Publications

09 Apr 2020
News

All Hands On Deck: Tech Firms Become Lenders As Federal Aid To 26M Tiny Businesses Falters

November–December 2016
Article

The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Industry

By: Yongwook Paik and Feng Zhu

Strategy scholars have documented in various empirical settings that firms seek and leverage stronger institutions to mitigate hazards and gain competitive advantage. In this paper, we argue that such “institution-seeking” behavior may not be confined to the pursuit of... View Details

Keywords: Patent Wars; Patent Litigation; Intellectual Property (IP) Enforcement; Institutions; Patent Thicket; Smartphone; Patents; Corporate Strategy; Mobile Technology

2016
Working Paper

The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Market

By: Feng Zhu

Strategy scholars have documented in various empirical settings that firms seek and leverage stronger institutions to mitigate hazards and gain competitive advantage. In this paper, we argue that such “institution-seeking” behavior may not be confined to the pursuit of... View Details

Keywords: Patent Wars; Patent Litigation; Intellectual Property (IP) Enforcement; Institutions; Smartphone; Patent Thicket; Digital Platforms; Patents; Lawsuits and Litigation; Globalized Markets and Industries; Business Strategy; Telecommunications Industry

08 Jan 2001
What Do You Think?

Have We Extended the Boundaries of the Firm Too Far?

standards of the Internet and willing to transfer databases to a "rival supplier" in the event of an unsatisfactory relationship (Joshua Doherty), and those maintaining a highly focused in-house R&D capability while outsourcing View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Forthcoming
Article

The Rise of Remote Work: Evidence on Productivity and Preferences from Firm and Worker Surveys

By: Alexander Bartik, Zoë Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca and Christopher Stanton

Drawing on surveys of small business owners and employees, we present three main findings about the evolution of remote work after the onset of COVID-19. First, uptake of remote work was abrupt and widespread in jobs suitable for telework according to the task-based... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Remote Work; Health Pandemics; Jobs and Positions; Demographics; Surveys

2020
Working Paper

Should Firms Move Talent from the Geographic Periphery to Hubs? A Strategic Human Capital Perspective

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Victoria Sevcenko and Tarun Khanna

A longstanding literature holds that firms should hire and move talent from the geographic periphery to hubs as a means to create value from human capital. They do so, however, at the risk of losing the worker to rivals located in the same geographic hub,... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Selection and Staffing; Employment; Residency; Technology Industry; India

Read Now

Web

Charting Tariff Pain: Small Businesses Brace for Job Cuts, Falling Sales | Working Knowledge

small businesses in the US contribute more than 40 percent of the country’s economic output. Although small businesses generally employ fewer than 500 people, these firms have... View Details

January 2023 (Revised June 2024)
Case

Zaoui & Co. (A): Consigliere for High Stakes M&A Transactions

By: Ashish Nanda, Alex Kitsberg and Zack Kurtovich

In September 2019, Zaoui & Co.’s close-knit team of professionals convened for their annual off-site. In its nine years of operation, the boutique investment bank founded by the brothers Michael (HBS ’83) and Yoel Zaoui (Stanford GSB ’88), had garnered a track record... View Details

Keywords: Professional Service Firm; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Strategy; Investment Banking; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Growth and Development Strategy; Europe; United Kingdom

07 May 2019
News

New book reveals the principles that have helped make digital platforms, including Amazon, Google, and Apple, the world’s most valuable firms

September 2012
Case

Castronics, LLC

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Patrick Dickinson (HBS '09) and Michael Weiner (MIT's Sloan '07) acquired Castronics, a firm that specialized in threading pipe used in the oil and natural gas industry, at the end of 2009. The partners overcame significant hurdles during the first two years of... View Details

Keywords: Small Business; Search Funds; Corporate Finance; Entrepreneurship; Financial Management; Energy Industry; Western United States

01 Sep 2020
News

Road Work

That leap was necessary because Camino’s members—whose businesses include restaurants, construction companies, beauty salons, and small manufacturers, among many others—don’t fit the traditional categories for risk assessment. Twenty-five... View Details

Keywords: banking; LatinX; small businesses; COVID-19; Finance

October 2016
Case

Supercell

By: William R. Kerr, Benjamin F. Jones and Alexis Brownell

Supercell is a young Finnish smartphone game company with an unusual team structure and company philosophy. It is already one of Finland’s most valuable companies, and despite being only six years old, it has put up some impressive numbers: as of 2016, it has released... View Details

Keywords: Supercell; Finland; Video Games; Firm Structure; Startups; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Groups and Teams; Video Game Industry; Finland

01 Mar 2024
News

Turning Point: Eternal Returns

Hong Kong. I then founded my own search firm, Bó Lè Associates, in 1996. Even when there was neither demand nor supply for headhunting in China, I knew the demand would come if I could help even a small percentage of the hardworking... View Details

Keywords: life experience; search firm; entrepreneurship

01 Mar 2024
News

3-Minute Briefing: Ilana D. Weinstein (MBA 1995)

Weinstein: Standing tall and seeing all of the strategic possibilities in a highly competitive industry. I grew up in New York City and worked in every store along our 10-block radius. I learned how to sell and negotiate at a young age. There’s a scrappiness and... View Details

Keywords: Edited by Julia Hanna; Photo by Chris Sorensen; search firm; entrepreneurship; hedge funds

17 Jan 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Deregulation, Misallocation, and Size: Evidence from India

Keywords: by Laura Alfaro & Anusha Chari

June 2003
Case

Judo in Action

Contains four short stories about small firms challenging large firms. Illustrates some of the ideas that have been termed "judo strategy." In each case, one can argue that the small firm attempts to use the large firm's size and incumbency to constrain the large firm... View Details

Keywords: Small Business; Competitive Advantage

Research Summary

Deregulation, Misallocation, and Size: Evidence from India

By: Laura Alfaro

This paper examines the impact of the deregulation of compulsory industrial licensing in India on firm size dynamics and reallocation of resources within industries. Following deregulation, resource misallocation declines, and the left-hand tail of the firm size... View Details

Article

Deregulation, Misallocation, and Size: Evidence from India

By: Laura Alfaro and Anusha Chari

This paper examines the impact of the deregulation of compulsory industrial licensing in India on firm size dynamics and reallocation of resources within industries. Following deregulation, resource misallocation declines, and the left-hand tail of the firm size... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Size; Emerging Markets; Supply and Industry; Manufacturing Industry; India

Read Now

September 1998 (Revised July 1999)
Case

Integral Capital Partners

By: Andre F. Perold and Markus Mullarkey

Integral Capital Partners is a small firm with a very distinctive approach to investing in high-technology stocks. The firm invests privately in small start-ups as well as in publicly traded companies, and it develops important financial and advisory relationships with... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Value Creation; Venture Capital; Asset Management; Partners and Partnerships; Public Sector; Private Sector; Business Startups; Corporate Finance; Financial Services Industry