Publications

January 2023 (Revised December 2023)
Case

OhmConnect: Energizing the Future

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Jennifer Fonstad and Nicole Tempest Keller

Founded in 2013, OhmConnect was a free consumer web app that alerted customers about peak hours of electricity demand, and paid them to lower their energy use at home during these periods. The company sold the aggregated reductions generated by thousands of households... View Details

Keywords: App Development; Renewable Energy; Electricity Usage; Regulations; VC; Technology; Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC); Scalability; Applications and Software; Growth and Development Strategy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business Model; Venture Capital; Energy Industry; United States; California; Texas; Europe

June 2013
Supplement

Montague Corporation: Unfolding the Future in Cycling (Video Supplement)

By: Jim Sharpe

This is the Video Supplement for Montague Corporation: Unfolding the Future in Cycling (HBS Case #808087). View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurs; Consumer Products; Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Innovation; General Managers; Growth; Growth Management; International; Consumer Behavior; Marketing Channels; Founding; Channels Of Distribution; Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Leadership; Bicycle Industry; United States

May 2007 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Prediction Markets at Google

By: Peter A. Coles, Karim R. Lakhani and Andrew P. McAfee

In its eight quarters of operation, Google's internally developed prediction market has delivered accurate and decisive predictions about future events of interest to the company. Google must now determine how to increase participation in the market, and how to best... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Market Participation; Information Technology

June 2013
Supplement

Montague Corporation: Unfolding the Future in Cycling (Spreadsheet Supplement)

By: Jim Sharpe

This is the Spreadsheet Supplement for Montague Corporation: Unfolding the Future in Cycling (Case #808087). Includes Exhibit 3, Exhibit 5, Exhibit 6, and Exhibit 8. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurs; Consumer Products; Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Innovation; General Managers; Growth; Growth Management; International; Consumer Behavior; Marketing Channels; Founding; Channels Of Distribution; Bicycles; Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Leadership; Bicycle Industry; United States

2021
White Paper

The Future of Boston's Workforce: The Path Forward from COVID-19

By: Will Dorsey Eden, Joseph B. Fuller and Rachel Lipson

In response to the unprecedented disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic on Greater Boston’s economy and workforce, the Boston Foundation, Skillworks, and the Project on Workforce at Harvard partnered to convene workforce leaders from across the region to address how might... View Details

Keywords: COVID; COVID-19; Workforce; Pandemic; Labor Market; Health Pandemics; Labor; Employment; Organizations; Cooperation; Strategic Planning; Boston

Research Summary

Retailing: Past, Present, and Future

Walter J. Salmon is working on several retailing-related research and course development projects, including a study (with Gwen K. Ortmeyer) of the evolution and future of American department stores, and a case book (with DAVID E. BELL) for use in graduate... View Details

09 Oct 2009 - 10 Oct 2009
Lecture

Strengthening the Market Economy-the Crisis and Beyond." Panel Facilitator, "HBS-International Chamber of Commerce Conference on the Future of the Market System

By: Lynn S. Paine

Keywords: Economic Systems; Markets; Crisis Management

2023
Chapter

Marketing Through the Machine’s Eyes: Image Analytics and Interpretability

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Flora Feng and Kannan Srinivasan

he growth of social media and the sharing economy is generating abundant unstructured image and video data. Computer vision techniques can derive rich insights from unstructured data and can inform recommendations for increasing profits and consumer utility—if only the... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Marketing Research; Algorithmic Bias; AI and Machine Learning; Marketing

Forthcoming
Article

Reflexivity in Credit Markets

By: Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson and Lawrence J. Jin

Reflexivity is the idea that investors' biased beliefs affect market outcomes and that market outcomes in turn affect investors’ future biases. We develop a dynamic behavioral model of the credit cycle featuring this two-way feedback loop. Investors form beliefs about... View Details

Keywords: Reflexivity; Attitudes; Financial Markets; Forecasting and Prediction; Investment; Credit

Read Now

November 2024
Case

Ather Energy: The Future of Mobility

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Kannan Srinivasan and Malini Sen

Ather Energy, India’s third-largest electric scooter maker by volume, was founded in 2013. Five years later, the start-up launched its first electric scooter, Ather 450, which was powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), to navigate... View Details

01 Dec 2016
News

Dear Future Author…

other words, do this to please yourself.” —Robert Goldmann (MBA 1961), business and personal coach and author of Act from Choice “Keep your expectations modest. The writing is only half the battle. Then you have to market the book 95... View Details

05 Jun 2018
News

Fueling the Future

and marketing director to head of innovation. After years at Covanta, a waste-to-energy business, she now runs Fueled for Growth, an energy consulting company, while devoting her personal energies to helping women and girls find—and... View Details

Keywords: Oil and Gas Extraction; Mining

13 May 2019
News

Reading the Market

28 Mar 2018
News

Fueling the Future

recruiter and marketing director to head of innovation. Today, she runs Fueled for Growth, an innovation consulting company, which assists financial firms with due diligence in the energy and industrials sector and helps companies solve... View Details

Keywords: Jill Radsken

19 Jul 2011
News

Brightening the Future

in working with government and NGO players to get his hybrid solar network up and running. “To have large scale and sustainable impact in helping the poor, it is essential to enlist the power of business and the markets in a way that... View Details

Keywords: Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional, and Similar Organizations; Personal Services

14 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

Clay Christensen’s Milkshake Marketing

the Milwaukee brand, are not nearly as celebrated. "The word 'Milwaukee' doesn't give you any market whatsoever," Christensen says. So, if jobs-to-be-done market segmentation is so effective, why aren't more... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail; Service; Consumer Products; Food & Beverage

January 2025
Case

Barilla: Feeding the Future

By: Sophus A. Reinert, Forest L. Reinhardt, Dante Roscini and Carlota Moniz

Keywords: Food and Beverage Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Italy

January 2022
Case

FIFA and The World Cup: The Future of Football

By: Anita Elberse, Oliver Band and Howard Johnson

Should FIFA host its biggest event—the FIFA World Cup—every two years instead of every four, as it has been doing since the event’s inception in the 1930s? In September 2021, Gianni Infantino, the president of the International Federation of Association Football... View Details

Keywords: Sports; Soccer; Football; Entertainment; Media; Talent Development; Globalization; Marketing; Strategy; General Management; Governance; Decision Making; Governing and Advisory Boards; Problems and Challenges; Brands and Branding; Sports Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

Article

How will Emerging Markets Shape the Alternative Assets Arena?

By: Roberto Charvel

This article looks at the growth of pensions in Latin America and its future impact in local alternative assets' investments locally and in the developed world. View Details

Keywords: Emerging Economies; Emerging Markets; Pension; Institutional Investments; Alternative Assets; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Entrepreneurship; Financial Services Industry; Latin America