Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,326)
- Faculty Publications (129)
- September 2016 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Angie's List: Ratings Pioneer Turns 20
By: Robert J. Dolan and Ayelet Israeli
In 1995, before people “googled” or “yelped,” Angela Hicks (HBS, 2000) was establishing her Angie’s List as a pioneer in the accumulation and dissemination of consumer rating information. Hicks focused on the home repair and maintenance market and, as she put it,... View Details
Keywords: Pricing; Pricing Strategy; Services; Product Line Management; Growth; Conjoint Analysis; Market Research; Freemium; Growth Strategy; Two Sided Markets; Ecommerce; Platform; Platform Business; Platform Businesses; Platform Strategy; Platforms; Platforms And Ecosystems; Business Model; Internet and the Web; Business Growth and Maturation; Growth and Development Strategy; Price; Strategy; Digital Platforms; E-commerce; Service Industry; United States
- 2016
- Book
Innovation Equity: Assessing and Managing the Monetary Value of New Products and Services
By: Elie Ofek, Eitan Muller and Barak Libai
This book bridges the gap between what academics know, and what innovation stakeholders—from managers, to investors, to analysts, to consumers—need to know about how new products and services are expected to perform in the marketplace. The book develops a compelling... View Details
Keywords: Innovation; Technology Diffusion; New Products; Customer Lifetime Value; Monetization Strategy; Social Influence; Innovation Adoption; Forecasting Demand; Commercialization; Marketing Strategy; Practice; Customer Value and Value Chain; Research; Innovation and Management; Technology Adoption; Forecasting and Prediction; Product Development
- Article
Crowdsourcing City Government: Using Tournaments to Improve Inspection Accuracy
By: Edward Glaeser, Andrew Hillis, Scott Duke Kominers and Michael Luca
The proliferation of big data makes it possible to better target city services like hygiene inspections, but city governments rarely have the in-house talent needed for developing prediction algorithms. Cities could hire consultants, but a cheaper alternative is to... View Details
- February 2016
- Article
Bridging Science and Technology Through Academic-Industry Partnerships
By: Sen Chai and Willy C. Shih
Partnerships that foster the translation of scientific advances emerging from academic research organizations into commercialized products at private firms are a policy tool that has attracted increased interest. This paper examines empirical data from the Danish... View Details
- November 2015 (Revised February 2016)
- Case
Allianz Turkey: Focus on the Customer (A)
By: W. Earl Sasser and Gamze Yucaoglu
At the age of 39, Solmaz Altın took over the helm at Allianz Turkey. Solmaz quickly realized that, although the insurance market was thinly penetrated in Turkey, the company was operating in a very competitive environment with pressure on prices and, hence, cost... View Details
- November 2015 (Revised February 2016)
- Supplement
Allianz Turkey: Focus on the Customer (B)
By: W. Earl Sasser and Gamze Yucaoglu
At the age of 39, Solmaz Altın took over the helm at Allianz Turkey. Solmaz quickly realized that, although the insurance market was thinly penetrated in Turkey, the company was operating in a very competitive environment with pressure on prices and, hence, cost... View Details
- September 2015 (Revised March 2025)
- Technical Note
FIELD Global Capstone: Developing Customer Empathy
By: Jill Avery
The Design Thinking process begins with empathizing with potential customers. Empathizing, being aware of, interpreting, and understanding the thoughts of others, as well as being able to vicariously experience them oneself, requires the careful and deliberate study of... View Details
- September 2015
- Technical Note
FIELD 2: Situation Analysis
By: Jill Avery
In this note, we present a method, the 5 C's Analysis, for collecting and analyzing information about the internal and external environments that firms face. This analysis will enable you to develop design ideas for a new product or service for your Global Partner that... View Details
- Article
Team Scaffolds: How Mesolevel Structures Enable Role-based Coordination in Temporary Groups
By: M. Valentine and A. C. Edmondson
This paper shows how meso-level structures support effective coordination in temporary groups. Prior research on coordination in temporary groups describes how roles encode individual responsibilities so that coordination between relative strangers is possible. We... View Details
- November 2014
- Case
Napalm: From Soldiers Field to Trang Bang
By: Tom Nicholas and Jonas Peter Akins
Napalm is one of the most destructive weapons ever to be invented. Yet, at its original inception it was nothing more than a technical challenge, and it was never intended to be used in indiscriminate antipersonnel warfare. The pathway of its development by a Harvard... View Details
- May 2014
- Article
Digital Dark Matter and the Economic Contribution of Apache
By: Shane Greenstein and Frank Nagle
Researchers have long hypothesized that research outputs from government, university, and private company R&D contribute to economic growth, but these contributions may be difficult to measure when they take a non-pecuniary form. The growth of networking devices and... View Details
- April 2014
- Case
Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (A)
By: Amy C. Edmondson, Bethany S. Gerstein and Melissa Valentine
In 2006, Merrimack Pharmaceuticals was a fast-growing biotechnology company. Its leadership team was divided over whether to keep R&D organized in functional departments or transition to interdisciplinary teams. As a small company, Merrimack's R&D organization had... View Details
- September 2013
- Exercise
An Exercise in Designing a Travel Coffee Mug
By: Elie Ofek and Michael Norris
In recent years design has emerged as a critical factor in the success of many new products. This case exercise provides a hands-on way to experience the design process and offers a structured approach for incorporating key considerations that can aid in effective... View Details
- 2013
- Working Paper
Where do the Most Active Customers Originate and How Can Firms Keep Them Engaged?
