Publications

May 2004 (Revised March 2005)
Case

Music Downloads

By: David B. Yoffie and Deborah Freier

Examines the competition between competing music formats. In the '90s, the MP3 format challenged the traditional means of music distribution by allowing for storage of near CD-quality recordings at 1/10th of their previous size. The threat to traditional distribution... View Details

Keywords: Disruption; Music Entertainment; Legal Liability; Distribution; Competition; Internet and the Web; Technology Adoption; Information Infrastructure; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Music Industry

Find at Harvard

March 2002 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Saudi Arabia: Getting the House in Order

By: Richard H.K. Vietor and Rebecca Evans

Provides a vehicle to explore Islamic development and political issues within BGIE (business, government, and international economy). Set in early 2002, the case focuses on Crown Prince Abdullah's efforts to liberalize a failing rentier state, that had been dependent... View Details

Keywords: Disruption; Development Economics; Non-Renewable Energy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; International Relations; Leading Change; Saudi Arabia; Middle East

March 2019 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Fetchr: A New Way of Last Mile Delivery

By: V.G. Narayanan and Eren Kuzucu

By mid-2016, five years of aggressive growth had transformed Fetchr from a small logistics startup to a 1,000-employee, full-fledged last-mile delivery company operating across four countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Already beneficiaries of the... View Details

December 2018 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Bord Bia: Strategically Growing Irish Exports

By: Jose B. Alvarez, Forest L. Reinhardt and Emer Moloney

Agriculture was Ireland’s largest indigenous industry. Its agri-food sector was export driven, with almost 90% of production exported. Bord Bia was the Irish government agency charged with the promotion, trade development, and marketing of the Irish food, drink, and... View Details

10 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

The Surprising Winners and Losers in the Retail Revolution

unappealing chores for a large swath of customers. The supermarket space is ripe for disruption by ecommerce. But it's not just about the ecommerce. Other changes are going on in the environment. People don't know how or don't have the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

25 Jan 2011
First Look

First Look: Jan. 25

511-059 Entrepreneurial produce packaging firm, which has developed a disruptive technology that keeps fresh produce and flowers fresh for significantly longer, faces strategic growth decisions. CEO Bob Wright must decide how best to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

04 Apr 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, April 4

to develop Alfred’s routes and respond to customer requests in conjunction with other service providers, for example grocery delivery services, in what the founders describe as their "B2B2C" business model. Alfred won the coveted TechCrunch San Francisco... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

27 Mar 2012
First Look

First Look: March 27

attempting disruptive innovation and entrepreneurship in these industries. Purchase this case:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/812041-PDF-ENG Speeding Ahead to a Better Place Elie Ofek and Alison Berkley WagonfeldHarvard Business... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

31 Aug 2010
First Look

First Look: August 31

repetitive in nature. We introduce the concept of a restart effect—task and temporal disruptions that stimulate worker productivity—as a means of addressing challenges of repetitive work. For our empirical analyses, we use two and a half... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Aug 2009
Op-Ed

Where Cash for Clunkers Ran Off the Road

short term but, in reality, the promotion stole largely from future sales with taxpayers subsidizing over half a million new car sales that would have occurred anyway. C4C disrupted the even flow of supply and demand. New car buyers held... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Auto

January 2008 (Revised November 2009)
Case

Linear Air: Creating the Air Taxi Industry

Linear Air is an air taxi start-up established to take advantage of the emergence of Very Light Jets, which incorporate new technology that cuts jet operating costs by about 40%. Air taxis could make use of the 5400 smaller regional airports throughout the US,... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Product Launch; Industry Structures; Competition; Air Transportation Industry