central America; Europe; Asia

October 2013
Article

How Much to Make and How Much to Buy? An Analysis of Optimal Plural Sourcing Strategies

By: Phanish Puranam, Ranjay Gulati and Sourav Bhattacharya

While many theories of the firm seek to explain when firms make rather than buy, in practice, firms often make and buy the same input—they engage in plural sourcing. We argue that explaining the mix of external procurement and internal sourcing for the same input... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain; Forecasting and Prediction; Framework; Prejudice and Bias; Mathematical Methods

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March 2022
Case

Metric

By: Christina Wallace, Rebecca Cink and Maria Lappas

Megan Murday, the founder of Metric, an environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) analytics startup, must decide which customer segment to target as a beachhead market. She received positive feedback from a Swiss venture capital (VC) firm, indicating their... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Mission and Purpose; Customers

Pietro Satriano is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School. He sits on the boards of CarMax, the largest omni-channel used car retailer in the U.S. and Metro, a large regional grocery retailer in Canada. Pietro advises a number of food-tech startups and acts... View Details

March 2017 (Revised November 2017)
Case

BlackRock (A): Selling the Systems? (with video links)

By: Ranjay Gulati, Jan W. Rivkin and Kelly McNamara

As the case opens in 1999, several key leaders at BlackRock, Inc., then a relatively small asset management firm, are trying to convince CEO Larry Fink and others that the firm should begin to offer Aladdin—its proprietary analytics and trading platform—to other asset... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Competition; Information Technology; Asset Management; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry; United States

December 2003 (Revised April 2005)
Course Overview Note

Corporate Strategy: Course Note for Instructors

By: Bharat N. Anand

Introduces students to the concerns that impact a firm's choice of strategy, scope, and organization and assists in three central tasks that comprise the typical decision problem: diagnosing the sources of corporate advantage, evaluating the limits to such advantage,... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy

25 Jun 2013
First Look

First Look: June 25

Business School Case 613-045 Managing with Analytics at Procter & Gamble Senior management at P&G has put a strong emphasis on using data to make "better, smarter, real-time business decisions." The Global Business... View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

October 2021 (Revised December 2021)
Case

Customer-Centric Design with Artificial Intelligence: Commonwealth Bank

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Yael Grushka-Cockayne, Jin Hyun Paik and Steven Randazzo

As Commonwealth Bank (CommBank) CEO Matt Comyn delivered the full financial year results in August 2021 over videoconference, it took less than two minutes for him to make his first mention of the organization's Customer Engagement Engine (CEE), the AI-driven customer... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Customer-centricity; Banks and Banking; Customer Focus and Relationships; Technological Innovation; Transformation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance; AI and Machine Learning; Financial Services Industry; Australia

2017
Working Paper

Machine Learning Methods for Strategy Research

By: Mike Horia Teodorescu

Numerous applications of machine learning have gained acceptance in the field of strategy and management research only during the last few years. Established uses span such diverse problems as strategic foreign investments, strategic resource allocation, systemic risk... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Natural Language Processing; Classification; Decision Trees; Strategic Decisions; Strategy; Research; Information Technology

SSRN

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TeachingInterests

Tuck MBA Program

VG is the most popular teacher in the Tuck MBA Program. VG has been named in BusinessWeek’s Guide to Best Business Schools as an outstanding teacher. His current courses focus on Implementing Strategy and his research on Global Leadership's research on... View Details

March 2021 (Revised January 2022)
Case

Philips: Redefining Telehealth

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Alec Petersen, Natalie Kindred and Sara M. McKinley

As one of the world’s largest healthcare companies, Philips sought to reach beyond the walls of the hospital and expand its hospital-to-home program to gain future competitive advantage through technology solutions combining predictive analytics with care delivery. By... View Details

2023
Working Paper

Senior Team Emotional Dynamics and Strategic Decision Making at a Platform Transition

By: Timo O. Vuori and Michael L. Tushman

Based on an inductive case study, we develop an emotional-temporal process model of an incumbent’s strategic decision making at a platform transition. We describe the senior team’s emotional response to this transition and the impact of these emotions on their... View Details

Keywords: Emotions; Decision Choices and Conditions; Transition; Digital Platforms

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29 Jan 2007
Research & Ideas

The Business Press Is a Watchdog that Bites

analytical skill set that's developed in the last fifteen or twenty years amongst business press journalists is amazing. Many reporters I've talked with seem to think their skill as a reporter is being a writer. And I think what this... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Journalism & News; Publishing

Web

Curriculum | MBA

Business School Financial Reporting and Control Harvard Business School Leadership & Organizational Behavior Harvard Business School Marketing Harvard Business School Technology & Operations Management Harvard Business School More on the MBA Required Curriculum JANUARY... View Details

2021
Book

The Heart of Business—Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism

By: Hubert Joly and Caroline Lambert

A remarkable turnaround by a leader with a remarkable philosophy: Find your noble purpose. Put people at the center. Unleash human magic.
"It was fall in Minnesota. It was getting cold and we were supposed to die." This is how Hubert Joly describes the early,... View Details

Keywords: Capitalism; Leadership; Mission and Purpose; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Leading Change

December 2017 (Revised November 2018)
Case

Tesla Motors (A): Financing Growth

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott

The case analyzes the equity market value of Tesla Motors, the electric car company founded and led by Elon Musk. Wall Street analysts are wildly divided on the future growth prospects for this company, and analysts’ one year share price targets range from $160 to... View Details

Keywords: Valuation Methodologies; Investing; Equities; Public Equity; Finance; Valuation; Equity; Auto Industry; Energy Industry; United States