Publications

29 Feb 2016
HBS Case

Bigbelly's Big Bet on the Digital Trash Can

self-compacting solution to keep streets clean. Last year, however, the Massachusetts-based company’s CEO shared plans to change its business model from selling a product—waste and recycling stations—to selling a subscription-based service that could include Wi-Fi... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Energy

Research Summary

The Role of Capital Markets in the Digital Economy

This topic of research is motivated by the rapid rise of digital adoption in firms across the economy and capital market participants’ growing interest in this phenomenon. My work studies how investors are responding to digitization, provides insights on the... View Details

Teaching Interest

Management of Technology: Strategies for the Digital Economy

Companies make decisions daily to compete in the digital age; some are laying strategic building blocks for the future while others are toiling away on tactical distractions or leading their organizations headlong down the path to obsolescence. The advent of digital... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Technology Industry

November 2011
Article

Social Strategies That Work

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

Although most companies have collected lots of friends and followers on social platforms such as Facebook, few have succeeded in generating profits there. That's because they merely port their digital strategies into social environments by broadcasting their commercial... View Details

Keywords: Social Platforms; Social Strategies; Social and Collaborative Networks; Customers; Relationships; Business Strategy; Profit

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18 Jul 2022
Research & Ideas

After the 'Crypto Crash,' What's Next for Digital Currencies?

has reinforced the perception of critics that markets for the digital currency—used primarily as an investment vehicle as it is not widely accepted as payment for goods and services—are little more than global casinos operating with... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Financial Services; Technology

2020
Working Paper

Digital Experimentation and Startup Performance: Evidence from A/B Testing

By: Rembrand Koning, Sharique Hasan and Aaron Chatterji

Recent work argues that experimentation is the appropriate framework for entrepreneurial strategy. We investigate this proposition by exploiting the time-varying adoption of A/B testing technology, which has drastically reduced the cost of experimentally testing... View Details

Keywords: Experimentation; A/B Testing; Data-driven Decision-making; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Business Startups; Information Technology; Performance

SSRN

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Article

Capabilities, Cognition and Inertia: Evidence from Digital Imaging

By: M. Tripsas and G. Gavetti

There is empirical evidence that established firms often have difficulty adapting to radical technological change. Although prior work in the evolutionary tradition emphasizes the inertial forces associated with the local nature of learning processes, little... View Details

Keywords: Business Offices; Organizations; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques

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2019
Book

The Technology Fallacy: How People Are the Real Key to Digital Transformation

By: Gerald C. Kane, Anh Phillips, Jonathan Copulsky and Garth Andrus

Digital technologies are disrupting organizations of every size and shape, leaving managers scrambling to find a technology fix that will help their organizations compete. This book offers managers and business leaders a guide for surviving digital disruptions―but it... View Details

April 2020 (Revised October 2020)
Case

Unilever's Response to the Future of Work

By: William R. Kerr, Emilie Billaud and Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej

In February 2020, Nick Dalton, executive vice president HR business transformation at Unilever, reflected on the changing nature of work marked by rapid advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation. Launched in 2016, Unilever’s Future of Work... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Human Capital; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Structure; Transformation; Human Resources; Consumer Products Industry; Europe

July 2000 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Madison Avenue: Digital Media Services (A)

Introduces a "new-economy" company, Madison Avenue, facing challenges of mega-success. In the two years since its founding, the company's revenues have grown from zero to nearly $30 million, head count has swollen from the start-up handful to more than 200, and the... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Online Advertising; Advertising Industry

16 Jul 2024
Research & Ideas

Weighing Digital Tradeoffs in Private Equity

intent on trimming expenses. So is the investment worth it? Baik and Srinivasan explore this tension in their working paper, “Private Equity and Digital Transformation,” cowritten with Wilbur Chen of the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

25 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Should You Sell Your Digital Privacy?

in a recent working paper, Market Solutions to Privacy Problems? And what would consumers get in return for their personal information? Money perhaps, or price discounts, better customer service, maybe products tailored specifically to... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls & Sean Silverthorne; Advertising

08 Dec 2020
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Hunt for Talent on Digital Platforms, Not in Resume Piles

Strategy Unit. “They’re not sending resumes in. They’re being recruited, often through online platforms like LinkedIn.” Indeed, the rise of digital platforms now enables firms and recruiters to source potential candidates anywhere in the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Employment

2021
Working Paper

Digital Labor Market Inequality and the Decline of IT Exceptionalism

By: Ruiqing Cao and Shane Greenstein

Several decades of expansion in digital communications, web commerce, and online distribution have altered regional IT labor market returns in the United States. IT occupations experienced similar wage growth as STEM occupations involving IT-related work activities,... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Labor; Wages; Equality and Inequality

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05 Jul 2023
Cold Call Podcast

How Unilever Is Preparing for the Future of Work

Keywords: Re: William R. Kerr; Retail; Consumer Products

01 May 2020
What Do You Think?

Does Remote Work Mix with Organizational Culture?

SUMMING UP Is Management the Missing Ingredient in Melding Organization Culture and Remote Work? Those who have experienced remote work are largely vocal supporters of the notion. Its success is dependent, on the one hand, on an effective... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

January 2006 (Revised March 2010)
Case

Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and the Market for Digital Information Goods

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Andres Hervas and Jordan Mitchell

We study competitive interaction between two alternative models of digital content distribution over the Internet: peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing and centralized client-server distribution. We present microfoundations for a stylized model of p2p file sharing where all... View Details

Keywords: Price; Profit; Distribution; Competition; Internet and the Web; Information Infrastructure

Article

Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and the Market for Digital Information Goods

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Andres Hervas-Drane

We study competitive interaction between two alternative models of digital content distribution over the Internet: peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing and centralized client-server distribution. We present microfoundations for a stylized model of p2p file sharing where all... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Distribution; Internet and the Web; Information Infrastructure; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Strategy; Profit; Price; Performance Efficiency

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