Publications

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March 2010 (Revised November 2010)
Case

Pandora Radio: Fire Unprofitable Customers?

By: Willy C. Shih and Halle Alicia Tecco

Pandora Radio is at a crossroads. Founder Tim Westergren has just been told by a well known VC to get rid of his unprofitable customers in order to get his costs down, but Westergren is not sure that such actions are consistent with his company's business model.... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Customer Satisfaction; Music Entertainment; Venture Capital; Profit; Growth and Development Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Internet; Media and Broadcasting Industry

February 2019 (Revised September 2019)
Case

Theranos: The Unicorn That Wasn't

By: Joseph B. Fuller and John Masko

In 2003, 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes founded a startup dedicated to making blood testing easier and more affordable. By 2015, her company, Theranos, was worth $9 billion. It boasted a star-studded board and contracts with national pharmacy and supermarket chains... View Details

Keywords: Theranos; Blood; Lab Testing; Fraud; Holmes; Balwani; Shultz; Carreyrou; Securities And Exchange Commission; Food And Drug Administration; FDA; SEC; Health Testing and Trials; Corporate Accountability; Organizational Culture; Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising; Crime and Corruption; Entrepreneurship; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

Research Summary

Organizational Identity and Firm Strategy

By: Michael L. Tushman

This research stream focuses on the role of... View Details

Research Summary

The Role of Leadership in Strategy

By: Cynthia A. Montgomery

Professor Montgomery's current research centers on the human side of strategy, and in particular the unique and abiding role leaders play in the formulation and implementation of strategy. Her article "Putting Leadership Back into Strategy,"... View Details

July 2016
Case

Spotify

By: Anita Elberse and Alexandre de Pfyffer

In November 2014, Spotify's chief content officer Ken Parks learns that record label Big Machine Records has requested the immediate removal of superstar artist Taylor Swift's entire catalogue from Spotify's music streaming service. Is it time for Spotify to reconsider... View Details

Keywords: Entertainment; Marketing; Superstar; Music; Entertainment Marketing; Media; Digital Technology; Creative Industries; Product Portfolio Management; General Management; Management; Strategy; Internet and the Web; Open Source Distribution; Creativity; Music Entertainment; Product Marketing; Music Industry

Lumumba Seegars is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches the Leadership and Organizational Behavior course (LEAD) in the MBA Required Curriculum.

Professor Seegars... View Details

Research Summary

Innovation and Performance Improvement in Health Care

By: Robert S. Huckman

This stream of Professor Huckman's work examines how organizations delivering health care can structure and manage their activities to improve operational performance. It addresses issues including the impact of various forms of familiarity on performance, the impact... View Details

Summer 2017
Article

Measuring Consumer Preferences for Video Content Provision via Cord-Cutting Behavior

By: Jeffrey Prince and Shane Greenstein

The television industry is undergoing a generational shift in structure; however, many demand-side determinants are still not well understood. We model how consumers choose video content provision among over-the-air (OTA), paid subscription to cable or satellite, and... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Service Delivery; Consumer Behavior; Television Entertainment; Service Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry

Research Summary

Consumer-Brand Relationships and CRM

By: Jill J. Avery

This highly pragmatic stream investigates the contemporary practice of customer relationship management (CRM) by exploring the phenomenological, lived experience of consumers' relationships with brands. Using a contracting theory lens supplemented with knowledge of... View Details

Article

How to Capture Value from Innovation: Shaping Intellectual Property and Industry Architecture

By: Gary P. Pisano and David J. Teece

Capturing value from innovation requires innovators to figure out how to blunt inroads into the profit stream by imitators, customers, suppliers, and other providers of complementary products and services. In making strategic decisions around technology... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Intellectual Property; Knowledge Management; Knowledge Sharing; Industry Structures; Standards; Commercialization; Value

09 Jan 2020
Blog Post

Navigating Grey in the Ever-Evolving Tech Community

Carlyn Strand Sylvester (MBA 2016) leads a small team at Netflix focused on creative testing and innovation for the streaming service’s global paid digital and acquisition channels, with an emphasis on growing the Netflix audience through... View Details

29 Apr 2022
News

Professor Cynthia Montgomery: Pivots

Research Summary

Customer-Centric Marketing Strategy

By: Rohit Deshpande

Rohit Deshpandé's research program focuses on Customer-Centricity. A stream of projects examines the interaction between corporate and national culture as they influence the development and implementation of global marketing strategies in high performance firms. This... View Details

March 2015 (Revised May 2015)
Case

Turkey and the Southern Corridor

By: Rawi Abdelal, Esel Çekin and Cigdem Çelik

In December 2014, Russia cancelled the South Stream pipeline that was envisaged to deliver natural gas through the Black Sea basin on to Europe and replaced it with a new pipeline through Turkey. The Turkish Stream was a great opportunity for Turkey to turn itself into... View Details

Keywords: Business ＆ Government Relations; Energy; Energy Security; Energy Corridor; Hub; Turkey; European Union; Eurasia; Politics; International Relations; Trade; Energy Sources; Business and Government Relations; Energy Industry; European Union; Turkey; Russia

05 Nov 2015
News

Why a single win in college football is worth millions of dollars

25 Apr 2022
Video

Professor Cynthia Montgomery: Pivots

Research Summary

Building a Corporate Culture of Health

By: Robert S. Huckman

This stream of Professor Huckman's work involves developing and implementing a survey of U.S. corporations regarding their commitments to developing a “culture of health” aimed at improving well-being for employees, consumers, communities, and the environment. This... View Details

2017
Working Paper

Cross-Boundary Teaming for Innovation: Integrating Research on Teams and Knowledge in Organizations

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Jean-François Harvey

Cross-boundary teaming, within and across organizations, is an increasingly popular strategy for innovation. Knowledge diversity is seen to expand the range of views and ideas that teams can draw upon to innovate. Yet, case studies of practice reveal that teaming... View Details

Keywords: Teams; Knowledge; Innovation; Groups and Teams; Collaborative Innovation and Invention

SSRN

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April 1993 (Revised December 1993)
Case

NEC

By: Marco Iansiti

Investigates product development practices at NEC. The company provides an intriguing example of how to build capability through a stream of product development projects. Focuses in detail on an engineering group that develops the core component of its line of... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Product Design; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Information Technology; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Information Technology Industry