Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(8,094)
- Faculty Publications (2,864)
- March 2021
- Case
Founders Factory
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and James Barnett
In January 2020, Founders Factory (FF) Executive Chairman Brent Hoberman and CEO Henry Lane Fox were considering FF’s expansion strategy. FF operated as a venture capital (VC) fund built around an accelerator and incubator, and organized around sectors within... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Markets; Planning; Expansion; Global Range; Business Model; Talent and Talent Management; Experience and Expertise; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Global Strategy; Innovation Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Partners and Partnerships; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Technology Industry; Africa; South Africa; Johannesburg; Europe; France; Paris; United Kingdom; England; London; United States; New York (city, NY)
- March 2021
- Article
Last Place Aversion in Queues
By: Ryan W. Buell
This paper documents the effects of last place aversion in queues and its implications for customer experiences and behaviors as well as for operating performance. An observational analysis of customers queuing at a grocery store, and four online studies in which... View Details
- March 2021
- Article
Provider Teams Outperform Solo Providers in Managing Chronic Diseases and Could Improve the Value of Care
By: Maximilian J. Pany, Lucy Chen, Bethany Sheridan and Robert S. Huckman
Scope-of-practice regulations, including prescribing limits and supervision requirements, may influence the propensity of providers to form care teams. Therefore, policy makers need to understand the effect of both team-based care and provider type on clinical... View Details
- Article
Selling After the Crisis
Like perishable goods in grocery stores, sales models have a sell-by date. As product standards evolve and new entrants emerge, buyers have more choices and demand more in terms of quality and performance across vendors. Firms that fail to adjust to changing customer... View Details
- March 2021
- Article
The Customer May Not Always Be Right: Customer Compatibility and Service Performance
This paper investigates the impact of customer compatibility – the degree of fit between the needs of customers and the capabilities of the operations serving them – on customer experiences and firm performance. We use a variance decomposition analysis to quantify the... View Details
- February 2021
- Background Note
Jobs to Be Done: A Toolbox
By: Derek C. M. van Bever, Bob Moesta, Iuliana Mogosanu, Shaye Roseman and Katie Zandbergen
The Jobs to Be Done methodology is both a theory and a practical approach for understanding customer behavior and why people make the choices they make. Many practitioners, whether they work for startups or incumbent businesses, find Jobs to Be Done useful because it... View Details
- February 2021
- Case
Threadless: The Renewal of an Online Community
By: Shane Greenstein, Karim Lakhani and Christian Godwin
Threadless, an online apparel company and artist community which Jake Nickell founded in 2000, continued to maintain its status as a top company in the online apparel industry during its second decade. From 2010 to 2020, Threadless continued to operate its... View Details
Keywords: Business Model; Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Leading Change; Management; Marketing; Product Launch; Operations; Supply Chain; Distribution; Networks; Sales; Strategy; Adaptation; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Digital Platforms; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Technology Industry; North America
- February 2021
- Case
Apple: Privacy vs. Safety (A)
By: Henry McGee, Nien-hê Hsieh, Sarah McAra and Christian Godwin
In 2015, Apple CEO Tim Cook debuted the iPhone 6S with enhanced security measures that enflamed a debate on privacy and public safety around the world. The iPhone 6S, amid a heightened concern for privacy following the 2013 revelation of clandestine U.S. surveillance... View Details
Keywords: Iphone; Encryption; Data Privacy; Customers; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Making; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Globalized Firms and Management; Government and Politics; National Security; Law; Law Enforcement; Leadership; Markets; Safety; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Civil Society or Community; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Technology Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Electronics Industry; United States; China; Hong Kong
- February 2021
- Case
Drizly: Managing Supply and Demand through Disruption
By: Kris Ferreira
It was April 6th, 2020, and the management team at Drizly—an online alcohol marketplace where consumers could browse and purchase alcohol from local liquor retail stores via Drizly’s app for immediate home delivery—were thrilled to see record-breaking sales from the... View Details
- February 2021 (Revised March 2022)
- Case
Marvin: A Personalized Telehealth Approach to Mental Health
By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Eshani Sharma, Andrew Nguyen, Thomas Arsenault, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Julia Kelley
More than one third of Americans were said to suffer some type of behavioral health ailment at some point in their lifetime, with many people requiring chronic therapy or intervention. Despite significant clinical needs, access to reliable treatment has been difficult... View Details
- February 2021 (Revised April 2024)
- Case
Shopify: The Conquest for Chinese E-Commerce
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Avani Patel, Samantha Lin and Ariel Yang
In mid-2020, Tobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify, faced a critical decision on how to time potential expansion into the China market. Over the prior 15 years, his Canadian software-as-a-service company had grown from a small e-commerce solutions provider to a full service... View Details
Keywords: Timing; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Service Operations; Business Model; Organizational Design; Change Management; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Global Strategy; Health Pandemics; Growth Management; Marketing Strategy; Digital Platforms; Alliances; Partners and Partnerships; Opportunities; Internet and the Web; E-commerce; United States; Canada; China
- 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
Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Business Organization; Change Management; Disruption; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Global Strategy; Health Pandemics; Innovation Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Channels; Network Effects; Digital Platforms; Product Design; Product Development; Partners and Partnerships; Opportunities; Social Issues; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Internet and the Web; Value Creation; United States; China
- February 2021
- Case
Enterprise Agility at Komerční Banka
By: Euvin Naidoo, Suraj Srinivasan and Sarah Gulick
In 2017, Jan Juchelka, the new CEO of Komerční Banka, identified the need for the bank to start an enterprise wide agile transformation. He started by working to create a sense of urgency to kick-start a process to enable the level of service delivery to customers he... View Details
- February 2021
- Tutorial
What are Agile Teams?
