Publications

24 Oct 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, October 24, 2017

technologies to help companies increase employee happiness. Hitachi had begun manufacturing high-tech badges that quantify a wearer’s activity patterns. Data from these devices revealed an unusually high correlation between certain... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2016 (Revised January 2018)
Case

BlackRock (A): Selling the Systems?

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 2020 (Revised December 2021)
Case

Komatsu and Smart Construction

By: Rajiv Lal, David J. Collis and Akiko Saito

Komatsu, Japan's leading construction equipment manufacturer, is considering investing in a digital platform "Smart Construction" that will digitise the entire work process on a construction site, allowing for substantial reductions in cost and time while improving... View Details

Keywords: Platform; Digital Business; Construction; Business Model; Strategy; Technology Adoption; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Construction Industry; Japan

Web

Charts & Statistics - Leadership

US Pre-1950 Founder 43% Family Business 26% Other CEO 31% US 1950 & After Founder 32% Family Business 14% Other CEO 54% THE 20th CENTURY ZEITGEIST Six contextual factors deeply influenced the opportunities available to 20th century business leaders: Demographics View Details

February 2022 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Aleph Farms: A New Culture of Meat

By: Elie Ofek and Jeff Huizinga

Aleph Farms, an Israeli food-tech start-up, was hoping to play a major role in disrupting the conventional meat sector. Compared to intensive agricultural practices, Aleph’s cultured (or lab-grown) meat solution held the promise of considerably reducing greenhouse gas... View Details

January 2022 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Geely SEA: New Electric Vehicle Platforms

By: Willy C. Shih and Shu Lin

Kent Bovellan, the Chief Engineer and Head of the Vehicle Architecture Center for Geely Holding, the Hangzhou, China headquartered global automotive group, was debating the platform choice for an upcoming "D" segment midsized battery electric vehicle (BEV). He had led... View Details

Keywords: Product Innovation; Product Architecture; Product Engineering; Platform Design; Platform Strategy; Information Infrastructure; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Product Design; Product Development; Cost Management; Decision Making; Competitive Strategy; Industry Structures; Auto Industry; China; Sweden

January 2013 (Revised June 2018)
Case

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google 2018

By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

Four businesses had, by 2012, grown to dominate the infrastructure that all firms rely on to reach online customers. Will the balance of power among the four persist, will one take command at the expense of the other three, or are all four more vulnerable than they... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Competitive Advantage; Infrastructure; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Growth and Development; Service Industry; Retail Industry; United States

2025
Working Paper

Better Keep the Twenty Dollars: Incentivizing Innovation in Open Source

By: Annamaria Conti, Vansh Gupta, Jorge Guzman and Maria P. Roche

Open source is key to innovation yet is assumed to be done largely through intrinsic motivation. How can we incentivize it? In this paper, we examine the impact of a program providing monetary incentives to motivate innovators to contribute to open source. The Sponsors... View Details

Keywords: Open Source; Innovation; Incentives; Financial Rewards; Crowding Out; Open Source Distribution; Innovation and Invention; Motivation and Incentives; Technology Industry

Read Now

March 2022
Case

Skills-First Hiring at IBM

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah Mehta

This case reviews IBM’s efforts to widen its hiring funnel and broaden its talent pool. View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Experience and Expertise; Talent and Talent Management; Human Resources; Employees; Recruitment; Retention; Selection and Staffing; Jobs and Positions; Job Design and Levels; Job Interviews; Society; Social Issues; Technology Industry; United States; New York (city, NY)

May 2022
Case

TikTok and National Security: Investment in an Age of Data Sovereignty?

By: Jeremy Friedman, Sarah Bauerle Danzman and David Lane

This case covers TikTok’s purchase of Musical.ly and the reaction of the United States government, including the review of the purchase by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the reaction of the presidential administration of Donald... View Details

Keywords: Data Security; Mergers and Acquisitions; Cybersecurity; Internet and the Web; International Relations; Laws and Statutes; Globalized Firms and Management

August 2023
Case

Reimagining Hindustan Unilever (A)

By: Sunil Gupta and Rachna Tahilyani

In the fall of 2019, the CEO and MD of Hindustan Unilever (HUL), India’s largest fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) firm, is wondering what to do about their experiments to digitize distribution. Despite three years of intense efforts, their apps to empower retailers... View Details

Keywords: Experimentation; Digital Transformation; Digital Strategy; Leading Change; Distribution; Decisions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Consumer Behavior; E-commerce; Competition; Performance; Business Strategy; Marketing; Transformation; Consumer Products Industry; Asia; India

March 2017 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Marketing Transformation at Mastercard

By: Sunil Gupta, Srinivas K. Reddy and David Lane

Since 2013, Mastercard CMO M.V. Rajamannar (Raja) had transformed the firm's marketing by using unique experiences, digital technology, and social media to intensify linkages not only with cardholders, but also with Mastercard's direct bank and merchant stakeholders.... View Details

Keywords: Mastercard; Financial Services; Ingredient Brand; B2B2C; Experiential Marketing; Digital Marketing; ROI; Marketing; Customer Focus and Relationships; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Brands and Branding; Internet and the Web; Investment Return; Financial Services Industry

December 2008 (Revised February 2011)
Case

Evan Williams: From Blogger to Odeo (A)

By: Noam T. Wasserman and Louis-Philippe Maurice

For several months, founder-CEO Evan Williams has felt trapped, unable to control Odeo and its strategic direction. He longs for the "simple" days of Blogger, the previous venture he had co-founded. Although his Blogger experiences had included a major blow-up with his... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Information Technology Industry

10 Jun 2019
Blog Post

What I Did Differently Before Reapplying to HBS

company. The timing couldn't have been better. I eventually spent a year in Brazil, traveling throughout the country, seeing firsthand the destruction caused by corruption, and discovering the power of technology to stop it. Working at... View Details

Web

James Sharpe | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

James Sharpe Extrusion Technology Carl Sloane Temple, Barker & Sloane C.D. Spangler C.D. Spangler Construction Co. Thomas Stemberg Staples Thomas Weisel Thomas Weisel Partners LLC John Whitehead Goldman Sachs Profiles... View Details

14 Jun 2023
News

Dean Datar Meets with Alumni in East Asia

Starting last fall and continuing through the coming year, Dean Srikant Datar is traveling to meet with alumni around the world. On June 5 and 8, more than 300 alumni in East Asia gathered to celebrate and connect with each other at "An Evening with Dean Datar" events... View Details

2016
Chapter

User-Generated Content and Social Media

By: Michael Luca

This paper documents what economists have learned about user-generated content (UGC) and social media. A growing body of evidence suggests that UGC on platforms ranging from Yelp to Facebook has a large causal impact on economic and social outcomes ranging from... View Details

Keywords: User-generated Content; Crowdsourcing; Design Economics; Internet and the Web; Marketing; Economics; Media; Social Media