Publications

20 Jan 2016
Research & Ideas

Maybe Uber isn't God's Gift to Mankind

been diligent in filing lawsuits—they’re filing plenty of lawsuits. But Uber is fighting back. Often the company’s strategy has been to delay regulators’ every complaint, trying to get their service that much more entrenched so it will be... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Transportation; Insurance

12 Sep 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, September 12, 2017

September–October 2017 Harvard Business Review Why Do We Undervalue Competent Management? Neither Great Leadership Nor Brilliant Strategy Matters Without Operational Excellence By: Sadun, Raffaella, Nicholas Bloom, and John Van Reenen... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

01 Jul 2014
First Look

First Look: July 1

Fútbol By: Elberse, Anita Abstract—Markets for soccer players are winner-take-all markets in which a select few top players earn extremely high rewards. The search for effective talent strategies in these conditions has led clubs to... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

October 2013
Article

Ad Revenue and Content Commercialization: Evidence from Blogs

By: Monic Sun and Feng Zhu

Many scholars argue that when incentivized by ad revenue, content providers are more likely to tailor their content to attract "eyeballs," and as a result, popular content may be excessively supplied. We empirically test this prediction by taking advantage of the... View Details

Keywords: Ad-sponsored Business Models; Media Content; Blog; Revenue Sharing; User-generated Content; Platform-based Markets; Blogs; Business Model; Digital Platforms; Commercialization; Digital Marketing

Find at Harvard

04 Jan 2012
First Look

First Look: January 4

PublicationsCases about Redefining Global Strategy Authors:Pankaj Ghemawat and Jordan I. Siegel Publication:Harvard Business Publishing, 2011 An abstract is unavailable at this time. Publisher's Link:... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

25 Mar 2021
Research & Ideas

Steer Clear of the Blind Spots That Derail Experiments

overly narrow goals. Consider the experience of Airbnb, which ran experiments to evaluate booking strategies but ignored the potential for discrimination. After research by Luca and colleagues found evidence of widespread discrimination... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

30 May 2019
What Do You Think?

Is There a Distinctive West Coast Style of Management?

“Big Hairy Audacious Goals” (BHAGS) Were great places to work only for those who bought into the mission and the way things are done Often practiced a strategy of “Let’s just try a lot of stuff and keep what works” Focused primarily on... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Education

01 May 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, May 1, 2018

Artificial Intelligence and the Machine Learning Revolution in Finance: Cogent Labs and the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) No abstract available. Purchase this case: https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/218080 Harvard Business School... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Jul 2019
Research & Ideas

The Airbnb Lesson for Startups? Success Takes More Than Technology

Investors riding the wave of technology public offerings have been waiting for a powerhouse debut from Airbnb, which logged its 500 millionth customer booking in March. After all, the home-sharing giant isn’t your typical unicorn. Unlike some of its Silicon Valley... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Travel; Tourism

11 Sep 2007
First Look

First Look: September 11, 2007

own profits when one side is subsidized in equilibrium. By contrast, if platforms make positive margins on both sides, the same investment has the regular, expected effects. Our analysis implies that the View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

01 Mar 2011
First Look

First Look: March 1

an acquisition is to fundamentally change a company's growth trajectory. In those deals, the acquirer uses the target's business model as a platform for growth. Because the business models with the most transformative potential are often... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

15 Jan 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, January 15, 2019

reducing tax revenues. Unable or unwilling to raise tax rates, cities cut public spending, especially in education, to meet a tighter budget constraint. While the fall in tax revenues was partly offset by higher debt, this strategy may,... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

March 2018 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Cadre

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Scott Duke Kominers and David Lane

Late in 2017, CEO Ryan Williams and his team debated whether Cadre should become not only a technology-enabled investment manager, but also an online trading exchange providing high levels of liquidity for investors in commercial real estate (CRE) equity. Cadre was a... View Details

Keywords: ＂Cadre,＂; Entrepreneurship; Market Design; Digital Platforms; Strategy; Internet and the Web; Private Equity; Financial Services Industry; Real Estate Industry; United States

August 2013
Technical Note

Raising the Level of Abstraction

By: Willy Shih

This technical note discusses abstraction as a way of generalizing a process or component for wider application. By hiding complexity inside a module, abstraction enables system designers to think at a higher level. This lowers entry barriers to using (and reusing) a... View Details

Keywords: Abstraction; Modularity; Commercialization; Information Technology; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Digital Platforms; United States; Asia; Europe

November 1999 (Revised June 2000)
Case

VerticalNet (www.verticalnet.com)

By: Das Narayandas

VerticalNet, a leading creator of targeted business-to-business vertical trade communities on the Internet, is trying to expand its model to facilitate e-commerce. Mark Walsh, the CEO of VerticalNet, has to decide how far he can extend the firm's business model without... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Decisions; Digital Platforms; Expansion; Internet and the Web

18 Aug 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Business Plan Contest: 15 Years of Building Better Entrepreneurs

An online shipping platform that uses social networks and smartphones. Low-cost medical care and monitoring that helps seniors to live at home. The "Skype" of broadband, offering free Internet service. On an April morning known as "Super... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Education

09 Mar 2020
Research & Ideas

Warring Algorithms Could Be Driving Up Consumer Prices

allow enforcement to adapt more quickly to evolving technology, and it would have the benefit of likely being more predictable for firms. “Many economists think a digital regulator is necessary, not only for issues of pricing, but also privacy, data portability, and... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Retail

August 2020 (Revised March 2021)
Supplement

Migros Turkey: Scaling Online Operations (B)

By: Antonio Moreno and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in February 2020 as Ozgur Tort and Mustafa Bartin, CEO and chief large-format and online retail officer of Migros Ticaret A.S. (Migros), Turkey’s oldest and one of its largest supermarket chains, are looking over the results of the fulfillment pilot the... View Details

Keywords: Grocery; Business Model; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Value Creation; Globalization; Competition; Expansion; Logistics; Profit; Resource Allocation; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry; Turkey

March 2014
Teaching Note

The Weather Company

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

New CEO David Kenny transformed The Weather Company in less than two years from a primary identity as a cable television channel to a multi-platform digital company innovating in the uses of weather data. He assesses progress and considers strategic choices and... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Strategic Change; Technology; Digital; Weather; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Platforms; Change Management; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Industry; Service Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry