Publications

29 Mar 2011
First Look

First Look: March 29

co-fragility predicts cross-stock return comovement. Read the paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1490734 Sustainability and Capital Markets: How Firms Can Manage the Crucial Link Authors:Ioannis Ioannou and George... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

04 Nov 2014
First Look

First Look: November 4

http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/science/article/pii/S0305750X1400254X November 2014 Special Issue on Governments as Owners: Globalizing State-Owned Enterprises Governments as Owners: State-Owned Multinational View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

19 Dec 2006
First Look

First Look: December 19, 2006

change. Thus, for a capitalist system to evolve in an effective developmental sense through time, it must have two hands and not one: an invisible hand that is implicit in the pricing mechanism and a visible hand that is explicitly View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2024
Case

Tabby: Winning Consumers' Digital Wallets

By: Eva Ascarza and Fares Khrais

Hosam Arab (MBA 2009), cofounder and CEO of Tabby, a Saudi-based fintech startup, raised its Series D funding round in October 2023, four years after its inception, valuing it as a regional unicorn. Tabby's core product, a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) service, allowed... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Risk Management; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Saudi Arabia

10 Jan 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: January 10, 2017

with small companies looking for help, struggles to define a growth plan for the future. The company, started as a class project in HBS' FIELD 3 course, is assessing three growth paths: shifting its target... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

23 Feb 2011
First Look

First Look: Feb. 23

leadership—had built the largest restaurant company by far in mainland China. Averaging one new restaurant opening a day for the past five years, in 2010 Yum ran over 3,600 restaurants in 650 cities and employed over 250,000 people, many... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

23 Feb 2016
First Look

February 23, 2016

February 2016 Review of Financial Studies Industry Window Dressing By: Chen, Huaizhi, Lauren Cohen, and Dong Lou Abstract— We explore a new mechanism by which investors take correlated shortcuts and present evidence that managers... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2022
Background Note

On CUE: The Quest for Optimal Customer Unit Economics

By: Elie Ofek, Barak Libai and Eitan Muller

Startups are often evaluated by how well they perform on unit economics, defined as the ratio of a customer’s lifetime value (LTV) to acquisition costs (CAC). A common target for unit economics, advocated by many VCs and analysts, is 3:1 (i.e., LTV/CAC=3). While there... View Details

Keywords: Unit Economics; Business Startups; Performance Evaluation; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Relationship Management; Analysis

October 2024
Teaching Plan

Teamworks: Tackling a Forecasting Fumble

By: Lou Shipley and Stacy Straaberg

In late March 2018, Teamworks CEO Zach Maurides learned Q1 2018 sales were at risk for a large forecasting miss. Founded in 2004, Teamworks’s software application assisted support staff in messaging, scheduling, and sharing documents with collegiate and professional... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Communication Strategy; Decisions; Forecasting and Prediction; Business Cycles; Technological Innovation; Sports; Growth and Development Strategy; Resource Allocation; Marketing; Sales; Business Strategy; Expansion; Sports Industry; Technology Industry; United States; North Carolina

February 2019 (Revised August 2019)
Case

KangaTech

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Patrick J. Ferguson, Sarah Fleischer, Jin Hyun Paik and Steven Randazzo

On a warm January afternoon in 2019, Steve Saunders, Dave Scerri, Carl Dilena, and Nick Haslam (see Exhibit 1 for biographies), co-founders of KangaTech, wrapped up the latest round of discussions about the future direction of their sports-technology start-up. Focused... View Details

Keywords: Startup; Technology Commercialization; Prototype; Business Startups; Technological Innovation; Sports; Health; Commercialization; Research and Development; Decision Making; Growth and Development Strategy; Technology Industry; Sports Industry; Health Industry; Australia

2022
Book

Productive Tensions: How Every Leader Can Tackle Innovation's Toughest Trade-Offs

By: Chris Bingham and Rory McDonald

Why is leading innovation in nascent business environments so distressingly hit-or-miss? More than 90% of high-potential ventures don’t reach their projected targets. Surveys show that 80% of executives consider innovation crucial to their growth strategy, but only 6%... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Innovation and Management; Organizational Culture; Leadership Style; Decision Making

November 2017
Teaching Note

Tencent

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

Teaching Note for HBS No. 718-426. Tencent had undergone many transformations since it was founded in 1998 as a simple messaging service. In 2017, it was the largest online games provider in China with a wide range of game types, China’s largest social networking... View Details

Keywords: Tencent; Tencent Holdings; WeChat; Social Networking; Social Networks; Gaming; Gaming Industry; Video Games; Computer Games; Mobile Gaming; Portals; Payments; Mobile Payments; O2O; Online-to-offline; E-commerce; Messaging; Subscription Model; Freemium; Mobile App Industry; Smartphone; PC; Monetization Strategy; Antitrust; Streaming; Cloud Computing; Artificial Intelligence; Big Data; Alibaba; Facebook; JD.com; Tesla; Bundling; Synergies; Digital Strategy; Imitation; Licensing; Agility; Entry Barriers; Online Platforms; Advertising; Digital Marketing; Business Ventures; Acquisition; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Conglomerates; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Organization; For-Profit Firms; Joint Ventures; Restructuring; Communication Technology; Blogs; Interactive Communication; Interpersonal Communication; Entertainment; Film Entertainment; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Music Entertainment; Investment; Investment Portfolio; Price; Revenue; Geographic Scope; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Business History; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Positioning; Social Marketing; Network Effects; Market Entry and Exit; Digital Platforms; Industry Growth; Monopoly; Media; Distribution Channels; Service Delivery; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Public Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Business and Government Relations; Groups and Teams; Networks; Opportunities; Social and Collaborative Networks; Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Cooperation; Corporate Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Applications and Software; Information Infrastructure; Value Creation; Emerging Markets; Product Development; Segmentation; Business Units; Communication; Profit; Communications Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Financial Services Industry; Information Industry; Information Technology Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Music Industry; Service Industry; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Video Game Industry; Web Services Industry; Asia; China; Canton (province, China)

29 Jan 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, January 29, 2019

coordinate with one another to reduce costs and ensure that patients were receiving the highest quality of care. PatientPing sold its platform to a range of customers, from small skilled nursing facilities to large health systems, and... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

21 Nov 2013
News

Case Study: BlackBerry and Thorsten Heins

phones, and focused the company on the critical launch of its next iteration of handsets, BlackBerry 10. The phones came in two versions: first launched was a touch-screen phone designed to attract mass-market consumers, followed by... View Details

Keywords: Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management of Companies and Enterprises

September 2019 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Engineering an Inclusive Bioeconomy

By: Tarun Khanna, Raffaella Sadun and Susie L. Ma

In 2019, entrepreneur Juan Carlos Castilla-Rubio was developing a project he hoped could generate and share wealth from the natural resources of the Amazon without destroying those resources. His idea, called Earth Bank of Codes (EBC), would create a library of the... View Details

March 2004 (Revised September 2005)
Case

Newell Rubbermaid: Strategy in Transition

By: Cynthia A. Montgomery, Rhonda Kaufman and Carole Winkler

Describes the transformation of a company's corporate-level strategy. Begins by laying out the strategy that brought the Newell Co. stunning success for nearly three decades. The highly integrated, internally consistent strategy was tailored for manufacturing and... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Corporate Strategy; Transformation; Problems and Challenges; Acquisition; Product Development; Brands and Branding; Manufacturing Industry; Retail Industry; United States