Publications

January 2017 (Revised August 2019)
Supplement

X Fire Paintball & Airsoft: Is Amazon a Friend or Foe? (B)

By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella

Three years after launching his brick-and-mortar store, X Fire Paintball and Airsoft, Steve Herbert Sr. and his sons began selling products on Amazon.com’s third-party Marketplace and online sales expanded rapidly. Over time, X Fire noticed that products of which it... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Competition; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Small Business; Retail Industry; Canada

November 2015
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Beatriz Cardoso and Education in Brazil

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Daniella Suarez and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

Beatriz Cardoso, founder of Laboratório de Educação (Education Laboratory) had a dream to propel Brazilian education. However challenges in fundraising made it difficult to scale up her project, based on helping adults help children improve their literacy skills. To... View Details

September 1999 (Revised April 2000)
Case

Novell: World's Largest Network Software Company

By: Richard L. Nolan

After phenomenal growth and market leadership in networking, founder and CEO Ray Noorda made a frontal assault on Microsoft's core strengths. In 1994, Noorda spend over $1.5 billion acquiring companies such as WordPerfect to combat Microsoft Word, products such as... View Details

Keywords: Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Competition; Internet and the Web; Strategic Planning; Corporate Strategy; Information Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

July 2024
Case

Freelancer, Ltd.

By: Christopher Stanton, Karim R. Lakhani, Jin Hyun Paik and Nina Cohodes

Over the course of the 2010s, the rapid advancement of mobile technologies and the rise of online freelancing platforms seemed to portend a radical transformation of labor markets into on-demand, flexible talent pools. Even though several Fortune 500... View Details

Keywords: Freelancers; Labor Markets; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Human Capital; Change Management; Globalized Firms and Management; Employment; Global Range; Employment Industry

September 2006 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Warner Bros. and BitTorrent

Involves the copyright issues associated with Bram Cohen's revolutionary program BitTorrent, which makes it possible to transfer very large files, such as movies, at a high speed over the Internet. The program, which is available for free over the Internet, is used for... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Copyright; Lawfulness; Distribution; Internet and the Web; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

February 2011 (Revised November 2013)
Case

The Cheezburger Network

By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

Cheezburger Network was a Web publisher of humorous, user-contributed content, using social media for dissemination, and selling advertising against the traffic of 1 billion page views per quarter. In January 2011, it raised $30 million in venture capital for the... View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Digital Marketing; Customer Relationship Management; Venture Capital; Emerging Markets; Strategic Planning; Sales; Internet and the Web; Publishing Industry; Publishing Industry

July 2014
Article

Diasporas and Outsourcing: Evidence from oDesk and India

By: Ejaz Ghani, William R. Kerr and Christopher Stanton

This study examines the role of the Indian diaspora in the outsourcing of work to India. Our data are taken from oDesk, the world's largest online platform for outsourced contracts, where India is the largest country in terms of contract volume. We use an ethnic name... View Details

Keywords: Diaspora; Outsourcing; oDesk; Networks; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Diasporas; Internet and the Web; Ethnicity; Service Industry; South Asia; India

Read Now

10 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 10

San Francisco-based Internet company allowed users to monitor their investments and communicate with each other about their portfolio strategies. The case recounts key decisions made by founder and CEO Steve Carpenter, including several... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

23 Aug 2016
First Look

August 23, 2016

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51538 July–August 2016 European Business Review The Decoupling Effect of Digital Disruptors By: Teixeira, Thales S., and Peter Jamieson Abstract—A new wave of Internet startups is disrupting... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

17 Jun 2002
Research & Ideas

A Litmus Test for Entrepreneurs

In 1999, Tom Herman and Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, best friends since childhood, quit their comfortable jobs to start govWorks, with millions of VC dollars to back them up. Their goal was nothing if not grandiose: to use Internet payment... View Details

Keywords: by Walter Kuemmerle

01 Oct 2001
News

HBS Press Books in Brief

what loyalty means or how to build it. Reichheld, author of the 1996 bestseller The Loyalty Effect, outlines six principles of loyalty that can make the Internet a hospitable and highly profitable place for businesses to succeed. 20/20... View Details

Keywords: Publishing Industries (except Internet); Publishing Industries (except Internet); Publishing Industries (except Internet); Publishing Industries (except Internet)

30 May 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, May 30

pricing for first-exposure products on the site. Many in the industry have relied on years of experience and intuition to determine pricing—can Wilson provide new insights? Purchase this... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2007
Working Paper

Highbrow Films Gather Dust: Time-inconsistent Preferences and Online DVD Rentals

By: Katherine L. Milkman, Todd Rogers and Max H. Bazerman

We report on a field study demonstrating systematic differences between the preferences people anticipate they will have over a series of options in the future and their subsequent revealed preferences over those options. Using a novel panel data set, we analyze the... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Decision Choices and Conditions; Attitudes; Conflict and Resolution; Emotions; Film Entertainment; Cognition and Thinking; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

Read Now

March 2008 (Revised June 2011)
Case

MySpace

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, David T. Chen and Carin-Isabel Knoop

The case, set in late 2007, examines what MySpace—the largest online social network—should do to respond to its agile competitor, Facebook. Since its inception MySpace had experienced phenomenal growth, acquiring 20 million members in its first 20 months of operation,... View Details

Keywords: Open Source Distribution; Partners and Partnerships; Social and Collaborative Networks; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Information Technology Industry

July 2022
Case

Metaverse Seoul

By: Mitchell Weiss and Samantha Markowitz

In May 2022, the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) launched the pilot of Metaverse Seoul, a government-run metaverse. SMG had delivered a virtual version of Seoul’s mayor’s office. The team aimed to gain insights as they worked towards building a broad, immersive,... View Details

Keywords: Metaverse; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Government Administration; Public Administration Industry; South Korea; Asia

January 2002
Exercise

Socrates, Inc.

By: Alan D. MacCormack and Kerry Herman

Socrates, Inc., a provider of e-learning tools and technologies to educational institutions and, potentially, corporations, must decide which of several opportunities to pursue next and which priorities to focus on in terms of better structuring the firm's processes... View Details

Keywords: Business Plan; Business Startups; Internet and the Web; Opportunities; Business Processes; Organizational Structure; Decision Choices and Conditions; Organizational Design; Education Industry; Education Industry

Find at Harvard

24 Feb 2009
First Look

First Look: February 24, 2009

http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=209029 The Restructuring of Daiei Harvard Business School Case 209-060 In 2004, the Industrial Revitalization Corporation of Japan (IRCJ) was given the task of restructuring... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

04 Dec 2012
First Look

First Look: December 4

employees in a large information technology firm. These findings have implications for research on homophily, gender relations in organizations, and formal and informal organizational structure. Exclusivity, Contingent Control Rights, and the Design of View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

June 1998 (Revised August 2000)
Case

Microsoft CarPoint

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport

CarPoint.com was Microsoft's Web-based entry into on-line automobile retailing. While it could not, in fact, "sell" or deliver any cars, it could shift much of consumer search, comparison, and decision-making, including pricing, the traditional car dealer to the Web.... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Service Operations; Market Entry and Exit; Consumer Behavior; Auto Industry; Auto Industry