Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,148)
- Faculty Publications (141)
- July 2019 (Revised May 2020)
- Case
AT&T, Retraining, and the Workforce of Tomorrow
By: William R. Kerr, Joseph B. Fuller and Carl Kreitzberg
By the late 2000s, rapid changes in the telecommunications industry forced AT&T’s management team to take on a task that CEO Randall Stephenson called the “biggest logistical challenge” they had ever seen: retraining 100,000 workers by 2020. In 2012, internal company... View Details
Keywords: AT＆T; Workforce; Skills; Future Of Work; Telecommunications; Unions; Technological Change; Layoffs; MOOCS; Strategic Planning; Employees; Training; Competency and Skills; Labor; Learning; Labor Unions; Technology Adoption; Talent and Talent Management; Telecommunications Industry; Communications Industry; United States
- July 2019 (Revised November 2019)
- Case
Osaro: Picking the Best Path
By: William R. Kerr, James Palano and Bastiane Huang
The founder of Osaro saw the potential of deep reinforcement learning to allow robots to be applied to new applications. Osaro targeted warehousing, already a dynamic industry for robotics and automation, for its initial product—a system which would allow robotic arms... View Details
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning; Robotics; Robots; Ecommerce; Fulfillment; Warehousing; AI; Startup; Technology Commercialization; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Logistics; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Information Technology; Commercialization; Learning; Complexity; Competition; E-commerce
- June 2019 (Revised November 2019)
- Technical Note
Sustaining Corporate Culture in a Growing Organization
By: Dennis Campbell and Tatiana Sandino
An organization’s culture can be a significant source of sustainable competitive advantage. For the organization, it can attract job candidates who fit and align employees working in different teams around common goals. For employees, a strong culture can generate... View Details
- June 2019
- Technical Note
Valuing Employee Equity at Early Stage Ventures
By: Shikhar Ghosh, Christopher Stanton and Sanchali Pal
The note introduces a framework to consider factors that influence the value of employee equity at early stage ventures. Valuing equity is complex, and it important to account for expected dilution, assess exit potential, and acknowledge the high rate of failure in... View Details
- March 2019
- Article
The New Silk Road: Implications for Higher Education in China and the West?
By: William C. Kirby and Marijk C. van der Wende
Recent geopolitical events, such as Brexit and the retreat from multilateral trade and cooperation by the USA, have created waves of uncertainty, especially in the field of higher education, regarding international cooperation. Meanwhile, China is publicly seeking to... View Details
- January 2019 (Revised July 2019)
- Case
New Balance: Managing Orders and Working Conditions
By: Michael W. Toffel, Eileen McNeely and Matthew Preble
New Balance Athletics, Inc., a major U.S.-based athletic footwear and apparel brand, sources most of its footwear products from independent suppliers whose factories are located in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Monica Gorman, vice president of responsible leadership... View Details
Keywords: Footwear; Athletic Footwear; Manufacturing; CSR; Sustainability; Quality Management; Supply Chains; Operations; Management; Production; Working Conditions; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Labor and Management Relations; Supply Chain Management; Supply Chain; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry
- October 2018
- Case
Learning How to Honnold
By: Eugene F. Soltes, Sara Hess and Dutch Leonard
Alex Honnold is the world’s most accomplished free climber. To many, climbing sheer vertical faces of rock—like the famed El Capitan—without a rope is viewed as not simply risky but reckless. Honnold contrasts this sentiment by presenting his perspective on risk taking... View Details
- Fall 2018
- Article
The Value of Fit Information in Online Retail: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment
By: Santiago Gallino and Antonio Moreno
Online channels generate frictions when selling products with nondigital attributes, such as apparel. Customers may be reluctant to purchase products they have not been able to try on, and those customers who do purchase may return products when they do not fit as... View Details
- March 2018 (Revised September 2019)
- Case
Chewy.com (A)
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble
In late 2013, Ryan Cohen, cofounder and CEO of online pet products retailer Chewy.com, faces a “bet the company decision”—whether to stay with a third-party logistics provider (3PL) for all of its e-commerce fulfillment or to take the function in house. Cohen worries... View Details
- March 2018
- Supplement
Chewy.com (B)
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble
Cohen and Chewy’s other board members decided to fully insource order fulfilment and commenced building an order fulfilment center near its 3PL partner’s facility. As soon as the 3PL learned that Chewy would be managing its own order fulfillment; however, it decided to... View Details
- January 2018 (Revised January 2019)
- Case
ZappRx
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Olivia Hull