By: Tsedal Neeley
This video explores the elements that constitute agile teams. From its history in the "Agile Manifesto," this philosophy for organizational behavior prioritizes working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and... View Details
- February 2021 (Revised March 2021)
- Case
AptDeco: Circular Economy Furniture Marketplace
By: Ayelet Israeli and Jamie Merkrebs
AptDeco, a used furniture marketplace, was growing rapidly in the tri-state area. The co-founders were confident that the business model, financial position, and unit economics positioned AptDeco for scaling in the massive $120 billion furniture market, despite its... View Details
Keywords: E-Commerce Strategy; Mobile; Word-of-Mouth; Word-of-mouth Marketing; Word Of Mouth; Internet Marketing; Growth Strategy; Platform; Platforms; Two Sided Markets; Two-sided Market; Two-sided Marketplace; Two-Sided Markets; Two-sided Network; Black Entrepreneurs; Black Leadership; African Americans; Circular; Peer-to-peer Markets; Furniture Industry; Furniture; Growth Hacking; Monetization Strategy; African-American Protagonist; Growth Management; Marketing Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Marketing Channels; Digital Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Acquisition; Growth and Development Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Technology Industry; Web Services Industry; United States; North America; New York (city, NY); New York (state, US)
- February 2021
- Supplement
HNA Group: Global Excellence with Chinese Characteristics (C)
By: William C. Kirby, Billy Chan and John P. McHugh
July 2017 was supposed to be a triumphant month for HNA Group. The latest Fortune Global 500 list showed the company had again skyrocketed in its ranking to no. 170, an improvement of over 200 positions from the year prior. Yet earlier that same July, the mysterious... View Details
Keywords: Conglomerate; Airline Industry; Coronavirus; Financial Risk; Debt; Bankruptcy; Global Strategy; Restructuring; Health Pandemics; Financial Markets; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financial Condition; Globalized Firms and Management; Business and Government Relations; Air Transportation Industry; Financial Services Industry; China
- Article
Reimagining the Balanced Scorecard for the ESG Era
By: Robert S. Kaplan and David McMillan
Companies are increasingly aware that their customers and society in general expect businesses to adopt and work towards social and environmental objectives as well as the traditional financial ones. This involves not only re-evaluating firms’ models but re-imagining... View Details
- February 2021
- Article
How Transparency into Internal and External Responsibility Initiatives Influences Consumer Choice
By: Ryan W. Buell and Basak Kalkanci
Amid growing calls for transparency and social and environmental responsibility, companies are employing different strategies to improve consumer perceptions of their brands. Some pursue internal initiatives that reduce their negative social or environmental impacts... View Details
- January 2021
- Supplement
Bespoken Spirits: Disrupting Distilling
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
On October 7, 2020, Bespoken Spirits publicly announced it had received $2.6 million of seed funding for its “sustainable maturation process,” a process that could produce award-winning whiskeys in just days rather than years using a novel technology and data science. ... View Details
Keywords: Business Ventures; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Cash Flow; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry; United States; California
- January 2021
- Case
Bespoken Spirits: Disrupting Distilling
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
On October 7, 2020, Bespoken Spirits publicly announced it had received $2.6 million of seed funding for its “sustainable maturation process,” a process that could produce award-winning whiskeys in just days rather than years using a novel technology and data science. ... View Details
Keywords: Business Ventures; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Cash Flow; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry; United States; California