By: Clarence Lee, E. Ofek and Thomas Steenburgh
In this paper, we study how firms offering Web services can acquire and develop an active customer base. We focus on two basic questions. First, how does the method of customer acquisition affect the way customers use the service to meet their own needs and to interact... View Details
- July–August 2013
- Article
A Joint Model of Usage and Churn in Contractual Settings
By: Eva Ascarza and Bruce G.S. Hardie
As firms become more customer-centric, concepts such as customer equity come to the fore. Any serious attempt to quantify customer equity requires modeling techniques that can provide accurate multiperiod forecasts of customer behavior. Although a number of researchers... View Details
- July 2013 (Revised November 2021)
- Module Note
Exploration vs. Exploitation
By: Willy Shih
This module note introduces James March's concept of exploration and exploitation, and the management challenge of balancing the allocation of resources to the two activities in the firm. The note also touches on the O'Reilly and Tushman paper on the ambidextrous... View Details
Keywords: Exploration And Exploitation; Exploitation; Research; Scientific Research; Product Commercialization; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Knowledge Acquisition; Growth and Development Strategy; Resource Allocation; Strategic Planning; Research and Development; Science-Based Business; Corporate Strategy; Knowledge Sharing; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; United States
- April 2013
- Case
Managing with Analytics at Procter & Gamble
By: Thomas H. Davenport, Marco Iansiti and Alain Serels
Senior management at P&G has put a strong emphasis on using data to make "better, smarter, real-time business decisions." The Global Business Services (GBS) organization has developed tools, systems and processes to provide managers throughout P&G with direct access to... View Details
- Spring 2013
- Article
The Growth of Finance
By: Robin Greenwood and David S. Scharfstein
The U.S. financial services industry grew from 4.9% of GDP in 1980 to 7.9% of GDP in 2007. A sizeable portion of the growth can be explained by rising asset management fees, which in turn were driven by increases in the valuation of tradable assets, particularly... View Details
- 2013
- Working Paper
Entrepreneurs, Firms and Global Wealth since 1850
By: G. Jones
This working paper integrates the role of entrepreneurship and firms into debates on why Asia, Latin America and Africa were slow to catch up with the West following the Industrial Revolution and the advent of modern economic growth. It argues that the currently... View Details
Keywords: Institutional Change; Political Economy; Emerging Economies; Developing Countries; Industrial Development; Culture; Human Capital; Economic History; History; Wealth and Poverty; Business History; Emerging Markets; Globalization; Developing Countries and Economies; Service Industry; Service Industry; Service Industry; Latin America; Asia; North and Central America; Africa; South America; Europe
- March 2013 (Revised May 2013)
- Case
Building Innovation at Terrapin Bright Green
By: Amy C. Edmondson, Sydney Ribot and Mary Saunders
Describes Terrapin Bright Green, an environmental consulting and strategic planning firm, and its approach for creating integrative, systematic solutions to green-building conundrums through consulting, research, and policy-related activities. Emphasis is placed on the... View Details