Publications

01 Dec 2014
News

Customizing Couture Online

“fashion’s fairy godmother.” It’s easy to remember a time when women didn’t buy high-end fashion online—it was barely a decade ago. Magnúsdóttir watched the birth of the online fashion industry as a retail consultant and a cofounder of a... View Details

Keywords: April White; fashion; Professional Services

01 Jun 2011
News

Faculty Research Online

Are We Thinking Too Little, or Too Much? In the course of making a decision, managers often err in one of two directions: either overanalyzing a situation or forgoing all the relevant information and simply going with their gut. Associate Professor Michael Norton... View Details

Keywords: Miscellaneous Manufacturing; Manufacturing

01 Sep 2012
News

Faculty Research Online

A Pragmatic Alternative for Creating a Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy Many companies preach and practice corporate social responsibility, but their efforts often lack an overall strategy that dilutes their effectiveness. Professor Kash Rangan and colleagues... View Details

Keywords: Professor Kash Rangan; Professor Michael W. Toffel; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

01 Sep 2010
News

Faculty Research Online

The Hard Work of Measuring Social Impact Donors are placing nonprofits on the hot seat to measure social performance. Problem is, there is little agreement on what those metrics should be. Associate Professor Alnoor Ebrahim discusses how nonprofit managers should... View Details

Keywords: Securities, Commodities, and Other Financial Investments; Finance

Offline Showrooms in Omni-channel Retail: Demand and Operational Benefits

Omnichannel environments where customers shop online and offline at the same retailer are ubiquitous, and are deployed by online-first and traditional retailers alike. We focus on the relatively understudied domain of online-first retailers and the engagement of... View Details

01 Mar 2012
News

Faculty Research Online

Rethinking the Fairness of Organ Transplants Because of an organ shortage, thousands of people miss out on needed organ transplants each year. Business researchers at Harvard and MIT are rethinking how kidney transplants are allocated to give patients longer lives. An... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

November 2000 (Revised May 2002)
Case

FleetBoston Financial: Online Banking

By: Frances X. Frei and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar

As the ninth largest bank holding company in the United States in 2000, FleetBoston Financial Corp. provided a myriad of financial services, including retail banking, loan origination, and brokerage accounts. This case explores how FleetBoston responded to the Internet... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Borrowing and Debt; Cost Management; Banks and Banking; Consumer Behavior; Service Operations; Competition; Online Technology; Banking Industry; United States

Educators

01 Dec 2010
News

Faculty Research Online

Power Posing: Fake It Until You Make It Nervous about an upcoming presentation or job interview? Holding one’s body in expansive, “high-power” poses for as little as two minutes can summon an extra surge of power and sense of well-being when it’s needed, according to... View Details

Article

Least-Cost Avoiders in Online Fraud and Abuse

By: Benjamin Edelman

Web users face considerable fraud, malfeasance, and economic harm that system operators could prevent or mitigate. Although the legal system can respond, regulations have mixed results. I examine the applicable legal rules that constrain online fraud and the economic... View Details

Keywords: Online Technology; Crime and Corruption; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Economics; Law

Read Now

Web

Winning with Digital Platforms Online Course | HBS Online

. Overview Syllabus Enrollment Stories FAQs Enroll Now Key Concepts Define what platforms are and how they create and capture value Understand network effects and how to leverage them to achieve growth Discover how to launch, scale, and maintain a successful platform... View Details

February 2021
Case

Threadless: The Renewal of an Online Community

By: Shane Greenstein, Karim Lakhani and Christian Godwin

Threadless, an online apparel company and artist community which Jake Nickell founded in 2000, continued to maintain its status as a top company in the online apparel industry during its second decade. From 2010 to 2020, Threadless continued to operate its... View Details

Educators

January 2020 (Revised October 2021)
Case

Zara: An Integrated Store and Online Model (A)

By: Antonio Moreno

In 2010, amidst the growth of ecommerce and the emergence of new, purely online, fashion players, Zara launched its first online store, Zara.com. Since then, Zara’s online business had grown at a fast pace. By 2018, 12% of Inditex Group’s total sales came from the... View Details

Keywords: Stores; Integration; Operations; Business Model; Strategy; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Fashion Industry; Europe

Educators

01 Jun 2009
News

Faculty Research Online

HBS Working Knowledge is an online forum for innovation in business practice, offering a first look at new thinking from HBS faculty. Read the complete articles summarized below by visiting their Web links. Marketing After the Recession... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

2019
Working Paper

The Impact of Professionals' Contributions to Online Knowledge Communities on Their Workplace Knowledge Work

By: Hila Lifshitz - Assaf and Frank Nagle

Knowledge work is becoming increasingly challenging as pace of change in the knowledge frontier is increasing. Organizations have created multiple mechanisms to minimize knowledge gaps and increase learning such internal training, mentorship programs as well as... View Details

Keywords: Open Source; Future Of Work; Software Development; Knowledge Work; Online Community; Learning; Knowledge Sharing; Applications and Software; Open Source Distribution; Performance Productivity

01 Mar 2006
News

Faculty Research Online

Time Pressure and Creativity: Why Time Is Not on Your Side Even as time pressures increase in corporate life, the need for creative thinking has never been greater, says Professor Teresa Amabile in this Q&A. IPR: Protecting Your Technology Transfers Countries are... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

01 Jun 2005
News

Faculty Research Online

Entrepreneurial Hospital Pioneers New Model Associate Professor Tarun Khanna examines a “Robin Hood” cardiac hospital in India, which treats patients regardless of their ability to pay. His findings? A solvent, successful model of international health care. Is Business... View Details

Keywords: nonprofit; social impact; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

May 24, 2021
Article

What Makes an Online Marketplace Disruptive?

By: Clifford Maxwell and Scott Duke Kominers

Platforms like Airbnb, eBay, and Angie’s List have changed how markets work. But while many are innovative and make life easier for consumers, which are truly disruptive? Hewing to Clay Christensen’s theory of disruption, platforms—which operate as online... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Disruption; Framework

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2016
Working Paper

The Empirical Economics of Online Attention

By: Andre Boik, Shane Greenstein and Jeffrey Prince

In several markets, firms compete not for consumer expenditure but instead for consumer attention. We model and characterize how households allocate their scarce attention in arguably the largest market for attention: the Internet. Our characterization of household... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Competition; Behavior; Resource Allocation; Household; Cognition and Thinking