Publications

24 Oct 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Diasporas and Outsourcing: Evidence from oDesk and India

Keywords: Re: William R. Kerr; Manufacturing

25 May 2010
First Look

First Look: May 25

ad platform can offer, an advertiser may forego use of an ad platform that the advertiser otherwise finds profitable. Mergers between ad platforms can increase advertiser... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

14 Apr 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Facts and Figuring: An Experimental Investigation of Network Structure and Performance in Information and Solution Spaces

Keywords: by Jesse Shore, Ethan Bernstein & David Lazer

16 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 16, 2019

against the backdrop of a turbulent industry and consider the implications for the anesthesiologist. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55974 March 2019 Management Science Open Source Software and Firm... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

08 Sep 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

Capitalism Works Better When I Can See What You're Doing

embarrassing—it can hurt your career. Racism and Digital Design: How Online Platforms Can Thwart DiscriminationPoor design decisions contribute to racial discrimination on many online platforms. Working for a Shamed Company Can Hurt Your... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

November 2017
Case

iRobot: Moving Beyond the Roomba

By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson

The makers of the Roomba, a robotic vacuum cleaner, connected the latest version of their product to the Internet. This new feature opened up a wealth of new opportunities and challenges for the company. View Details

Keywords: Irobot; Smart Home; Connected Home; Roomba; Vacuum; Mapping; Internet Of Things; Connected Products; Organizational Structure; Organizational Design; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Digital Platforms; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Consumer Products Industry; Electronics Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Technology Industry; United States

03 Apr 2019
Book

Fintech's Game-Changing Opportunities for Small Business

customers own their banking data and can designate it to be available to a third party. Open data and open banking are important so that data streams are available to multiple financial institutions and... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Banking; Financial Services

21 Oct 2024
Research & Ideas

What Happens in Vegas Could Shape the Metaverse

company would be more than likes, comments, and shares, he said, and Meta would develop the community on top of the Oculus platform it bought for $2 billion in 2014. The Facebook-Meta name change came a year-and-a-half into the COVID-19... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Nover; Computer; Information Technology

November 2006 (Revised February 2007)
Case

Microsoft Xbox: Changing the Game?

By: Andrei Hagiu

In September 1999, the Microsoft Xbox team was wondering which strategic choices would give it the best chance against the upcoming Sony PlayStation 2. Initially called "Project Midway" within Microsoft, the console project was intended to counter the perceived threat... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Recruitment; Leadership; Management Teams; Multi-Sided Platforms; Two-Sided Platforms; Production; Strategy; Competition; Expansion; Video Game Industry; Texas

2018
Working Paper

What Is Your Problem? The Importance of ‘Problem Storming’ for Crossing Knowledge Boundaries

By: Hila Lifshitz - Assaf

In this study, I focus on the emergent processes and practices enacted when using crowdsourcing to solve R&D problems that experts are challenged with. While the literature on crowdsourcing focuses on the online process, this study looks at the full process that takes... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Nasa; Problem Solving; Problem Formulation; Knowledge Boundaries; Innovation and Invention; Research and Development; Problems and Challenges

April 2021
Case

Codecademy: Where to Next?

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Max Mailman and Sarah Ascherman

In March 2020, Zach Sims, co-founder and CEO of online education platform Codecademy, prepared for a meeting with his Chief of Staff Kunal Ahuja to discuss the company’s goals. Codecademy billed itself as the largest online resource for computer science literacy and... View Details

Keywords: Monetization Strategy; Business Model; Change Management; Venture Capital; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Teams; Marketing Channels; Product Marketing; Network Effects; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; United States

March 2008 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Facebook

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Aaron Smith, David Chen and Brian Feinstein

As Facebook topped one billion monthly users in October 2012, the online social network continued to face questions about how best to monetize its surging traffic. The company could invest further in new advertising products, which represented the majority of the... View Details

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

March 2022 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Pakistan Rising: Bazaar's Growth Story (A)

By: Paul A. Gompers and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in September 2021 as Hamza Jawaid and Saad Jangda, co-founders of Bazaar technologies (Bazaar), the Pakistani high growth B2B e-commerce marketplace, are contemplating whether the year-and-a half old startup should also venture into offering financing to... View Details

Keywords: B2B; Business Model; Emerging Markets; For-Profit Firms; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Value Creation; Globalization; Competition; Expansion; Profit; Resource Allocation; Diversification; Corporate Strategy; Pakistan

February 2001
Case

Sun Microsystems, Inc.: Solaris Strategy

In the late 1990s, Sun Microsystems' Solaris has emerged as the dominant UNIX-based alternative to Microsoft for server operating systems. At the same time, the open source operating system Linux has appeared unexpectedly, and it is generating significant excitement... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Competition; Open Source Distribution; Standards

Find at Harvard

March 2022
Supplement

Pakistan Rising: Bazaar's Growth Story (B)

By: Paul A. Gompers and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in January 2022 as Hamza Jawaid and Saad Jangda, co-founders of Bazaar technologies (Bazaar), the Pakistani high growth B2B e-commerce marketplace, are looking over the performance of the newly launched “buy now, play later” feature. The traction looks... View Details

Keywords: B2B; Business Model; Emerging Markets; For-Profit Firms; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Value Creation; Globalization; Competition; Expansion; Profit; Resource Allocation; Diversification; Corporate Strategy; Pakistan

2018
Working Paper

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 5 Complementarity

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The purpose of this chapter is to relate the theory of task networks and technology set forth in previous chapters to theories of firm boundaries from economics and management. Complementary goods have more value when used together than separately. Complementarity may... View Details

Keywords: Complementarity