Publications

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

10 Nov 2009
First Look

First Look: Nov. 10

revolutionary functionality. We explore a second path to entry that does not rely on Schumpeterian innovation: platform envelopment. By leveraging shared user relationships and common components, one platform provider can move into... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2001
Working Paper

Airbus vs. Boeing in Superjumbos: Credibility and Preemption

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Pankaj Ghemawat

In December 2000, Airbus formally committed to spend $12 billion to develop and launch a 555-seat superjumbo plane known as the A380. Prior to and after Airbus’ commitment, Boeing started and canceled several initiatives aimed at developing a “stretch jumbo” with... View Details

Keywords: Air Transportation; Product Development; Market Entry and Exit; Valuation; Game Theory

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November 2023 (Revised November 2024)
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

2025
Book

Space to Grow: Unlocking the Final Economic Frontier

By: Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau

Your guide--using the compelling stories of changemakers and the tools of economics--to the transformation and future possibilities of the business and economics of space.

Space is a place of unparalleled possibility for humanity, and it's undergoing a... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Economics; Innovation and Invention; Market Entry and Exit; Aerospace Industry

27 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 27

performance in their exchange ties (Gulati and Sytch, 2007) and acquisitions (Zaheer et al., 2010); revenues (Baum et al., 2000; Shipilov and Li, 2008); market share (Zaheer and Bell, 2005) and market View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2018
Case

MISHA: Modernizing the World of Shisha

By: William R. Kerr and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in 2017 with two of the five co-founders of MISHA telling the company’s CEO Michal Portz that they believe it is time for the global venture to shut down its operations and cease investments. Portz and another co-founder believe MISHA can still... View Details

Keywords: Innovation And Management; Entrepreneurship; Private Sector; For-profit Firms; Business Strategy; Decision; Business Startups; Emerging Markets; Business Model; Marketing Strategy; Distribution Channels; Market Entry and Exit; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Technology Industry; Qatar; United States

September–October 2013
Article

The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance in Strengthening Private Monitoring

By: Lamar Pierce and Michael W. Toffel

Governments and other organizations often outsource activities to achieve cost savings from market competition. Yet such benefits are often accompanied by poor quality resulting from moral hazard, which can be particularly onerous when outsourcing the monitoring and... View Details

Find at Harvard

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14 Dec 2010
First Look

First Look: Dec. 14

research on firm entry into new domains by examining heterogeneity in firms' framing and feature-level entry choices. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/11-007.pdf Modularity for Value... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

11 Feb 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

10 Rules Entrepreneurs Need to Know Before Adopting AI

in your sales and marketing team, especially if they come from the industry or companies on your target list. Nowadays functional leaders have more power than in the past to decide which software to use, so founders need to figure out an... View Details

Keywords: by Rocio Wu

May 1996 (Revised July 1998)
Case

Enron Development Corporation: The Dabhol Power Project in Maharashtra, India (A)

By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Krishna G. Palepu, Ahu Bhasin, Mihir A. Desai and Sarayu Srinivasan

A large, lucrative power plant is negotiated for construction/operation by an American power company in India's evolving privatized power sector. The process of incorporating the project is captured in this case. The American company will own and operate the plant in... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Forecasting and Prediction; Private Sector; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Emerging Markets; Market Entry and Exit; Agreements and Arrangements; Private Ownership; Projects; Energy Industry; India; United States

18 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

How Economic Clusters Drive Globalization

to move into palm oil—a much more capital intensive crop to process, with higher barriers to entry for small farmers. Geopolitical forces also played a part in the palm oil industry’s development, Giacomin says. After World War II,... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Agriculture & Agribusiness

21 Feb 2005
Op-Ed

Is Business Management a Profession?

in Washington politicians. Fairly or not, people have become willing to believe that executives, as a class, are greedy and dishonest. However natural it might be to ask how so many executives—not to mention accountants, investment bankers, stock View Details

Keywords: by Rakesh Khurana, Nitin Nohria & Daniel Penrice

June 2014 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Molycorp: Financing the Production of Rare Earth Minerals (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and E. Scott Mayfield

Molycorp, the western hemisphere's only producer of rare earth minerals, was in the middle of a $1 billion capital expenditure project in its effort to become a vertically integrated supplier of rare earth minerals, oxides, and metals. Yet it had just reported lower... View Details

March 2022 (Revised August 2022)
Case

LooksRare: The Decentralized, Tokenized, NFT Marketplace

By: Scott Duke Kominers, Shai Bernstein and George Gonzalez

LooksRare launched a decentralized and anonymous organization to compete against NFT marketplace leader OpenSea. By launching its own cryptocurrency, LooksRare attempted to lure users with a digital rewards program. The nature of the organization and its business... View Details

Keywords: NFTs; Alternative Assets; Blockchain; Cryptocurrency; Customer Relationship Management; Market Entry and Exit; Business Model; Marketing

22 Aug 2022
Research & Ideas

Can Amazon Remake Health Care?

Investors and market watchers noted Amazon’s less-than-stellar forays into health care, while privacy advocates raised concerns about Amazon’s access to patient medical data. Still others have voiced hopes Amazon will bring much-needed... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Health

08 Feb 2010
HBS Case

Looking Behind Google’s Stand in China

Google, the "do no evil" company, gained entry into the Chinese search engine market last decade by agreeing to ban search results on topics deemed sensitive by the Chinese government. To Google's... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

October 2003 (Revised January 2004)
Case

Burberry

By: Youngme E. Moon, Erika Kussmann, Emma Penick, Susan Wojewoda and Kerry Herman

In 2003, Rose Marie Bravo, Burberry's CEO, is debating how to maintain the currency and cachet of the brand across its broad customer base, while entering new product categories and expanding distribution. In the past five years, the brand has become one of the hottest... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Management Teams; Luxury; Product Launch; Distribution; Product Positioning; Advertising; Market Entry and Exit; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Fashion Industry; United Kingdom

February 2022 (Revised November 2022)
Case

Nuritas

By: Mitchell Weiss, Satish Tadikonda, Vincent Dessain and Emer Moloney

Nora Khaldi had built a technology “to unlock the power of nature” in the service of extending human lifespan and improving health, and now in April 2020 was debating telling her Board of Directors she wanted to put on ice some of her discoveries. Nuritas, the company... View Details

Keywords: Cash Burn; Cash Flow Analysis; Pharmaceutical Companies; Founder; Artificial Intelligence; AI; Entrepreneurship; Health Testing and Trials; Health Care and Treatment; Decision Making; Market Entry and Exit; AI and Machine Learning; Pharmaceutical Industry