Publications

2021
Chapter

Dis-Atlanticism: The West in an Era of Global Fragmentation

By: Rawi Abdelal and Ulrich Krotz

BOOK ABSTRACT: Is the EU a Success or a Failure? Should It Stay or Should It Go? Britain and the EU. The Big Waste or Essential to Feed Europe? The Common Agricultural Policy. Observers of the European Union could be forgiven in thinking that since its inception the EU... View Details

Winter 2022
Article

Determinants of Small Business Reopening Decisions After COVID Restrictions Were Lifted

By: Dylan Balla-Elliott, Zoë B. Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca and Christopher Stanton

The COVID-19 pandemic led to dramatic economic disruptions, including government-imposed restrictions that temporarily shuttered millions of American businesses. We use a nation-wide survey of thousands of small business owners to establish three main facts about... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Demand Forecasting; Reopening; Health Pandemics; Government Administration; Small Business

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17 Aug 2023
Research & Ideas

‘Not a Bunch of Weirdos’: Why Mainstream Investors Buy Crypto

during the pandemic gave researchers an opportunity to look at the impact of an influx of liquidity into the market and its relationship to cryptocurrency investing. Di Maggio and his team examined levels of cryptocurrency investing at... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

31 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

Where Can Digital Transformation Take You? Insights from 1,700 Leaders

class=infogram-embed data-id=_/2HVue23rXJZLet5zlvSC][/div] Getting to know the customer has become a dynamic, ongoing process, and is fast becoming table stakes. For example, companies understand they need to get reacquainted with their customers after the COVID-19... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards

09 May 2024
Research & Ideas

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

Pandemic Changed the Way We Collaborate Feedback or ideas to share? Email the Working Knowledge team at hbswk@hbs.edu. Image: Illustration created by HBSWK using images generated by Midjourney, an artificial intelligence tool and with an... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

February 2021 (Revised May 2021)
Case

SafeGraph: Selling Data as a Service

By: Ramana Nanda, Abhishek Nagaraj and Allison Ciechanover

Set in January 2021, the CEO of SafeGraph, a four-year-old startup that sold Data as a Service, looked to the future. His aim was to become the most trusted source for data about a physical place. The company provided points of interest (POI) and foot traffic data on... View Details

Keywords: Data As A Service; Monetization; Pricing; Business Startups; Analytics and Data Science; Consumer Behavior; Analysis; Business Model; Health Pandemics; Information Industry; United States

November 2023 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Norse Atlantic Airways

By: Willy Shih

Bjørn Tore Larsen, Norse Atlantic Airways' founder and CEO, hadn't planned to get into the airline business. But when the COVID-19 pandemic depressed the global demand for air travel and the lease rates for jetliners, he realized if ever he was going to get into the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Market Entry and Exit; Leasing; Business Strategy; Segmentation; Interest Rates; Air Transportation Industry; Europe; North America; Norway; United Kingdom; United States

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

03 May 2024
Research & Ideas

How Much Does Proximity Influence Startup Innovation? 20 Meters' Worth to Be Exact

COVID-19 pandemic. Four years after the pandemic sent workplaces into lockdown, organizations continue to weigh the benefits of collaboration from time together against the focus gained remotely. “The reality today is, we are unlikely to... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

March 2021 (Revised July 2021)
Case

Resident

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Thomas O. Jones

Launched in 2016, Resident was a leading player in the direct-to-consumer bed-in-a-box mattress market, where it was one of at least 175 venture-backed companies competing in the space. By late 2020, it had realized over $500 million in revenue, profitability in the... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Business Growth and Maturation; Operations; Entrepreneurship; Competitive Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Decisions; Marketing Strategy; Cash Flow; Demand and Consumers

2020
Working Paper

Social Influence in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Community Establishments’ Closure Decisions Follow Those of Nearby Chain Establishments

By: Abhishek Nagaraj, Mathijs de Vaan, Saqib Mumtaz and Sameer Srivastava

As conveners that bring various stakeholders into the same physical space, firms can powerfully influence the course of pandemics such as COVID-19. Even when operating under government orders and health guidelines, firms have considerable discretion to keep their... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Peer Influence; Closure Decisions; Health Pandemics; Business Ventures; Decisions; Business and Community Relations

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30 Jun 2022
HBS Case

Peloton Changed the Exercise Game. Can the Company Push Through the Pain?

demand, which led to shipment delays, followed by pricing confusion and a series of public relations bungles—just as the pandemic eased and people began returning to gyms. Peloton scrambled by recalling items and dropping prices, amid an... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Media & Broadcasting; Health; Bicycle

31 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

Why the Largest Minority Group Faces the Most Hate—and How to Push Back

American cities have experienced an alarming double-digit rise in hate crimes in recent years, due in part to factors like anti-Asian sentiment in the wake of the pandemic and racial strife following the murder of George Floyd. Now, new... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

17 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

What the Stockdale Paradox Tells Us About Crisis Leadership

even excluding COVID-19 deaths) Mental health crises Secondary health problems from neglect/postponement of routine/preventative care Mass unemployment Dining, entertainment, arts, tourism industries—the whole experiential economy—devastated. Further, the View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

May 2024
Article

Relational Attributions for One’s Own Resilience Predict Compassion for Others

By: Rachel Ruttan, Ting Zhang, Sivahn Barli and Katherine DeCelles

Existing work on attribution theory distinguishes between external and internal attributions (i.e., “I overcame adversity due to luck” vs. “my own effort”). We introduce the construct of relational resilience attributions (i.e., “due to help from other people”) as a... View Details

Keywords: Personal Characteristics; Forecasting and Prediction; Attitudes; Behavior

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2021
Book

Lead and Disrupt: How to Solve the Innovator's Dilemma

By: Charles A. O'Reilly III and Michael Tushman

Why do successful firms find it so difficult to adapt in the face of change—to innovate? In the past ten years, the importance of this question has increased as more industries and firms confront disruptive change. The pandemic has accelerated this crisis, collapsing... View Details

Keywords: Organization Change And Adaptation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation and Management; Leading Change

February 2022 (Revised February 2023)
Case

TikTok in 2020: Super App or Supernova? (Abridged)

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

Keywords: Digital Platform; Artificial Intelligence; AI; Mobile App; Mobile App Industry; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Market Entry and Exit; Brands and Branding; Growth and Development Strategy; China

July 2021
Teaching Note

Digital Transformation 2.0: CEO Elie Girard at Atos

By: Tsedal Neeley

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 421-024. Elie Girard has taken the helm as CEO of multinational IT giant Atos to lead the company into the next era of digital transformation. Noticing that customers’ digital needs were evolving to become even more specialized and global... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Leading Change; Mergers and Acquisitions; Environmental Sustainability; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Transformation; Information Technology Industry