Publications

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

22 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

Want Hybrid Work to Succeed? Trust, Don’t Track, Employees

employees are working in remote or hybrid environments far from the eyes of watchful supervisors. Attempts to reassert the “butts in seats” metric by using awareness technology software to measure computer keystrokes or monitor time spent... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

21 Dec 2010
First Look

First Look: December 21

interpretations. Moreover, findings indicate that managers used different types of technologies for these sequential pairings based on whether their motivation was simply to transmit a communication of... View Details

13 Dec 2016
First Look

December 13, 2016

Conconi Abstract—In recent decades, advances in information and communication technology and falling trade barriers have led firms to retain within their boundaries and in their domestic economies only a... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

October 2023
Teaching Note

Metaverse Wars

By: Andy Wu and Matt Higgins

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 723-431. Metaverse Wars recaps the development of the metaverse concept and the attendant hype, bringing the narrative up to the summer of 2023 when Meta’s big pivot looked more like a costly misstep than a stroke of strategic genius. In... View Details

Keywords: Metaverse; Strategy; Social Media; Internet and the Web; Technology Adoption; Technological Innovation; Technology Industry

29 Jan 2018
Book

How 'Teaming' Saved 33 Lives in the Chilean Mining Disaster

family members, emergency response teams, rescue workers, and reporters poured into the vicinity. Meanwhile, the Chilean mining community dispatched experts, drilling machines, and bulldozers. At the request of President Pinera, Codelco,... View Details

Keywords: by Amy C. Edmondson; Mining

22 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

Restoring a Global Economy, 1950–1980

industries. Europe and Japan had to spend the immediate postwar decade undergoing extensive reconstruction, heavily dependent on official aid from the United States, yet over time Europe and Japan closed the technological and productivity... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones

November 2018 (Revised January 2022)
Case

JUUL and the Vaping Revolution

By: Michael W. Toffel, John Masko and Sarah Mehta

In late 2019, San Francisco-based electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) maker JUUL Labs (pronounced “jewel”) faced intense pressure. Sales of JUUL products exceeded $1 billion in 2018, dominating the e-cigarette category. While JUUL Labs’ stated goal was to help current... View Details

2010
Working Paper

The Mirroring Hypothesis: Theory, Evidence and Exceptions

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The mirroring hypothesis predicts that the organizational patterns of a development project (e.g. communication links, geographic collocation, team and firm co-membership) will correspond to the technical patterns of dependency in the system under development. Scholars... View Details

Keywords: Infrastructure; Product Design; Organizational Design; Practice; Groups and Teams; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information Technology

08 Jul 2019
Research & Ideas

Are Paywalls Saving Newspapers?

Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. “To our knowledge, ours is the first study to do that.” Total upheaval Over the past 25 years, the once-profitable newspaper industry has endured upheaval due to changing View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Journalism & News; Media & Broadcasting

11 Jul 2017
First Look

First Look at New Ideas and Research, July 11

time. We examined a radical change in a recently acquired subsidiary of a U.S.-based global organization over a two-year period. With the aim to standardize communication across borders, the subsidiary changed its native working language... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2018 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Hubble Contact Lenses: Data Driven Direct-to-Consumer Marketing

By: Jill Avery and Ayelet Israeli

As its Series A extension round approaches, the founders of Hubble, a subscription-based, social-media fueled, direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand of contact lenses, are reflecting on the marketing strategies that have taken them to a valuation of $200 million and debating... View Details

16 Mar 2020
Research & Ideas

How the Coronavirus Is Already Rewriting the Future of Business

buell) is the Finnegan Family Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Technology and Operations Management Unit. Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury: Remote work will become strategic I’ve been studying remote work for years now,... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

15 Sep 2015
First Look

September 15, 2015

an associated 90% confidence interval of (2.3%, 17.8%). Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=49523 2015 The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy Information Technology and the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2015
Book

MOVE: Putting America's Infrastructure Back in the Lead

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

Americans are stuck. We live with travel delays on congested roads; shipping delays on clogged railways; and delays on repairs, project approvals, and funding due to gridlocked leadership. These delays affect us all, whether you are a daily commuter, a frequent flyer,... View Details

October 2017
Case

The Transformation of Microsoft

By: C. Fritz Foley, E. Scott Mayfield and F. Katelynn Boland

In early 2015, Amy Hood, CFO of Microsoft, and the rest of the senior leadership team faced a set of fundamental choices. The firm had opportunities to serve customers in ways that would be associated with higher growth but lower margin. Some of these opportunities... View Details

Keywords: Growth; Corporate Finance; Valuation; Growth Management; Communication Strategy; Transformation; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States