Publications

12 Mar 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, March 12, 2019

talent, they will need to bridge these three gaps. The good news is that the growing assortment of online courses, social and interactive platforms, and learning tools from both traditional institutions and... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

September 2017 (Revised November 2018)
Case

Marriott International: The Next 90 Years

By: Chiara Farronato and Gary Pisano

The case examines how Marriott should respond to the potential threats from new home-sharing platforms and the rise of online travel agencies. In 2017 Marriott was the largest hotel chain, with more than one million rooms and 7% of worldwide room supply. In the... View Details

March–April 2020
Article

Building A Culture of Experimentation

By: Stefan Thomke

Why don’t organizations test more? After examining this question for several years, I can tell you that the central reason is culture. As companies try to scale up their experimentation capacity, they often find that the obstacles are not tools and technology but... View Details

Keywords: Experimentation; Culture; Innovation; Online; Customer Experience; Organizational Culture; Innovation and Invention; Internet and the Web; Attitudes; Decision Making; Change; Leadership

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24 Apr 2019
Research & Ideas

The 'Amazon Effect' Is Changing Online Price Competition—and the Fed Needs to Pay Attention

eager to get better information,” Cavallo says. “There is a lot of interest in how these new data sources can help improve economic statistics.” About the Author Roberta Holland is a writer based in the Boston area. [Image: alengo]... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Retail

06 Jan 2014
Research & Ideas

Technology Re-Emergence: Creating New Value for Old Innovations

Out with the old, in with the new! That's the natural path of innovation. PCs killed typewriters, for instance. Smartphones superseded telephones, pocket calculators, and point-and-shoot cameras. Every once in a while, though, an old technology rises from the ashes and... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Apparel & Accessories; Technology; Consumer Products

21 Mar 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, March 21

largely emphasizes the collective benefits of market creation and overlooks the costs borne by individual evangelists. Through an inductive multiple-case study of five startup competitors, we traced firms’ efforts to stake out a new View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

10 Jul 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, July 10, 2018

of companies that are helping create the conditions for the industry’s growth by amassing knowledge about best practices, influencing the development of regulations, exploring new uses for drones, developing a professional workforce, and... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

September 2014 (Revised June 2016)
Case

edX: Strategies for Higher Education

By: David Collis, Matthew Shaffer and Ashley Hartman

In May 2012, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) founded edX, a new non-profit joint venture that would provide a platform for massive open online courses (MOOCs). edX did not produce original courses or instructional content—it made... View Details

Keywords: MOOCS; edX; Online Platforms; Online Education; Harvard University; MIT; Execution; Monetization; Brand Management; Higher Education; Information Technology; Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Digital Platforms; Education Industry

December 2021 (Revised May 2025)
Case

Bed Bath & Beyond: The New Strategy to Drive Shareholder Value

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel W. Fisher

At one time, Bed Bath & Beyond was one of the most successful specialty retailers in the United States—its growth and profit margins far exceeded both peer retailers in the home goods market as well as many other discount retailers. But in 2014, its stock price peaked,... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation; Diversification; Corporate Governance; Leading Change; Performance Evaluation; Valuation; Investment Activism; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

12 Dec 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 12, 2017

2017 New York: Scribner Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times By: Koehn, Nancy F. Abstract—An enthralling historical narrative filled with critical leadership insights that will be of interest to a wide... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

19 Dec 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 19, 2017

working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53636 Scale versus Scope in the Diffusion of New Technology: Evidence from the Farm Tractor By: Gross, Daniel P. Abstract—Using the farm tractor as a case study, I show that... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

22 Jan 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, January 22, 2019

Platforms Thrive and Others Don’t By: Zhu, Feng, and Marco Iansiti Abstract— In the digital economy, scale is no guarantee of continued success. After all, the same factors that help an online platform expand quickly—such as the low cost... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

August 2023
Case

Kariyer.net: Recruiting AI

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Fares Khrais and Namrata Arora

In 2017, Fatih Uysal (AMP 2021) became CEO of Kariyer.net. By then, the business was already the industry leading online job board in Turkey. However, faced with stalling growth, a turbulent macroenvironment, and growing competition from international players, Uysal... View Details

Winter 2013
Article

The New Patent Intermediaries: Platforms, Defensive Aggregators and Super-Aggregators

By: Andrei Hagiu and David B. Yoffie

The patent market consists mainly of privately negotiated, bilateral transactions, either sales or cross-licenses, between large companies. There is no eBay, Amazon, New York Stock Exchange, or Kelley's Blue Book equivalent for patents, and when buyers and sellers do... View Details

Keywords: Intellectual Property; Platforms; Intermediaries; Aggregator; Patents; Digital Platforms; Marketplace Matching; Distribution Channels

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22 Feb 2021
Book

Reaching Today's Omnichannel Customer Takes a New Sales Strategy

Selling is changing, but broad generalizations and false dichotomies about ecommerce, big data, and other trends—hallmarks of current sales advice—are keeping business leaders from making sound decisions, says Frank Cespedes, author of a View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

October 2011 (Revised September 2014)
Case

Moda Operandi: A New Style of Fashion Retail

By: Mukti Khaire

Moda Operandi is a startup in the fashion industry. The firm organizes online trunk shows of designers' collections, allowing its members to directly order clothes from the collections shown in Fashion Weeks all over the world. Moda Operandi conveys the preorders to... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Distribution Channels; Internet and the Web; Design; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry