Publications

November 1999 (Revised May 2001)
Case

AGENCY.COM (A): Launching an Interactive Service Agency

By: Ashish Nanda, Thomas J. DeLong and Scot H. Landry

Having recently launched one of Silicon Valley's first start-ups, cofounders Chan Suh and Kyle Shannon ponder whether their interactive consulting firm is prepared to bid for work from a very large client. View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Internet and the Web; Problems and Challenges; Business Strategy; Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Consulting Industry; Consulting Industry

September 1999 (Revised April 2000)
Case

Novell: World's Largest Network Software Company

By: Richard L. Nolan

After phenomenal growth and market leadership in networking, founder and CEO Ray Noorda made a frontal assault on Microsoft's core strengths. In 1994, Noorda spend over $1.5 billion acquiring companies such as WordPerfect to combat Microsoft Word, products such as... View Details

Keywords: Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Competition; Internet and the Web; Strategic Planning; Corporate Strategy; Information Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

January 2020 (Revised January 2025)
Case

Freelancer, Ltd.

By: Christopher Stanton, Karim R. Lakhani, Jennifer L. Hoffman, Jin Hyun Paik and Nina Cohodes

Over the course of the 2010s, the rapid advancement of mobile technologies and the rise of online freelancing platforms seemed to portend a radical transformation of labor markets into on-demand, flexible talent pools. Even though several Fortune 500... View Details

Keywords: Freelancers; Platforms; Digital Labor; Labor; Human Resources; Management; Internet and the Web; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Platforms; Information Industry; Australia; United States; Philippines

23 Feb 2009
Research & Ideas

Creative Entrepreneurship in a Downturn

downtime created by the collapse of the Internet bubble gave rise to a host of new applications that we now collectively know as Web 2.0. Technologies and materials left unused due to the collapse of one View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

May 2000 (Revised August 2000)
Case

Service and Value in e-Commerce

This collection of readings illustrates the importance of service and logistics in e-commerce, focusing on e-Toys' disastrous 1999 holiday season. View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Internet and the Web; Service Operations; Logistics; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry

March 1998 (Revised June 1999)
Case

DigitalThink: Building a Sales Force

By: Michael J. Roberts, Joseph B. Lassiter III and Christina L. Darwall

A broad set of issues faces a young company in the Internet-based training business as it begins to sell its product to corporate customers. Issues include: profile of attractive candidates, compensation, definition of territory, definition of quotas, and role of... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Salesforce Management; Business Startups; Service Industry

June 2018
Case

The Grommet in 2018

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Karen Gordon Mills and Lena Goldberg

The Grommet, an online product launch platform, was at the brink of scaling its business. The Grommet's daily launch and sale of innovative consumer products, using personal videos created by product makers, had led to its initial success. In 2014, the company launched... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Value Capture; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Product Launch; Value; Retail Industry

2015
Working Paper

Fake It Till You Make It: Reputation, Competition, and Yelp Review Fraud

By: Michael Luca and Georgios Zervas

Consumer reviews are now part of everyday decision-making. Yet, the credibility of these reviews is fundamentally undermined when businesses commit review fraud, creating fake reviews for themselves or their competitors. We investigate the economic incentives to commit... View Details

Keywords: Information; Competition; Internet and the Web; Ethics; Reputation; Social and Collaborative Networks; Retail Industry; Retail Industry

SSRN

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March 2021
Supplement

CashDrop (B1)

By: Rembrand Koning, Paul A. Gompers and Sarah Gulick

After the events in CashDrop A, Flores-Martinez received two concrete offers from VC funds for his startup business, CashDrop. This case describes the tensions between the two funds: a traditional VC fund who would offer Flores-Martinez a prestigious platform, and a... View Details

Keywords: Small Business; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Internet and the Web; Decision Choices and Conditions; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Chicago; Illinois

July 2001 (Revised October 2004)
Case

PSA: The World's Port of Call

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Nancy Bartlett, Dolly Chang-Leow and Neo Boon Siong

Details the evolution of an e-business strategy and capabilities over a 16-year period. What began in 1984 as an effort to automate the port of Singapore to achieve productivity savings, by 2000 had evolved into a global e-business called Portnet.com. Closes as senior... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Technological Innovation; Internet and the Web; Business or Company Management; Shipping Industry; Shipping Industry

22 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

The Most Important Management Trends of the (Still Young) Twenty-First Century

survivors, the future of e-commerce and other info tech industries seemed perilous. BusinessWeek.com recently ranked Amazon #6 in its annual list of most innovative companies; four of the other five are View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

January 2014 (Revised February 2015)
Case

YouTube for Brands

By: Thales Teixeira and Leora Kornfeld

This case examines the changes employed by YouTube to make the massively popular site more attractive to brands. Building from its base of amateur, user-generated content, YouTube had turned to experimenting with professionally-made content and organizing its videos... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Internet and the Web; Decision Choices and Conditions; Digital Marketing; Brands and Branding; Advertising Industry; Advertising Industry; Advertising Industry

11 Dec 2007
First Look

First Look: December 11, 2007

Working PapersThe Seer of Wellesley Hills: Roger Babson and the Babson Statistical Organization Author:Walter A. Friedman Abstract Roger Babson was a pioneer of the business-forecasting industry in the United States in the early... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

01 Jul 2013
Research & Ideas

Crowdfunding a Poor Investment?

from large groups of people is exactly what nonprofits and political campaigns have been doing for more than a century. In today's world, though, the Internet has dramatically altered the ability for companies and independent... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

May 2018 (Revised September 2018)
Case

BuzzFeed—What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content?

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee

Jonah Peretti, CEO of digital publishing company BuzzFeed, needs to decide how to respond to Facebook’s announcement that it would prioritize posts from friends over content from publishers. View Details

Keywords: Information Publishing; Internet and the Web; Digital Marketing; Problems and Challenges; Business Model; Strategy; Publishing Industry; Publishing Industry; United States

December 1999
Case

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (A4): Sun Peak: Helen Yang and Mark Walden on "Running Sun on Sun"

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Jane Roessner

SunPeak was the largest project Sun Microsystems, Inc. had ever undertaken: shifting Sun's entire business transaction system from a mainframe-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to a Sun-based system. Making the shift would be complicated and financially... View Details

Keywords: Projects; Transformation; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Complexity; Risk and Uncertainty; Success; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Technology Industry; Technology Industry

April 2010 (Revised March 2011)
Supplement

Google in China (B)

By: John A. Quelch

In a January 2010 public statement, Google threatened to stop censoring its search results on its Google.cn website, as required by Chinese authorities. Should Google exit China? Or attempt a compromise with the Chinese government? View Details

Keywords: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Crisis Management; Market Entry and Exit; Business and Government Relations; Internet and the Web; Information Technology Industry; China

June 1998 (Revised January 2000)
Case

Egghead.com

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

Egghead Software, an entrenched traditional chain retailer specializing in computer software and peripherals, had established a nationwide chain of mall and shopping center stores and a well-organized national brand. In early 1998, management made a highly unusual, and... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Applications and Software; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry

August 2019
Case

Twiggle: E-Commerce with Semantic Search

By: Shane Greenstein and Danielle Golan

Four years after being founded, in 2014, by former Google executives Amir Konigsberg (CEO) and Adi Avidor (CTO), Twiggle had developed a search enhancement that plugged into an online merchant’s existing framework. The company utilized advanced structuring and... View Details

Keywords: Search Technology; Customer Acquisition; Internet and the Web; Technological Innovation; Commercialization; Growth and Development Strategy; E-commerce; Technology Industry; Israel