Publications

14 Feb 2005
Research & Ideas

The World in Your Palm?

As makers of everything engage in an all-out features war to cram the most services, accessories, and functions into a single product, the real question for many is this: Does the consumer really want an all-in-one digital device? A panel... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

31 Jul 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, July 31, 2018

and financial technology, the digital health ecosystem is in its nascent stages and has been waiting for a catalyst to seed the system. This National Health Protection Scheme is expected to provide just this impetus for widespread... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

18 Feb 2014
First Look

First Look: February 18

a right-to-work law was not a major part of their election platform because of the union opposition they thought it would generate. Quietly, however, Republicans did support a right-to-work law that was expected to attract more jobs to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2006
Article

Dynamic Mixed Duopoly: A Model Motivated by Linux vs. Windows

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Pankaj Ghemawat

This paper analyzes a dynamic mixed duopoly in which a profit-maximizing competitor interacts with a competitor that prices at zero (or marginal cost), with the cumulation of output affecting their relative positions over time. The modeling effort is motivated by... View Details

Find at Harvard

October 2015
Case

Facebook: The First Ten Years

By: Shane Greenstein, Marco Iansiti and Christine Snively

Facebook celebrated its ten year anniversary in February 2014. Over the past decade it has grown into the largest social network in the world with one billion users. After filing an IPO in 2012 at a $104 billion valuation (the third largest IPO in U.S. history), the... View Details

Keywords: Social Networks; Technology; Facebook; Entrepreneurship; Profit; Open Source Distribution; Social and Collaborative Networks; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Social Media; Information Technology Industry

29 Jan 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, January 29, 2019

for strategic problem formulation and problem solving relative to which deviations and counterproductive moves can be specified and measured. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55554 Multi-Homing and View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

26 Mar 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, March 26, 2019

gamification techniques to engage and motivate employees to learn. This study empirically examines the performance consequences of gamified training by conducting a field experiment in a professional services firm. We find that the main effect of adopting the gamified... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

March 2008 (Revised March 2013)
Teaching Note

MySpace (TN)

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

Teaching Note for 708499. View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Competitive Advantage; Social and Collaborative Networks; Decisions; Growth and Development; Digital Platforms; Web Services Industry; United States

31 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

A Scholarly Crowd Explores Crowdsourcing

Cox Pahnke, Dan Wang, and Benjamin Hallen. Ripe for study. In a plenary talk on crowdsourced contests and competitions, Lakhani outlined numerous areas in need of further study, which is made much easier by hundreds of crowdsourcing View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

08 Sep 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

Capitalism Works Better When I Can See What You're Doing

embarrassing—it can hurt your career. Racism and Digital Design: How Online Platforms Can Thwart DiscriminationPoor design decisions contribute to racial discrimination on many online platforms. Working for... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

04 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Predictions, Prophets, and Restarting Your Business

clear-cut. “A problem with megatrend predictions is that, even if they turn out to be generally accurate, they’re not managerially useful.” In the first month of social distancing in the United States, online sales at Walmart and Target indeed surged by double View Details

Keywords: by Frank V. Cespedes

October 2012 (Revised August 2013)
Case

Global Unichip Corporation (A)

By: Willy Shih and Chen-Fu Chien

Global Unichip Corporation (GUC) is a design services company that acts as a front-end to TSMC, the world's largest semiconductor foundry. In so doing, it masked the complexity of the latest process technologies, and reduced the entry barriers for small firms to... View Details

December 1999
Case

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (A5): Solaris 7: Rich Green on Product Strategy and Culture Change

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Jane Roessner

Solaris, Sun Microsystems' version of the UNIX operating system, was an amorphous collection of capabilities that had accumulated over the years, a product the company vaguely wished it could market and sell better. Developing and marketing Solaris 7 would help... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Applications and Software; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Product Positioning; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Success; Change; Diversification; Technology Industry; Computer Industry

19 Jun 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, June 19, 2018

self-managed microenterprises. Platforms were Haier’s business platforms operating in five major sectors: white goods transformation, investment and incubation, financial holdings, real estate, and cultural... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

05 Jul 2011
First Look

First Look: July 5

e-books eroded publishers' profitable print formats. E-readers like Kindle, as well as Apple's iPad, that invigorated the digital book market are discussed. Also includes a general overview of book publishing including the K-12 and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2016 (Revised August 2019)
Case

Numenta: Inventing and (or) Commercializing AI

By: David B. Yoffie, Liz Kind and David Ben Shimol

In March 2016, Donna Dubinsky (co-founder and CEO) and Jeff Hawkins (co-founder) were struggling with a key question: Could Numenta be successful in both creating fundamental technology and building a commercial business? Located in Redwood City, CA, Numenta was... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Machine Intelligence; Machine Learning; Strategy; Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Information; Technological Innovation; Research; Research and Development; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Digital Platforms; Commercialization; AI and Machine Learning

September 1995
Case

Ares-Serono

By: Michael Y. Yoshino, Jean-Pierre Jeannet and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Ares Serono, a medium-size Swiss pharmaceutical company, is the global leader in the field of fertility drugs. The company has successfully transformed into one of the very few biotech firms in Europe. The case treats a set of major strategic and organizational... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Globalized Firms and Management; Asset Management; Balance and Stability; Expansion; Digital Platforms; Leadership Development; Health Care and Treatment; Transformation; Family Business; Problems and Challenges; Pharmaceutical Industry; Biotechnology Industry; Switzerland; Europe

Find at Harvard

01 Mar 2018
What Do You Think?

Two Decades Later, is the 'New Economy' Finally Here?

The first of these, Machine/Platform/Crowd, explores the current and future impact of digital technology on people (the mind in relation to machine), product (in relation to digital platforms), and core... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

November 2019 (Revised February 2022)
Teaching Note

Innovation at Uber: The Launch of Express POOL

By: Chiara Farronato and Sarah Mehta

Teaching Note for HBS No. 619-003. Set in March 2018, the Case follows ride-sharing company Uber as it develops and launches a new product called Express POOL. The Teaching Note offers guidance for instructors who wish to use the case either with or without its dataset... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Applications and Software; Digital Platforms; Decision Making; Technology Industry; California; San Francisco