Publications

January 2022 (Revised November 2023)
Supplement

Uber in China (C): The Cost of Success for Didi

By: William C. Kirby and Noah B. Truwit

On June 30, 2021, ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing (Didi) raised $4.4 billion in its initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the largest IPO of a Chinese company listed on an American exchange since Alibaba raised $25 billion in 2014.... View Details

Keywords: Uber; Didi Chuxing; Start-up Growth; Regulation; Ride-sharing; Transportation; Business Startups; Business and Government Relations; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Growth and Development; Policy; Competition; Laws and Statutes; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; China

21 Jun 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Merchant or Two-Sided Platform?

Keywords: by Andrei Hagiu; Technology

16 Jun 2015
First Look

First Look: June 16, 2015

COO, had to ensure the company's current business model of building cars and trucks remained strong, while concurrently navigating the company into the rapidly expanding industry of personal mobility. Personal mobility required new View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 1995 (Revised October 1995)
Background Note

Electronic Commerce: Trends and Opportunities

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Janis Lee Gogan

In a 1966 Harvard Business Review article, Felix Kaufman implored general managers to think beyond their own organizational boundaries to the possibilities of interorganizational systems (IOS)--networked computers that enable companies to share information and... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Trends; Opportunities

Find at Harvard

August 2022
Supplement

Broadway Angels (2022)

By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

In late June of 2022, Sonja Perkins, co-founder of Broadway Angels, contemplated the group’s future. She and her co-founders, Jennifer Fonstad, and Magdalena Yesil, started the group to gather together the most successful and powerful women in venture capital and... View Details

Keywords: Gender Equity; Impact; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Social and Collaborative Networks; Entrepreneurship; Gender; Mission and Purpose; Groups and Teams; Financial Services Industry

December 2006 (Revised February 2009)
Case

China Merchants Bank: Here Just For You

By: F. Warren McFarlan, GuoQing Chen, HengYuan Zhu, Bin Yang, Michael Shih-ta Chen, G.A. Donovan, Waishun Lo and Yan Yang

Founded in 1987, China Merchants Bank (CMB) is a pioneer in the use of technical innovation and IT as a competitive tool in the rapidly evolving Chinese banking sector. With a relatively small branch network when compared to its larger competitors, CMB uses an... View Details

Keywords: Credit Cards; Information Technology; Technological Innovation; Innovation Leadership; Competitive Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Emerging Markets; Opportunities; Banking Industry; China; Hong Kong

March 2002 (Revised November 2003)
Case

Satellite Radio

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Alastair Brown

In early 2002, XM and Sirius were fighting for control of the emerging U.S. market for satellite radio. Each company targeted consumers in automobiles, providing 100 channels of CD-quality audio for a monthly subscription fee of $10-$13. Wall Street analysts predicted... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Price; Risk and Uncertainty; Problems and Challenges; Network Effects; Partners and Partnerships; Information Technology; Business Model; Investment Return; Auto Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States

22 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

Open Source Software: The $9 Trillion Resource Companies Take for Granted

Like: The Network Effect: Why Companies Should Care About Employees’ LinkedIn Connections How to Get Companies to Make Investments That Benefit Everyone How to Make AI 'Forget' All the Private Data It Shouldn't Have Feedback or ideas to... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Information Technology; Information Technology; Information Technology

20 Jul 2010
First Look

First Look: July 20

David LaneHarvard Business School Case 810-075 Iqbal Quadir, a former New York investment banker, set about to bring universal telecommunications to his native Bangladesh. He was convinced that GSM, the same advanced wireless technology... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

21 Nov 2006
First Look

First Look: November 21, 2006

constrained domestically and those that are more technology intensive, exhibit a higher sensitivity of affiliate cash holdings to repatriation tax burdens. Download working paper: http://www.people.hbs.edu/ffoley/Cash.pdf Skill vs. Luck... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

29 Sep 2015
First Look

September 29, 2015

2015 Princeton University Press How the Internet Became Commercial: Innovation, Privatization, and the Birth of a New Network By: Greenstein, Shane Abstract—In less than a decade, the Internet went from being a series of loosely connected... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Nov 2010
Research & Ideas

How IT Shapes Top-Down and Bottom-Up Decision Making

communication with branch offices. However, the network may actually deter innovation. When technology makes it easier to communicate, erstwhile independent workers may find themselves pestering their bosses... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

September 2023 (Revised December 2023)
Case

TetraScience: Noise and Signal

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Tom Quinn

In 2019, TetraScience CEO “Spin” Wang needed advice. Five years earlier, he had cofounded a startup that saw early success with a hardware product designed to help laboratory scientists in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical spaces more easily collect data from... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Organization; Restructuring; Forecasting and Prediction; Digital Platforms; Analytics and Data Science; AI and Machine Learning; Organizational Structure; Network Effects; Competitive Strategy; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States; Boston

June 2024
Case

Aidoc: Building a Hospital-Centric AI Platform

By: Ariel D. Stern and Susan Pinckney

In 2023, Israel-based AI health care company Aidoc evaluated its future. The company, founded in 2016, had grown from commercializing a single AI product for radiologists to a software platform that could detect 20 conditions and immediately notify care teams of... View Details

07 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Fail—and How Their Founders Can Bounce Back

venture to be all about the technology or all about the sales, without taking time to form a balanced plan. “In Silicon Valley, the fact that your enterprise has failed is actually a badge of honor.” And all too often, they do not give... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

2008
Working Paper

The Architecture of Platforms: A Unified View

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and C. Jason Woodard

The central role of "platform" products and services in mediating the activities of disaggregated "clusters" or "ecosystems" of firms has been widely recognized. But platforms and the systems in which they are embedded are very diverse. In particular, platforms may... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Industry Clusters; Infrastructure; Information Infrastructure; Digital Platforms

Read Now

January–February 2020
Article

Competing in the Age of AI

By: Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani

Today’s markets are being reshaped by a new kind of firm—one in which artificial intelligence (AI) runs the show. This cohort includes giants like Google, Facebook, and Alibaba, and growing businesses such as Wayfair and Ocado. Every time we use their services, the... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Algorithms; Technological Innovation; Business Model; Competition; Competitive Strategy; AI and Machine Learning