Publications

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July 2021
Case

Amazon HQ2

By: James K. Sebenius and Ben Cook

Amazon’s failed bid for a second headquarters location (“HQ2”) in Long Island City, New York offers many lessons for negotiators looking to avoid similar high-profile defeats in strategically important deals. The company’s project – which promised to bring billions of... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Negotiation; Public Opinion; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Problems and Challenges

July 23, 2019
Article

Is the U.S. on Its Way to Becoming a Cashless Society?

By: Shelle Santana

The rise of digital payments, including credit cards, debit cards, and mobile payments systems, have contributed to the steady shift in payment practices among consumers. According to the FDIC, cash represented just 30% of all payments in 2017, and the percentage of... View Details

Keywords: Payment Methods; Cash; Credit Cards; Consumer Behavior; Change; United States

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2017
Working Paper

Elite Ideas and Incremental Policy Change: The Expansion of Primary Education in India

By: Akshay Mangla

This paper analyzes India’s recent enactment of universal primary education. Given the clientelistic features of Indian democracy, this programmatic policy change presents a puzzle. Drawing on interviews and official documents, I find that committed state elites... View Details

Keywords: India; Political Economy; Ideas; Institutional Change; Education; Change Management; India

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01 Aug 2023
What Do You Think?

As Leaders, Why Do We Continue to Reward A, While Hoping for B?

universal desire of students and administrators alike is for good teaching. What’s rewarded? Faculty research and publication. What provides greater mobility to faculty? Research and publication. So the complaint about lack of interest in... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

25 Apr 2023
Op-Ed

How SHEIN and Temu Conquered Fast Fashion—and Forged a New Business Model

digital marketing to place stylish fast-fashion merchandise in front of target customers on social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, as well as on its own website and mobile apps. Additionally, it has used email... View Details

Keywords: by John Deighton; Fashion; Retail; Consumer Products

October 2017 (Revised November 2017)
Case

NYC311

By: Constantine E. Kontokosta, Mitchell Weiss, Christine Snively and Sarah Gulick

Joe Morrisroe, executive director for NYC311, had some gut instincts but no definitive answer to the question he was just asked by one of the mayor’s deputies: “Are some communities being underserved by 311? How do we know we are hearing from the right people?” Founded... View Details

2010
Chapter

Unlocking the Slices of Genius in Your Organization: Leading for Innovation

By: Linda A. Hill, Maurizio Travaglini, Greg Brandeau and Emily Stecker

There is a widespread consensus that innovation is fast becoming the principal source of differentiation and competitive advantage in today's knowledge-intensive economy. But until we reframe our understanding of what innovation and leadership are all about, we fear... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Practice; Competitive Advantage

02 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

Why We Still Need Twitter: How Social Media Holds Companies Accountable

social media as a tool to expose corporate misconduct, Heese and Pacelli used data from the 3G (third generation) mobile broadband network rollout to identify increased activity on Twitter, plus they studied reports of corporate... View Details

Keywords: by Kasandra Brabaw; Technology

November 2023
Article

Coalition Cascades: The Politics of Tipping Points in Clean Energy Transitions

By: Jonas Meckling and Nicholas Goedeking

Policy change often involves multiple policy subsystems, as in the case of clean energy transitions. We argue that trans- subsystem policy feedback is a central dynamic in policy change across subsystems. Policy in one subsystem creates ... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Transition; Energy Sources; System

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May 2022
Teaching Note

Climate Action in Miami

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Catarina Martinez

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 322-101. The Miami metropolitan area is a global epicenter of climate risk from heat and sea level rise, but leaders have only recently mobilized for action to respond to this systemic challenge. Resilient 305 began a collaboration across... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Climate Impact; Change; Leadership; Cross-sector Collaboration; Coalition; Ecosystem; Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Cities; Environmental Sustainability; Infrastructure; Green Technology; Environmental Management; Miami

08 Mar 2022
Cold Call Podcast

France Telecom: Corporate Restructuring and Employee Well-Being

Keywords: Re: Cynthia A. Montgomery & Ashley V. Whillans

January 2017
Supplement

Hello Alfred: Come Home Happy — Operating the Business Model Exercise

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Christopher Payton

On a mission to "automate the on-demand economy," Harvard Business School classmates Marcela Sapone and Jessica Beck launched Hello Alfred in 2013 to provide subscribers with an "Alfred" to complete various chores for a monthly fee. In early 2016, the company has built... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Internet and the Web; Business Startups; Service Operations; Service Industry; New York (city, NY); Boston

June 2014 (Revised November 2014)
Case

Investing in Online Marketplaces

By: Andrei Hagiu and Hermes Alvarez

Simon Rothman had recently been promoted from executive-in-residence to Partner at esteemed venture capital firm Greylock Partners and placed in charge of managing a $100 million early-stage fund commitment dedicated to online marketplaces. In Greylock's view, 2014 was... View Details

Keywords: Business Models; Competitive Advantage; Entrepreneurship; Internet; Investments; Networks; Technology; Venture Capital

11 Apr 2023
Op-Ed

The First 90 Hours: What New CEOs Should—and Shouldn't—Do to Set the Right Tone

10 weeks won’t make up for any ground that gets lost. When Michael Watkins published his best-selling book The First 90 Days 20 years ago, the world was a kinder, gentler, and slower place. Today, given the speed that information travels, the intensity of global... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

April 2010 (Revised December 2010)
Case

Shanzhai! MediaTek and the "White Box" Handset Market

By: Willy C. Shih, Chen-Fu Chien and Jyun-Cheng Wang

The term "white box" is often used to describe products without a brand name. Such products are assembled from standardized parts, and they became a very popular category of desktop PCs. Hsinchu, Taiwan based MediaTek is a fabless semiconductor company that unleashed a... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Emerging Markets; Competitive Advantage; Wireless Technology; Semiconductor Industry; Taiwan

Article

Strategic Networks and Entrepreneurial Ventures

Much research suggests that social networks shape the emergence and development of nascent ventures. Scholars have argued that founders' and firms' networks influence innovation and the identification of entrepreneurial opportunities, as well as facilitate the... View Details

Keywords: Social and Collaborative Networks; Innovation and Invention; Opportunities; Value; Body of Literature; Research; Outcome or Result; Business Ventures; Entrepreneurship; Relationships; Management Practices and Processes; Power and Influence

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May–June 2023
Article

Need for Speed: The Impact of In-Process Delays on Customer Behavior in Online Retail

By: Santiago Gallino, Nil Karacaoglu and Antonio Moreno

The impact of delays has been widely studied in various offline services. The focus of this study is online services, and we explore the impact of in-process delays—measured by website speed—on customer behavior. We leverage novel retail and website speed data to... View Details

Keywords: Online Retail; Quasi-experiments; Abandonment; Synthetic Control; E-commerce; Internet and the Web; Consumer Behavior; Policy; Retail Industry

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April 2022
Article

Going Out or Opting Out? Capital, Political Vulnerability, and the State in China's Outward Investment

By: Meg Rithmire

How do state-business relations interact with outward investment in authoritarian regimes? This paper examines this question in the context of China’s rapid transformation into a major capital exporter. While most political economy scholarship focuses on firms’... View Details

Keywords: Outward Investment; Capital Controls; Corruption; Foreign Direct Investment; Political Economy; State-owned Enterprises; Investment; Global Range; Capital; Globalization; Policy; Government and Politics; China