Publications

September 2023 (Revised December 2023)
Case

Twiddy & Company: Trust in a Chaotic Environment

By: Sandra J. Sucher, Shalene Gupta and Tom Quinn

Twiddy & Company, known for Southern hospitality rooted in personal interactions, needed to adjust to contactless remote customer service as fear of the contagious virus prevented person-to-person contact. Local elected officials, in a bid to stop tourists from... View Details

Keywords: Trust; Health Pandemics; Organizational Culture; Disruption; Government Legislation; Transportation; Tourism Industry; North Carolina; United States

January 2022 (Revised November 2023)
Supplement

Uber in China (C): The Cost of Success for Didi

By: William C. Kirby and Noah B. Truwit

On June 30, 2021, ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing (Didi) raised $4.4 billion in its initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the largest IPO of a Chinese company listed on an American exchange since Alibaba raised $25 billion in 2014.... View Details

Keywords: Uber; Didi Chuxing; Start-up Growth; Regulation; Ride-sharing; Transportation; Business Startups; Business and Government Relations; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Growth and Development; Policy; Competition; Laws and Statutes; Transportation Industry; Transportation Industry; China

25 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Chasing Stars: Why the Mighty Red Sox Struck Out

factors such as organizational culture, networking opportunities, the general team dynamic, and the pressure of a new spotlight. “There's a certain relationship that those players have to have. Can this person be a good fit based on the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Sports; Banking

Article

How to Launch Your Digital Platform: A Playbook for Strategists

By: Benjamin Edelman

The ubiquity of Internet access has caused a sharp rise in the number of businesses offering platforms that connect users for communication or commerce. Entrepreneurs are particularly drawn to these platforms because they create significant value and have modest... View Details

Keywords: Platforms; Launch; Mobilization Strategy; Two-Sided Platforms; Network Effects; Adoption; Entrepreneurship; Transportation Industry; Transportation Industry; Transportation Industry; Transportation Industry; Transportation Industry

Read Now

16 Nov 2016
Research & Ideas

Turning One Thousand Customers into One Million

and Uber can scale up quickly thanks to affordable technology and networked providers. Credit: AntonMatveev To overcome those challenges, the startups followed similar strategies, initially focusing more on the supply side than on the... View Details

Keywords: by Thales S. Teixeira and Michael Blanding; Transportation; Transportation; Transportation

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

It Came in the First Ships: Capitalism in America

the Puritan merchants of New England, they used their familial and religious connections to form a tight network of trustworthy relationships stretching over long distances. This kind of system for making credible business commitments is... View Details

Keywords: by Thomas K. McCraw

21 Jun 2011
First Look

First Look: June 21

2, a social network survey, found that managers lower in metacognitive CQ reported a deficit of new idea sharing in their intercultural but not intracultural ties. In Study 3, a laboratory experiment involving a collaborative task, higher... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

20 Dec 2010
Research & Ideas

Panama Canal: Troubled History, Astounding Turnaround

transporting Asia-bound exports down to the Gulf and through the canal and shipping them out to Seattle by land. Conversely, eastern-bound cargoes no longer consisted of strategic raw materials from California but inexpensive manufactured... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Transportation

07 Oct 2008
First Look

First Look: October 7, 2008

Working PapersSpanning the Institutional Abyss: The Intergovernmental Network and the Governance of Foreign Direct Investment Authors:Juan Alcacer and Paul Ingram Abstract Global economic transactions such as foreign direct investment... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

April 2018 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Maersk: Betting on Blockchain

By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson

In March 2018, international shipping giant Maersk is getting ready to debut a trade digitization platform. Maersk hopes the platform will help streamline global trade since shipping goods internationally is an extraordinarily complicated and inefficient process.... View Details

Keywords: Maersk; IBM; Blockchain; Shipping; Shipping Line; Trade; Bitcoin; Digitization; Container Shipping; Joint Ventures; Ship Transportation; Transportation Networks; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Applications and Software; Shipping Industry; Technology Industry

January 2010 (Revised August 2011)
Case

United Breaks Guitars

By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

When social media propagate a complaint about poor customer service, an international media event ensues. How do viral videos spread and what can firms do about them? This case dissects an incident in which a disgruntled customer used YouTube and Twitter to spread a... View Details

Keywords: Communication Technology; Customer Satisfaction; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Network Effects; Service Delivery; Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet; Air Transportation Industry

November 2023 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Norse Atlantic Airways

By: Willy Shih

Bjørn Tore Larsen, Norse Atlantic Airways' founder and CEO, hadn't planned to get into the airline business. But when the COVID-19 pandemic depressed the global demand for air travel and the lease rates for jetliners, he realized if ever he was going to get into the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Market Entry and Exit; Leasing; Business Strategy; Segmentation; Interest Rates; Air Transportation Industry; Europe; North America; Norway; United Kingdom; United States