Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(6,705)
- Faculty Publications (902)
- December 2021 (Revised May 2022)
- Case
Troverie (A)
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Lindsay N. Hyde and Olivia Graham
Six months after the August 2018 launch of Troverie, a U.S.-based online retailer of luxury watches, the average cost of acquiring a customer is much higher than originally projected, and the startup is incurring a substantial loss on each sales transaction. Could... View Details
- Article
How NFTs Create Value
By: Steve Kaczynski and Scott Duke Kominers
How much could a cluster of pixels possibly be worth? More pointedly, why is it worth anything at all? The explosion of NFTs and their accompanying marketplaces have left many baffled, incredulous, and deeply skeptical. But while NFTs may be fetching eye-popping,... View Details
- November 2021 (Revised December 2022)
- Case
Farfetch: Digital Transformation for Luxury Brands
By: Sunil Gupta, Jill Avery, Elena Corsi and Federica Gabrieli
Farfetch, a global luxury technology platform and digital marketplace had been surfing the wave of digital transformation in the luxury fashion industry since 2008. While the company’s stock price and market valuation had fluctuated since its IPO in 2018, it had... View Details
Keywords: Digital Marketing; Marketplaces; Retailing; Internet Marketing; E-Commerce Strategy; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Channels; Brands and Branding; Luxury; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Transformation; E-commerce; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; Web Services Industry; Technology Industry; United Kingdom; Europe; Portugal; China
- 2021
- Working Paper
Does Social Media Cause Polarization? Evidence from Access to Twitter Echo Chambers during the 2019 Argentine Presidential Debate
By: Rafael Di Tella, Ramiro H. Gálvez and Ernesto Schargrodsky
We study how two groups, those inside vs. those outside echo chambers, react to a political event when we vary social media status (Twitter). Our treatments mimic two strategies often suggested as a way to limit polarization on social media: they expose people to... View Details
- 2021
- Chapter
Geographic Inequality and the Internet
By: Chris Forman, Avi Goldfarb and Shane Greenstein
BOOK ABSTRACT: This cutting-edge Handbook offers fresh perspectives on the key topics related to the unequal use of digital technologies. Considering the ways in which technologies are employed, variations in conditions under which people use digital media and... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Who Benefits from Online Gig Economy Platforms?
By: Christopher Stanton and Catherine Thomas
Online labor platforms for short-term, remote work have many more job seekers than available jobs. Despite their relative abundance, workers capture a substantial share of the surplus from transactions. We draw this conclusion from demand estimates that imply workers'... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Newsweek: Driving a Digital First Strategy
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Suraj Srinivasan
The case describes the transformation at Newsweek, the storied news magazine that had fallen from its commanding position as a premier print publication unable to find its footing in the fast changing digital media landscape. After buying Newsweek and taking over as... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
upGrad: Delivering Career Outcomes Online: Degree by Degree
By: John J-H Kim, Anjali Raina and Rachna Chawla
In August 2021, the founders of upGrad, the latest unicorn in the Indian higher education online space, were deciding how to best use the funds to execute on their ambitious growth plans. Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar and Phalgun Kompalli had envisioned upGrad as an... View Details
- October 2021
- Article
Can Self-Regulation Save Digital Platforms?
