Publications

May 2010 (Revised November 2010)
Case

Investment Technology Group

By: Clayton S. Rose and David Lane

Investment Technology Group (ITG) CEO Robert Gasser wondered if the financial crisis had permanently affected the firm's business model. A leader in trade analytics and execution for institutional equity investors, ITG had grown since its establishment in 1987 in step... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Financial Crisis; Investment; Resignation and Termination; Crisis Management; Product Positioning; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financial Services Industry; Information Technology Industry; New York (city, NY)

Researchers have long hypothesized that research outputs from government, university, and private company R&D contribute to economic growth, but these contributions may be difficult to measure when they take a non-pecuniary form. The growth of networking... View Details

16 Oct 2012
First Look

First Look: October 16

experiment, in that we observe products that fulfill the same function being developed by very different organizational forms. At one extreme are commercial software firms, in which the organizational... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 Sep 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Performance Responses to Competition Across Skill-Levels in Rank Order Tournaments: Field Evidence and Implications for Tournament Design

Keywords: by Kevin J. Boudreau, Constance E. Helfat, Karim R. Lakhani & Michael E. Menietti.

October 2016
Article

Technical Debt and System Architecture: The Impact of Coupling on Defect-related Activity

By: Alan MacCormack and Daniel J. Sturtevant

Technical debt is created when design decisions that are expedient in the short-term increase the costs of maintaining and adapting this system in future. An important component of technical debt relates to decisions about system architecture. As systems grow and... View Details

Keywords: Information Infrastructure; Performance Efficiency; Applications and Software; Infrastructure

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December 2022 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Circles.Life at a Crossroads of Growth

By: Juan Alcácer and Adina Wong

In June 2022, the founders of Singapore mobile operator Circles.Life had a crucial decision to make. Circles.Life developed a new business model in mobile telecommunications—a digital telco—built around its proprietary operating system. After expanding its brand in... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Decisions; Technological Innovation; Applications and Software; Business Strategy; Telecommunications Industry; Singapore

August 2014 (Revised December 2015)
Case

Showrooming at Best Buy

By: Thales Teixeira and Elizabeth Anne Watkins

Best Buy is a consumer electronics retailer with nearly 2,000 stores worldwide. In 2012, the rising popularity of price-matching apps for mobile phones made price differences between retailers transparent, online and offline. Shoppers' desire to test electronics... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Price; Consumer Behavior; Applications and Software; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Retail Industry; Electronics Industry

Carliss Y. Baldwin is the William L. White Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. She studies the process of design and its impact of design architecture on firm strategy, platforms, and business ecosystems. With Kim Clark, she authored... View Details

Keywords: software; software; software

August 2015 (Revised May 2017)
Case

TSG Hoffenheim: Football in the Age of Analytics

By: Feng Zhu, Karim R. Lakhani, Sascha L. Schmidt and Kerry Herman

In 2015, Dietmar Hopp, owner of Germany's Bundesliga football team TSG Hoffenheim and co-founder of the global enterprise software company SAP, was considering how to ensure long-term sustainability and competitiveness for TSG Hoffenheim. While historically a small... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Measurement and Metrics; Sports; Sports Industry

December 2008
Article

Which Kind of Collaboration Is Right for You?

By: Roberto Verganti and Gary P. Pisano

Nowadays, virtually no companies innovate alone. Firms team up with a variety of partners, in a wide number of ways, to create new technologies, products, and services. But what is the best way to leverage the power of outsiders? To help executives answer that... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Framework; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Partners and Partnerships; Social and Collaborative Networks; Strategy

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28 Oct 2008
First Look

First Look: October 28, 2008

Francisco Ruiz-Aliseda Abstract In their seminal 1985 paper, Katz and Shapiro study systems compatibility in settings with one-sided platforms and direct network effects. We consider systems compatibility when competing platforms are two-sided and there are indirect... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

April 1995 (Revised December 1997)
Case

Silicon Graphics, Inc. (A)

By: Marco Iansiti and Ellen Stein

Based on a Silicon Valley company that has developed the capability to compete in a rapidly growing, highly turbulent environment. This capability hinges on its flexible and rapid development process, which the case characterizes in detail. Focuses on the development... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Information Infrastructure; Product Launch; Managerial Roles; Expansion; Design; Applications and Software; Computer Industry; Electronics Industry; California

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November 2000 (Revised July 2001)
Case

Intuit QuickBooks

By: Rajiv Lal and Punima P Kochikar

Internet QuickBooks, a successful product with a strong brand and an 85% share of retail sales, was faced with the challenge of meeting market growth expectations in a mature, slowing market segment. Generating recurring revenues by providing value-added online... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Decisions; Growth and Development; Brands and Branding; Market Participation; Problems and Challenges; Internet and the Web; Value; Web Services Industry

March 2021 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Seeding and Selling Asana

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Susie Ma and Amram Migdal

In December 2019, Oliver Jay, Asana’s Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), was reconsidering his go-to-market (GTM) strategy. Asana was cloud-based work management software that enabled users to break up projects into discrete tasks that could be assigned, scheduled, and... View Details

Keywords: SaaS; Customer Journey; Business Model; Business Organization; Change Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Technology Industry; United States

25 Oct 2011
First Look

First Look: October 25

specialized knowledge sourcing depends on within-team knowledge sharing, and so conditions that hinder knowledge sharing in a team are likely to reduce the effectiveness of the specialized approach. Using archival data from several hundred View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 1994 (Revised March 1995)
Case

Microsoft: Multimedia Publications (B)

By: Marco Iansiti and Ellen Stein

Microsoft is about to release an apparently successful CD-ROM baseball product. The company is trying to determine what product(s) should be developed next, how it should organize itself, and what role it should play in the development of such products. View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Applications and Software; Product Design; Organizational Structure; Product Launch; Business Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Information Technology Industry; Washington (state, US)

November 2007
Article

Solve the Succession Crisis by Growing Inside-Outside Leaders

By: Joseph L. Bower

This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. In his interviews and data analysis, Harvard Business School professor Bower found... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Leadership Development; Management Practices and Processes; Management Succession; Planning

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February 2024
Case

Innovation Strategy at Stanley Black & Decker: Setting the Direction for Growth

By: David L. Ager and Antonio Manuel Oftelie

On July 1, 2022, Don Allan was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Stanley Black & Decker (SBD). Although Allan had been with the firm for 23 years, most recently serving as President and Chief Financial Officer, he recognized that he was stepping into his new role as... View Details

Keywords: Health Pandemics; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Growth Management; Business and Stakeholder Relations