Publications

January 1997 (Revised July 1998)
Case

Dendrite International (Condensed)

By: John A. Deighton

This version has been shortened to concentrate on the issue of managing a long selling process and long post-sale account relationship. The focus on the pharmaceutical industry in the United States, Europe, and Japan is preserved. Broader questions of expansion into... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Marketing Strategy; Product Development; Sales; Expansion; Chemical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Japan; Europe; United States

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2002
Case

Hindustan Lever

By: Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble

Hindustan Lever, Ltg (HLL), the Indian subsidiary of Unilever PLC, is one of the most respected multinationals operating in India and one of the first multinationals to recognize that the poor in developing countries represent an untapped growth opportunity. They... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry; India

October 1993 (Revised November 1994)
Case

Michigan Manufacturing Corp.: The Pontiac Plant--1988

By: Clayton M. Christensen

Michigan Manufacturing is a broad-line maker of components for the automotive industry. It has developed a network of nine plants as its product line has grown. Newer, higher-volume products tend to be made in newer, focused, high-volume plants, while older product... View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Profit; Brands and Branding; Mission and Purpose; Networks; Auto Industry; Manufacturing Industry

October 2012 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Kleiner-Perkins and Genentech: When Venture Capital Met Science

By: Felda Hardymon and Tom Nicholas

Genentech is a rare success story in the biotechnology industry. Hundreds of billions of dollars of venture capital have been invested without the expected transformational effects. Established in 1976, Genentech was to develop the new science of recombinant DNA into... View Details

Keywords: Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Innovation and Invention; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Science; Biotechnology Industry; United States

May 26, 2021
Article

The Challenge of Rebuilding U.S. Domestic Supply Chains

By: Willy C. Shih, Robert S. Huckman and James Wyner

Massachusetts-based Shawmut scrambled to expand production to meet the soaring demand for N95 masks and hospital gowns during the pandemic. Its experience illustrates a crucial point that policymakers should take to heart: Once a country loses its industrial commons... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain; Health Pandemics; Production; Management; United States

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November – December 2011
Article

Competitive Strategy for Open Source Software

By: Vineet Kumar, Brett Gordon and Kannan Srinivasan

Commercial open source software (COSS) products-privately developed software based on publicly available source code-represent a rapidly growing, multibillion-dollar market. A unique aspect of competition in the COSS market is that many open source licenses require... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Competitive Strategy; Product Development; Growth and Development; Markets; Motivation and Incentives; Quality; Policy; Perspective; Profit; Open Source Distribution; Emerging Markets

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08 Oct 2014
HBS Seminar

Hilary Mason, Fast Forward Labs and Accel Partners

12 Nov 2013
News

Innovation Can't be Measured in Dollars: Harvard Prof Stefan Thomke

15 Jul 2012
News

Using research to solve real world problems

January 2015
Case

The Blonde Salad

By: Anat Keinan, Kristina Maslauskaite, Sandrine Crener and Vincent Dessain

In 2014, Chiara Ferragni, a globe-trotting founder of the world's most popular fashion blog The Blonde Salad, and Riccardo Pozzoli, her co-founder and business partner, had to decide how to best monetize her blog as well as her shoe line called the "Chiara Ferragni... View Details

June 2020 (Revised October 2020)
Case

What Went Wrong with Boeing's 737 Max?

By: William W. George and Amram Migdal

This case describes the development of the Boeing 737 Max airplane model and the events leading up to two tragic plane crashes, in which a total of 346 people died: the crash of Lion Air flight 610 on October 29, 2018, in Indonesia, and the crash of Ethiopian Airlines... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Communication Intention and Meaning; Communication Strategy; Forms of Communication; Announcements; Decision Making; Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Globalization; Global Strategy; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Governance Controls; Human Resources; Resignation and Termination; Leadership; Leadership Style; Management; Business or Company Management; Crisis Management; Management Practices and Processes; Management Skills; Management Style; Management Systems; Risk Management; Time Management; Markets; Demand and Consumers; Digital Platforms; Supply and Industry; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Industry Structures; Operations; Product Development; Organizations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Outcome or Result; Failure; Success; Planning; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges; Relationships; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Safety; Strategy; Transportation; Air Transportation; Aerospace Industry; Air Transportation Industry; Africa; Ethiopia; Asia; Indonesia; North and Central America; United States; Seattle; Chicago

2009
Working Paper

Principles that Matter: Sustaining Software Innovation from the Client to the Web

By: Marco Iansiti

Economic analysis often reviews the role of principles—such as respect for intellectual property rights—in driving innovation. Given the interdependent nature of innovation in information technology, three core principles have emerged that work together to ensure that... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Technological Innovation; Intellectual Property; Partners and Partnerships; Competition; Information Technology; Internet and the Web

June 1998 (Revised August 2001)
Case

Wells Fargo Online Financial Services (A)

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Nicole Tempest

Wells Fargo, the industry leader in electronic banking, has implemented a Balanced Scorecard in its online financial services group (OFS) to track and measure performance. The OFS group develops and supports services that allow existing and future banking customers to... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Internet and the Web; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy; Performance Evaluation; Finance; Change; Situation or Environment; Measurement and Metrics; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry

November 2018
Case

frog design

By: Srikant M. Datar and Caitlin N. Bowler

The case follows the genesis and development of Palo, a radical urban communications hub designed to replace payphone booths on Manhattan’s city streets, through a joint venture between frog design and a venture-backed firm LQD WiFi. The case explores the complexity of... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Prototyping; User Experience Design; Design Heuristics; Telecommunications; Urban Systems; Communication Technology; Urban Scope; Innovation and Invention; Design; Product Development

16 Jan 2013
Research & Ideas

The Messy Link Between Slave Owners and Modern Management

accounting techniques is partly due to a Mississippi planter and accountant named Thomas Affleck, who developed account books for plantation owners that allowed them to make sophisticated calculations and measure View Details

Keywords: by Katie Johnston

Michael E. Porter

Michael Porter is an economist, researcher, author, advisor, speaker and teacher. Throughout his career at Harvard Business School, he has brought economic theory and strategy concepts to bear on many of the most challenging problems facing corporations, economies... View Details

Keywords: biotechnology; e-commerce industry; health care; information; information technology industry; internet; nonprofit industry; service industry; state government

2008
Working Paper

Contracting for Servicizing

By: Michael W. Toffel

Servicizing, a novel business practice that sells product functionality rather than products, has been touted as an environmentally beneficial business practice. This paper describes how servicizing transactions mitigate some problems associated with sales... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Contracts; Market Transactions; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Sales