Publications

28 Mar 2004
Research & Ideas

HBS Celebrates Social Enterprise Initiative

mobilizes 7 million volunteers. Worldwide, the sector makes up almost 5 percent of the GDP. In this e-mail Q&A, Professor James E. Austin, Chair of the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative, discusses the development of the program and its... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

05 Jun 2000
What Do You Think?

What’s Happening to Our Patience?

advertising as well as other opportunities for multi-tasking while we await responses to our last click. Original Article We are witnessing a race to reduce the time required to fill the tank of a car with gasoline. Why, when Mobil... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

25 Sep 2006
Research & Ideas

How Software Platforms Revolutionize Business

solutions for myriad tasks that previously were performed in traditional, non-tech ways. In this way, they have improved the productivity of many traditional industries (just look at all the industries that use PCs today) and created brand new ones (just look at the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Video Game; Web Services

16 Jun 2015
First Look

First Look: June 16, 2015

hospital. Community hospitals generally vehemently oppose their entry into a new area. What options does MedCath have? Purchase this case: https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/315018-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 614-018 Ford Motor Company: Blueprint for... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Mar 2022
What Do You Think?

Is It Time for More Reverse Mentoring?

set up a payment system under her new company’s name—all in one day and all on her mobile phone while (I hope) doing her regular work. Needless to say, she can mentor me any day. Of course, reverse mentoring goes on all the time, often in... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

15 May 2012
First Look

First Look: May 15

and monetize their sites, all in shadow of a deeply entrenched incumbent. Purchase this case:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/912009-PDF-ENG Tequila Mobile SA Hanna Hałaburda, Jerzy Surma, and Aldo SesiaHarvard Business School Case... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

November 2017
Case

iRobot: Moving Beyond the Roomba

By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson

The makers of the Roomba, a robotic vacuum cleaner, connected the latest version of their product to the Internet. This new feature opened up a wealth of new opportunities and challenges for the company. View Details

Keywords: Irobot; Smart Home; Connected Home; Roomba; Vacuum; Mapping; Internet Of Things; Connected Products; Organizational Structure; Organizational Design; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Digital Platforms; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Consumer Products Industry; Electronics Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Technology Industry; United States

May 2004 (Revised March 2005)
Case

Instant Messaging

By: David B. Yoffie and Deborah Freier

Explores the usage and technology of instant messaging (IM). IM enables two or more users to communicate almost instantaneously over the Internet with short, private text messages. Most IM service providers chose to remain proprietary and, therefore, a user of most IM... View Details

Keywords: Network Effects; Standards; Communication Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Internet and the Web; Web Services Industry

Find at Harvard

23 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

Partnering and the Balanced Scorecard

(see Figure 2-3) and several new internal business objectives. Mobil U.S. Marketing and Refining, like Rockwater, moved to a new "customer intimacy" strategy that would offer a superior buying experience for consumers. Mobil's... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton

July 2001 (Revised May 2002)
Case

WWWW - Who Will Win Wireless?

This case discusses different players in the wireless Internet industry and asks readers to evaluate the likelihood that they will create and capture value. View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Success; Mobile and Wireless Technology

Find at Harvard

31 Jul 2012
First Look

First Look: July 31

the constraints and opportunities of their representation structure are reflected in the micro-interactions, the broad improvisations, and the resulting substantive and relational outcomes. Looking Up and Looking Out: Career Mobility... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

October 2014 (Revised July 2015)
Case

Indus Towers: From Infancy to Maturity

By: Ranjay Gulati, Maxim Sytch and Rachna Tahilyani

Indus Towers, the world's largest telecom tower company, is a joint venture between three telecom rivals in India. These rivals—Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, and Idea Cellular—combined their telecom towers to provide "shared telecom infrastructure" to wireless telecom... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Judgments; Customer Focus and Relationships; Management; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Information Infrastructure; Telecommunications Industry; India

24 Jun 2014
First Look

First Look: June 24

improvement in patient throughput time. Download working paper: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1987724 Cases & Course Materials Harvard Business School Case 814-009 Mobile Broadband and the Telecommunications Industry in 2011 View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

25 Feb 2020
Research & Ideas

For Migrant Workers, Homesickness Can Reduce Productivity

research agenda surrounding the geographic mobility of workers. He previously studied the productivity benefits of geographic mobility. His “ROPE” framework explores four mechanisms that impose costs and/or constraints when workers... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

11 Jun 2014
Research & Ideas

In the Future of Sports Investing, Media Is the Best Bet

media” But TV is no longer the only game in town when it comes to watching sports. Yes, in 2013, 94 percent of fans watched games on TV, but 71 percent also viewed sports online, and 49 percent got their fix on mobile devices. "What... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Sports; Financial Services

10 Jul 2017
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: It’s a Bad Idea to Ban Customers From Recording Videos

Consumers delight in using smartphones to record their experiences and surroundings, but for businesses, such devices present tricky challenges. Suppose a customer encounters a hair in her food, a spill in an aisle, or a rude clerk. Historically, these problems were... View Details

Keywords: by Benjamin G. Edelman; Food & Beverage; Air Transportation; Retail; Service

June 2015 (Revised August 2016)
Case

Qualcomm Inc., 2009-2015

By: David B. Yoffie

In the years after 2009, Qualcomm navigated the wireless industry's transition from 3G to 4G, retaining its technological leadership and experiencing dramatic growth in revenue and profit. In March 2014, Qualcomm appointed a new CEO, Steve Mollenkopf, who had to... View Details

Keywords: Communication Technologies; Technology; Wireless Technologies; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Strategy; Communication Technology; Competitive Strategy; Change Management; Electronics Industry; Telecommunications Industry; California

January 2010 (Revised March 2013)
Case

foursquare

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Jeffrey J. Bussgang and David Chen

Co-founders of foursquare are deciding how to respond to competitive threats and scale up the organization. Foursquare was a location-based online service that allowed users to "check in" to a location using an application on a smartphone. Foursquare kept track of a... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Competitive Advantage; Web Services Industry; United States