Publications

SSRN

March 2022
Case

Unilever: Remote Work in Manufacturing

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Susie L. Ma

In December 2021, Unilever—one of the world’s largest producers of consumer goods—was in the midst of a pilot project to digitize its manufacturing facilities and enable remote work for factory employees. This was possible because of an earlier project to retrofit a... View Details

Keywords: Change; Globalization; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Human Resources; Jobs and Positions; Operations; Education; Training; Manufacturing Industry

November 2021 (Revised January 2022)
Supplement

Scott Tucker (B): The Feds Catch Up

By: Aiyesha Dey and Amram Migdal

The case tells the story of the rise and fall of Scott Tucker, an entrepreneur, businessman, passionate race car driver, competitor, and owner of a professional racing team. From 1997 to 2012, Tucker built a nationwide network of payday lending businesses, becoming a... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Crime and Corruption; Ethics; Fairness; Financing and Loans; Personal Finance; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Governance Compliance; Governance Controls; Financial Services Industry; United States

Article

Managing Proprietary and Shared Platforms

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

In a platform-mediated network, users rely on a common platform, provided by one or more intermediaries, that encompasses infrastructure and rules required by users to transact with each other. A fundamental design decision for firms that aspire to develop... View Details

Keywords: Governance Controls; Digital Platforms; Infrastructure; Competition; Cooperation; Information Infrastructure

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2007
Working Paper

Digital Interactivity: Unanticipated Consequences for Markets, Marketing, and Consumers

By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

The digital interactive transformation in marketing is not unfolding, as many thought it would, on the model of direct marketing. That model anticipated that digital media using rich profiling data would intrude marketing messaging more deeply and more precisely into... View Details

Keywords: Communication Intention and Meaning; Interactive Communication; Marketing Communications; Consumer Behavior; Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet and the Web

May 2016 (Revised March 2020)
Case

Fasten: Challenging Uber and Lyft with a New Business Model

By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella

Fasten, a new ridesharing start-up in Boston, entered the scene in September 2015 hoping its unique vision of transparency for both driver and passenger and strategy to keep riders' fares low and charge drivers a flat $0.99 fee per ride as opposed to the 20-30%... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Transportation; Business Startups; Business Model; Transportation Industry; Boston

December 1, 2022
Article

Which Connections Really Help You Find a Job?

By: Iavor I. Bojinov, Karthik Rajkumar, Guillaume Saint-Jacques, Erik Brynjolfsson and Sinan Aral

Experiments involving 20 million people generated a surprising finding: moderately weak connects — and not strong connections — are the most useful in finding a new job. To be more specific, the ties that are most helpful for finding new jobs tend to be moderately... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Job Search

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October 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Fortinet: Cybersecurity Pioneer Ken Xie Considers the Long Game

By: Tsedal Neeley, Jeff Huizinga and Emily Grandjean

Ken Xie, cofounder of cybersecurity giant Fortinet, faced a critical decision that would validate his leadership. Fortinet became the industry’s second-largest pureplay cybersecurity firm by developing differentiated hardware and investing in R&D. However, after a... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Development; Leadership Style; Marketing Strategy; Communication Strategy; Cybersecurity; Competitive Advantage; Information Technology Industry; United States; Sunnyvale

10 Dec 2013
First Look

First Look: December 10

empirical settings. The organic cluster identification methodology we propose is especially useful when researchers work in global settings where data available at different geographic units complicates comparisons across countries. Download working paper:... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2018
Working Paper

The State of Open Source Server Software

By: Shane Greenstein and Klaus Ackermann

The study assembles new data to construct a census of worldwide web server use across the globe. We document a large concentration of investment in the United States, and a wide dispersion across scores of countries. We find tens of billions of dollars of unmeasured... View Details

Keywords: Internet; Open Source; Internet and the Web; Policy; Open Source Distribution; Internet and the Web; Global Range

October 2000 (Revised November 2005)
Case

Li & Fung (A): Internet Issues

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Fred Young

This case looks at the issues facing a Hong Kong-based trading company, which links hundreds of factories in India and Asia with major customers like Gap and the Limited in Europe and in the United States. The company has recently launched a dot-com operation to allow... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Multinational Firms and Management; Distribution Channels; Logistics; Networks; Markets; Supply Chain; Retail Industry; Hong Kong; India; Europe; United States

Jerry R. Green

David A. Wells Professor of Political Economy

John Leverett Professor in the University

Harvard University

Jerry Green is the John Leverett Professor in the University and the David A. Wells... View Details

Keywords: aerospace; education industry; insurance industry; professional services

MOVE: Putting America's Infrastructure Back in the Lead

Americans are stuck. We live with travel delays on congested roads, shipping delays on clogged railways, and delays on repairs, project approvals, and funding due to gridlocked leadership. These delays affect us all, whether you are a daily commuter, a frequent... View Details

July 2014
Article

Diasporas and Outsourcing: Evidence from oDesk and India

By: Ejaz Ghani, William R. Kerr and Christopher Stanton

This study examines the role of the Indian diaspora in the outsourcing of work to India. Our data are taken from oDesk, the world's largest online platform for outsourced contracts, where India is the largest country in terms of contract volume. We use an ethnic name... View Details

Keywords: Diaspora; Outsourcing; oDesk; Networks; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Diasporas; Internet and the Web; Ethnicity; Service Industry; South Asia; India

15 Jul 2014
First Look

First Look: July 15

Rory McDonald, Dan Wang, and Benjamin Hallen Abstract—This paper investigates the impact of early relationships on innovation at entrepreneurial firms. Prior research has largely focused on the benefits of network ties, documenting the... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

Program

General Management Program

member of the HBS alumni community—gaining exclusive access to our vast global alumni network and an array of resources that facilitate lifelong learning, growth, and success. Learn more. Admissions Criteria and Process We admit... View Details

January 2025
Case

Ontra: Embracing GenAI in the Legal Technology Industry

By: Christopher Stanton and George Gonzalez

Ontra built a network of legal professionals to enable financial institutions to outsource contract negotiations. The rise of generative AI inspired the company to build software solutions to streamline its processes through automation. Now company leadership must... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; AI and Machine Learning; Applications and Software; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Business Strategy; Technology Industry; Legal Services Industry; United States

August 1998 (Revised June 2000)
Case

FairMarket, Inc.: Where Buyers and Sellers Connect

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Jack Wieland and Chad M. M Raube

On February 20, 1997, FairMarket, an Internet-based business-to-business auction site, was launched. CEO, founder Scott Randall, drew on his experience building Internet businesses at NECX Direct, Yahoo, and Internet Shopping Network to build his business. This case,... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Debates; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development; Growth Management; Management Style; Product Launch; Multi-Sided Platforms; Problems and Challenges; Information Technology; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry

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19 Dec 2006
First Look

First Look: December 19, 2006

recent proliferation of work regarding customer lifetime value. However, extant research in this area is silent regarding how to assess the profitability of customers in a networked setting. In such settings, the presence of one type of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2021
Article

Platform Diffusion at Temporary Gatherings: Social Coordination and Ecosystem Emergence

By: Tommy Pan Fang, Andy Wu and David R. Clough

Software platforms create value by cultivating an ecosystem of complementary products and services. Existing explanations for how a prospective complementor chooses platforms to join assume the complementor has rich information about the range of available platforms.... View Details

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