By: Michael A. Cusumano, Annabelle Gawer and David B. Yoffie
This article explores some of the critical challenges facing self-regulation and the regulatory environment for digital platforms. We examine several historical examples of firms and industries that attempted self-regulation before the Internet. All dealt with similar... View Details
- 2021
- Report
The Economic Impact of the Market-Making Internet Advertising, Content, Commerce, and Innovation
By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
This research about the economic value of the Internet is conducted approximately every four years and highlights the importance of the internet ecosystem, which enables job creation and market-making opportunities. This highly valued, extensive piece of economic... View Details
- September 24, 2021
- Article
A Labor Movement for the Platform Economy
By: Li Jin, Scott Duke Kominers and Lila Shroff
Platforms are fundamentally changing the contract between workers and companies—and the workers and creatives that create value for platform companies, and rely on platforms for their livelihoods, often have little power when it comes to getting their concerns... View Details
- September 2021
- Article
Shaking Things Up: Disruptive Events and Inequality
By: Letian Zhang
This paper develops a theory of how disruptive events could reduce racial and gender inequality in organizations. Despite pressure from regulators and advocates, racial and gender inequality in the workplace remains high. I theorize that because such inequality is... View Details
- August 2021 (Revised September 2022)
- Case
Patch Technology: Making It Easy to Do the Right Thing
By: Tomomichi Amano, Robert J. Dolan and Carol Zhang
In 2021, the growing threat of climate change pushed companies around the world to understand that significant behavioral change was necessary. While many recognized that decreasing emissions was critical, more sophisticated players such as Microsoft began to recognize... View Details
- August 2021
- Case
Orchadio's First Two Split Experiments
By: Iavor I. Bojinov, Marco Iansiti and David Lane
Orchadio, a direct-to-consumer grocery business, needs to conduct its first two A/B tests—one to evaluate the effectiveness and functioning of its newly redesigned website, and one to market-test four versions of a new banner for the website. To do so, it will rely on... View Details
Keywords: Information Management; Technological Innovation; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Resource Allocation; Marketing; Measurement and Metrics; Customization and Personalization; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Information Technology Industry; Food and Beverage Industry
- August 2021
- Case
Yummy: Delivering Value to Venezuela
By: Ayelet Israeli, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Carla Larangeira
By June 2021, Yummy had become Venezuela’s first and largest food delivery app and last-mile logistics company. In Caracas, the nation’s capital, Yummy held a 55% market share, while operations in other cities had already started to take place, including in three of... View Details
- August 2021
- Case
Livongo: Scaling a Purpose-Driven Organization in Healthcare
By: Ranjay Gulati, Aseem Shukla and Reva Nohria
When seasoned entrepreneur Glen Tullman founded the chronic health care startup Livongo in 2014, it was personal. His son lived with diabetes, and Tullman knew firsthand how taxing it could be to manage such an unrelenting disease. Livongo set out to empower people... View Details
- August 2021 (Revised March 2022)
- Case
Camera IQ and the Metaverse: Building Augmented Reality Brand Experiences
By: Jill Avery and Rayan Nahas
Camera IQ, a camera marketing software company that empowered brands to create and launch augmented reality experiences (AREs) across social platforms, had just raised an additional $5 million to fund further product development and expand its marketing and sales... View Details
Keywords: Brand Management; Virtual Reality; Augmented Reality; B2B; Technology Platform; Marketing; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Digital Marketing; Internet and the Web; Growth Management; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Social Media; E-commerce; Applications and Software; Digital Platforms; Advertising Industry; United States
- 2021
- Book
The Power of Trust: How Companies Build It, Lose It, Regain It
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta
Trust is the most powerful force underlying the success of every business. Yet it can be shattered in an instant, with a devastating impact on a company’s market cap and reputation. How to build and sustain trust requires fresh insight into why customers, employees,... View Details
Keywords: Power; Corporate Culture; Future Of Work; Innovation; Technology Strategy; Automation; Stakeholder Engagement; Employee Attitude; Customer Behavior; Shareholder Value; Government And Business; Impact Investing; Corporate Change And Sustainability; Trust; Power and Influence; Globalization; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Innovation and Invention; Human Resources; Information Technology; Strategy; Corporate Accountability; Asia; Europe; South America; Middle East; North and Central America
- July 2021
- Article
Outsourcing Tasks Online: Matching Supply and Demand on Peer-to-Peer Internet Platforms
By: Zoë Cullen and Chiara Farronato
We study the growth of online peer-to-peer markets. Using data from TaskRabbit, an expanding marketplace for domestic tasks at the time of our study, we show that growth varies considerably across cities. To disentangle the potential drivers of growth, we look... View Details
- June 2021
- Case
Reversing Course on a Reverse E-Auction (A)
By: Kym Lew Nelson, James K. Sebenius and Alex Green
Global consumer products powerhouse LSP has found enormous savings in a trial run of a new competitive bidding tool for their procurement organization known as a reverse e-auction. But when Jen Baldwin is asked to achieve the same savings from her suppliers for a... View Details