In October 2015, ZappRx founder Zoe Barry is deciding between two business models for her health technology start-up. Her product, a software application that aims to expedite the prescription fulfillment process for patients with rare diseases, has attracted interest... View Details
- Article
An Invitation to Market Design
By: Scott Duke Kominers, Alexander Teytelboym and Vincent P. Crawford
Market design seeks to translate economic theory and analysis into practical solutions to real-world problems. By redesigning both the rules that guide market transactions and the infrastructure that enables those transactions to take place, market designers can... View Details
Keywords: Matching; Trading; Scrip; Liquidity; Efficiency; Equity; Allocation Rules; Marketplaces; Market Design; Marketplace Matching; Auctions
- September 2017 (Revised January 2019)
- Case
Public Entrepreneurs? Picking a Path
By: Mitchell Weiss and Matthew Segneri
Direct entry into government remained an uncommon post-HBS path, with only 1%–2% of recent classes going directly into the public sector. But, for public-minded MBAs, government wasn’t the sole province for public problem-solving. MBAs could join or launch companies... View Details
Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Careers; Tri-sector Athlete; Job Searching; Government Innovation; Govtech; CivicTech; Civic Technology; Civic Innovation; Government Technology; MBA Class Of 2017; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Public Sector; Government Administration; Job Search; Jobs and Positions; Innovation Leadership; Technology Industry; Public Administration Industry; United States
- August 2017 (Revised February 2023)
- Case
Managing Diversity and Inclusion at Yelp
By: Michael Luca, Joshua Schwartzstein and Gauri Subramani
This case explores the industry-wide lack of employee diversity in the technology sector and Yelp’s decision to take a leadership position in identifying strategies to increase diversity. The goal of the case is to provide an opportunity for students to develop a... View Details
- May 2017 (Revised November 2019)
- Case
The Dubai International Film Festival
By: Rohit Deshpandé and Alpana Thapar
This case follows the conception and emergence of the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF). In an already crowded and highly competitive industry, Abdulhamid Juma was attempting to define and establish a unique brand positioning for DIFF. Committed to its vision,... View Details
Keywords: Brand Positioning; Underdog Brand Building; Business Models; Non-profit; Managing Multiple Stakeholders; Film Entertainment; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Competitive Strategy; Decision Making; Growth and Development Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry
- 2017
- Case
Uncommon Schools (A): A Network of Networks
By: John J-H Kim and Sarah McAra
In 2013, Brett Peiser, CEO of the charter school management organization (CMO) Uncommon Schools, is reassessing the nonprofit’s strategy. For nearly 10 years, Uncommon had fulfilled its mission to bring high-quality education to students in low-income, urban areas... View Details
- February 2017
- Case
Yemeksepeti: Growing and Expanding the Business Model through Data
By: William R. Kerr, Gamze Yucaoglu and Eren Kuzucu
In October 2016, Nevzat Aydin, co-founder and CEO of Yemeksepeti, the Turkish online food-ordering company, was looking over the company's quarterly results and projections for the upcoming year with his management team. It had been almost a year and a half since Aydin... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurial Ventures; Turkey; Big Data; Customer Focused Organization; Service Management; Continuous Improvement; Data Analysis; Internet; Growth Strategy; Technological Change; Information Systems; Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Customer Focus and Relationships; Emerging Markets; Service Operations; Competitive Advantage; Performance Improvement; Internet and the Web; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology; Value Creation; Food and Beverage Industry; Turkey
- January 2017 (Revised May 2020)
- Case
Sesame Workshop (A): Bringing Big Bird Back to Health
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ryan Raffaelli and Jonathan Cohen
Sesame Workshop was transforming in 2016. CEO Jeff Dunn had reorganized and shifted the iconic institution to respond to digital disruption and a consensus culture. This case examines his efforts to turn Sesame Workshop around. It notes Sesame's storied history and the... View Details
- January 2017 (Revised January 2017)
- Case
Sesame Workshop: Bringing Big Bird Back to Health
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Ryan Raffaelli and Jonathan Cohen
Sesame Workshop was transforming in 2016. CEO Jeff Dunn had reorganized and shifted the iconic institution to respond to digital disruption and a consensus culture. This case examines his efforts to turn Sesame Workshop around. It notes Sesame's storied history and the... View Details
- November 2016 (Revised December 2017)
- Case
Blake Sports Apparel and Switch Activewear: Bringing the Executive Team Together
By: Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly Baden
Cameron (Cam) Barker, founder and CEO of Blake Sports Apparel and Switch Activewear, manufacturers and distributers of sports apparel and accessories, was facing a challenge with his executive team. Their inability to work together on seemingly simple issues was a... View Details