Publications

Find at Harvard

Teaching Interest

Competing in the Age of Digital Platforms

By: Andy Wu

Without exception, the most valuable companies in the world today are platforms: Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and many other firms have built their fortunes by facilitating innovation across global ecosystems or enabling the broad exchange of goods... View Details

August 2013 (Revised July 2014)
Case

Coffee Wars in India: Café Coffee Day Takes On the Global Brands

By: David B. Yoffie and Tanya Bijlani

Café Coffee Day (CCD) is contemplating how to respond to the entry of Starbucks into the Indian coffee chain market. The case study describes the emergence of CCD as the leading coffee chain in India, with over 1,400 cafes in India. In early 2013, Starbucks, the... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Competitors; Competition; Market Entry and Exit; Retail Industry; India

April 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

AI Wars

By: Andy Wu, Matt Higgins, Miaomiao Zhang and Hang Jiang

In February 2024, the world was looking to Google to see what the search giant and long-time putative technical leader in artificial intelligence (AI) would do to compete in the massively hyped technology of generative AI. Over a year ago, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a... View Details

Keywords: AI; Artificial Intelligence; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Competitive Strategy; Technological Innovation

18 Jul 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, July 18, 2017

and associated creative behavior in the life and work of ordinary individuals. Yet evidence is mounting that such individuals can be responsible for important instances of creativity and innovation in the world: View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

The Secret of How Microsoft Stays on Top

off by disruptive technologies. Critics often argue that Microsoft can't innovate its way out of a paper bag—instead it has used its monopoly position to stamp out competition and force an industry to bend... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

November 2006
Case

The Pine Street Initiative at Goldman Sachs

By: Boris Groysberg, Scott A. Snook and David Lane

Almost five years had passed since Goldman Sachs launched its innovative leadership development initiative called Pine Street. Focused primarily on developing Goldman's most senior managers, Pine Street had evolved significantly since its inception in November of 1999.... View Details

Keywords: Executive Education; Personal Development and Career; Leadership Development; Business Education; Financial Services Industry

Thomas R. Eisenmann is the Howard H. Stevenson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School; Peter O. Crisp Faculty Chair, Harvard Innovation Labs; and Unit Head of the HBS Entrepreneurial... View Details

November 2019 (Revised January 2020)
Supplement

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited: A Global Company's China Strategy (B)

By: William C. Kirby, Billy Chan and Dawn H. Lau

After the legendary founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) retired, the new chairman had to grapple with fresh challenges related to its China market: a recently opened factory in China had to find ways to reverse its financial loss and meet its... View Details

Keywords: Cross-cultural; Foreign Investment; Government; Business and Government Relations; Globalization; Change Management; Customer Relationship Management; Innovation Strategy; Global Strategy; Leadership; Semiconductor Industry; Taiwan; China

08 Jan 2001
Research & Ideas

Can Japan Compete? [Part Two]

open competition. If you were to divide up the Japanese government's energies between repairing ailing industries and spurring on new ones, how would you do that? Not to be too provocative here, but I would say that this is the wrong way... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace & Hilah Geer

20 Oct 2010
Op-Ed

Export Competitiveness: Reversing the Logic

what matters to companies in a modern company remains left out. This approach is fundamentally different from the old industrial policies that targeted industries by tilting the competitive environment on markets in their favor. Instead,... View Details

Keywords: by Christian Ketels

January 2012 (Revised March 2012)
Case

Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA)'s Entry into the Retirement Market

By: Lauren Cohen and Christopher Malloy

This case examines Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA)'s decision to enter the retirement market with their new "Dimensional Managed DC" product, a complete retirement solution that aimed to provide investors with what they really wanted: the same standard of living in... View Details

Keywords: Retirement; Asset Management

Research Summary

Business and Low Income Sectors: The Creation of Economic and Social Value

In the last three decades, innovative commercial solutions have emerged in developing nations focusing on providing effective responses to the hugely underserved needs of low-income populations, both as consumers as well as active participants in productive value... View Details

May–June 2021
Article

Eliminate Strategic Overload

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee

As companies respond to intensifying competitive pressures and challenges, they ask more and more of their employees. But organizations often have very little to show for the efforts of their talented and engaged workers. By selecting fewer initiatives with greater... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Initiatives; Value-based Strategy; Organizational Effectiveness; Strategy; Value Creation

Find at Harvard

23 May 2017
First Look

First Look at New Ideas and Research: May 23, 2017

Using data from a randomized field experiment embedded in a startup boot camp for early stage entrepreneurs, our findings show that innovators who are more open to experience do generate better ideas, but... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

October 2015 (Revised September 2016)
Technical Note

Flight: Now without Humans Aboard

By: Mitchell Weiss, Karim Lakhani, HT Kung and Kerry Herman

This note provides an overview of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) industry in September 2015. UAVs offered many potential applications in industries as diverse as aerial imaging and photography, agriculture, construction, infrastructure inspection and... View Details

Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Drones; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Product Design; Research and Development; Technological Innovation; Rights; Ethics; Strategy; Transportation Networks; Market Entry and Exit; Innovation and Management; European Union; Asia; United States

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Porter’s Perspective: Competing in the Global Economy

Competitive advantage. Corporate strategy. The competitive advantage of nations. All over the world these terms quickly bring to mind the groundbreaking work of HBS professor Michael Porter, whose two... View Details

Keywords: Re: Michael E. Porter

November 2000 (Revised May 2002)
Case

FleetBoston Financial: Online Banking

By: Frances X. Frei and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar

As the ninth largest bank holding company in the United States in 2000, FleetBoston Financial Corp. provided a myriad of financial services, including retail banking, loan origination, and brokerage accounts. This case explores how FleetBoston responded to the Internet... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Borrowing and Debt; Cost Management; Banks and Banking; Consumer Behavior; Service Operations; Competition; Online Technology; Banking Industry; United States