Publications

May 2010 (Revised September 2013)
Case

Friend Bank: The Time for Hope

By: Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia

In 2010, Friend Bank was entering the fifth year of Hope Harris Johnson's ambitious 20-year growth plan to transform her family's one branch community bank into an institution with a substantial presence in southeastern Alabama. Harris Johnson was pleased, so far, with... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk Management; Family Ownership; Competitive Advantage; Banking Industry; Alabama

September 2018
Article

Knowledge Integrators and the Survival of Manufacturing Clusters

By: Giulio Buciuni and Gary P. Pisano

Over the past two decades, the greater prevalence of global supply chains has had contrasting effects on Western manufacturing clusters. While some of them dwindled, others proved resilient. Contributing to the recent literature on co-located clusters and clusters'... View Details

Keywords: Production; Industry Clusters; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Strategy; Competition

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24 Nov 2009
Working Paper Summaries

From Strategy to Business Models and to Tactics

Keywords: by Ramon Casadesus-Masanell & Joan Enric Ricart

September 2021 (Revised December 2021)
Case

STARZPLAY: Shooting for the Stars

By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini and Alpana Thapar

In mid-2021, Maaz Sheikh, cofounder and CEO of STARZPLAY, a Dubai-based subscription video on demand (SVOD) provider that catered to the Middle East and North Africa region, was wrestling with how to find the right balance between continued subscriber growth and... View Details

13 Jan 2012
Working Paper Summaries

The Impact of Modularity on Intellectual Property and Value Appropriation

Keywords: by Carliss Y. Baldwin & Joachim Henkel

Article

The Information Technology Ecosystem: Structure, Health, and Performance

By: Marco Iansiti and Gregory L. Richards

A number of modern industries are organized as complex networks of firms whose integrated efforts are necessary to deliver value to end customers. The complexity of these networks, or business ecosystems, and the associated interdependencies among firms, make... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Networks; Value; Customers; Performance Productivity; Product; Applications and Software; Innovation and Invention; Competition; Business Model; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology Industry

October 1997 (Revised September 2003)
Case

Eli Lilly and Company: Drug Development Strategy (A)

By: Stefan H. Thomke, Ashok Nimgade and Paul Pospisil

Describes how Eli Lilly and Co. tries to accelerate its new drug development process with the aid of "combinatorial chemistry"--a rapidly emerging and revolutionary approach to preclinical drug discovery. The product manager of a potential blockbuster migraine drug... View Details

Keywords: Chemicals; Finance; Innovation and Invention; Time Management; Markets; Product Development; Organizations; Business Processes; Problems and Challenges; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Competition; Pharmaceutical Industry

14 Nov 2006
First Look

First Look: November 14, 2006

Working PapersThe Business of Free Software: Enterprise Incentives, Investment, and Motivation in the Open Source Community Authors:Marco Iansiti and Gregory L. Richards Abstract In this paper, we examine the motivations of large... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2014 (Revised June 2014)
Background Note

The Information Superhighway Meets the Highway: Technology and Mobility Trends and Opportunities

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Kevin Rosier

Technological innovation is considered a competitive strength for America, but the nation does not score as high in deploying its technology. U.S. transportation systems are in need of repair and renewal, and the sector is at the cusp of a technological revolution. The... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Information Technology; Infrastructure; Transportation; Information Infrastructure

21 Jun 2022
HBS Case

Free Isn’t Always Better: How Slack Holds Its Own Against Microsoft Teams

operating system for the office—the centerpiece of how we do work? That is open at this point. It’s the dream of both Microsoft and Salesforce.” Yoffie and a group of MBA students at HBS used public information to analyze the View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Information Technology; Technology

Research Summary

Leadership, Innovation, and Talent Management

By: Linda A. Hill

Hill is working on various research projects. The first, Leadership as Collective Genius, explores the relationships among leadership, creativity and diversity, more specifically the kind of collaborative work necessary for innovation in today's global enterprise. The... View Details

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

09 Oct 2019
Research & Ideas

For Better Ideas, Bring the Right People to the Brainstorm

innovators conversing with extroverts generate much better ideas Open innovators collaborating with introverts generate worse ideas, on average The traits of both View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

September 2008 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents

By: Elie Ofek

Marketers are often tasked with exploring the factors that impact the long-run adoption of a new product or technology. The new product under consideration here is the drug-eluting stent: a device which props open a clogged artery to the heart and then releases... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Marketing Strategy; Product Positioning; Consumer Behavior; Adoption; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

March 2019
Supplement

KITEA (C): A Surprise Delay

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Gamze Yucaoglu

This case describes the delay of IKEA’s store opening in Morocco in 2015. After Sweden ordered an internal review of its position on the independence of Western Sahara, a territory Morocco regarded as part of its own, the Moroccan government declared that IKEA did not... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; For-Profit Firms; Business Strategy; Strategic Planning; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Adaptation; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Retail Industry; Africa; North Africa; Morocco

October 2017 (Revised August 2018)
Case

HTC and Virtual Reality

By: David B. Yoffie, Andy Wu and Allison M. Ciechanover

In fall 2017, HTC CEO and Chairperson Cher Wang was driving the company to focus on virtual reality (VR). HTC's first VR product, VIVE, released in spring 2016, was applauded for its superior immersive room-scale capabilities. However, early adoption of VR beyond... View Details

Keywords: Virtual Reality; Strategy; Competition; Information Technology; Innovation and Management; Consumer Behavior; Customer Relationship Management; Technology Industry

27 May 2014
First Look

First Look: May 27

Jill Avery, and Anat Keinan Abstract—We explore the effect of having a large dominant competitor and show the conditions under which focusing on a competitive threat, rather than hiding it, can actually help a brand. We demonstrate... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

08 May 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Capitalizing On Innovation: The Case of Japan

Keywords: by Robert Dujarric & Andrei Hagiu

June 2020
Article

Parallel Play: Startups, Nascent Markets, and the Effective Design of a Business Model

By: Rory McDonald and Kathleen Eisenhardt

Prior research advances several explanations for entrepreneurial success in nascent markets but leaves a key imperative unexplored: the business model. By studying five ventures in the same nascent market, we develop a novel theoretical framework for understanding how... View Details

Keywords: Search; Legitimacy; Organizational Innovation; Organizational Learning; Mechanisms And Processes; Institutional Entrepreneurship; Qualitative Methods; Business Model Design; Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Emerging Markets; Adaptation; Competition; Strategy