Publications

SSRN

December 1996 (Revised June 1998)
Case

Midnight Networks, Inc.

By: H. Kent Bowen and Marilyn Matis

Midnight Networks, Inc., is a small computer network validation company. This case describes how the five founders built their business from operations earnings and how they established "best practices" operational processes to run their firm successfully. Operational... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Operations; Organizational Culture; Applications and Software; Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Information Technology Industry; Massachusetts

11 Feb 2025
HBS Seminar

Brett Hollenbeck, University of California, Los Angeles

March 2009 (Revised September 2013)
Case

Yelp

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, David Chen and Aaron Smith

Yelp was a popular online destination for reviews of local establishments, written by volunteer Internet users and read by 60 million people per month. However, the company was far from profitable. The CEO needs to decide between two options to increase the revenue.... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Business Model; Profit; Revenue; Marketing Strategy; Sales; Internet and the Web; Advertising Industry

20 Nov 2017
Research & Ideas

How Independent Bookstores Have Thrived in Spite of Amazon.com

Click HereIndependent bookstores provide a story of hope by focusing on core values that include community, curation, and convening. (Video by Amelia Kunhardt) When Amazon.com burst onto the nascent online retail scene in 1995, the future... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel (with video by Amelia Kunhardt); Retail

September 2010
Case

Angie's List

Angie's List is a paid subscription-based service that gives consumers online access to member-submitted reviews of plumbers, electricians, and other home service providers. Customer and revenue growth are strong, but customer acquisition costs are high and the company... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Price; Competitive Advantage; Product Launch; Service Industry; United States

08 Mar 2004
Research & Ideas

Creating Value in Your Business Ecosystem

Assistant, which helps new sellers prepare professional-looking online listings, and its Turbo Lister service, which tracks and manages thousands of bulk listings on home computers. The company has also established and maintained... View Details

Keywords: by Marco Iansiti & Roy Levien

Ayelet Israeli

Ayelet Israeli is the Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School Marketing Unit. She is the co-founder of the Customer Intelligence Lab at the Digital Data Design (D^3) Institute at Harvard Business School. She teaches... View Details

Keywords: retailing; e-commerce industry; internet; automotive

October 1998
Case

Excite, Inc.--1998

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Kelley Porter

Reviews recent trends and the evolution of the emerging portal industry, highlighting the competitive position of the industry's major participants. The business model of Excite, Inc., and its major competitors are presented. In addition, the case looks at the new... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Business Model; Emerging Markets; Transformation; Market Entry and Exit; Industry Structures; Web Services Industry

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2017
Working Paper

Nowcasting the Local Economy: Using Yelp Data to Measure Economic Activity

By: Edward L. Glaeser, Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca

Can new data sources from online platforms help to measure local economic activity? Government datasets from agencies such as the U.S. Census Bureau provide the standard measures of economic activity at the local level. However, these statistics typically appear only... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Analytics and Data Science; Local Range; Social and Collaborative Networks

SSRN

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April 2012 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Dovernet

By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred

This case illustrates the implications of using stringent performance measurement systems to create performance pressure, motivate employee achievement, and sharpen a firm's competitiveness. It opens by describing the downsides of the ruthlessly competitive culture at... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Information Technology; Competitive Advantage; Decision Choices and Conditions; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Compensation and Benefits; Web Services Industry; Information Technology Industry; Vancouver

14 Dec 2015
Research & Ideas

Airbnb Hosts Discriminate Against African-American Guests

many online marketplaces of the so-called sharing economy. “To facilitate trust, many online platforms like Airbnb encourage sellers to provide personal profiles and even to post pictures of themselves” says... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Accommodations; Web Services

November 2016 (Revised May 2017)
Case

The Black List

By: Henry McGee and Sarah McAra

Franklin Leonard founded The Black List in 2005 as an innovative approach to identifying potential hit movie scripts via crowdsourcing. As the annual Black List proved to hold the scripts of some of Hollywood’s most successful films, from “Slumdog Millionaire” to... View Details

Keywords: Screenwriting; Independent Production; Hollywood; Film Development; Film Distribution; Film Financing; Manging Uncertainty; Barriers To Entry; Globalization; Digitalization; Film Entertainment; Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Media; Strategy; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; United States

23 Jul 2013
First Look

First Look: July 23

Restaurant Hygiene Inspections and Online Reviews By: Kang, Jun Seok, Polina Kuznetsova, Yejin Choi, and Michael Luca Abstract—Restaurant hygiene inspections are often cited as a success story of public... View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

09 Oct 2012
First Look

First Look: October 9

markets, and the theory of market design. Publisher's Link: http://www.amazon.com/Auctions-Market-Mechanisms-Their-Applications/dp/3642309127 Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century Authors:Thomas H. Davenport and D.J. Patil Publication:Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2011 (Revised December 2012)
Case

Demand Media

By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

Google search had helped Demand Media grow to be a $1.9 billion online publisher. Then, social media and smartphone apps began to change the way people navigated the Internet. How should Demand Media respond? The business ran on a radically new model in which a stable... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Information Publishing; Consumer Behavior; Customization and Personalization; Internet and the Web; Publishing Industry

April 2020
Article

Collective Emotions

By: Amit Goldenberg, David Garcia, Eran Halperin and James J. Gross

When analyzing situations in which multiple people are experiencing emotions together—whether the emotions are positive or negative and whether the situations are online or offline—we are intuitively drawn to the emotions of each individual in the situation. However,... View Details

Keywords: Emotions; Social Psychology

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24 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

Uncovering Racial Discrimination in the ‘Sharing Economy’

The "sharing economy" is a burgeoning business model in which people offer their personal belongings and personal services to others, usually through online marketplaces that facilitate the transactions. It seems absolutely egalitarian at... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Construction; Real Estate; Advertising

Article

Positioning Brands Against Large Competitors to Increase Sales

By: Neeru Paharia, Jill Avery and Anat Keinan

We explore the effect of having a large dominant competitor and show the conditions under which focusing on a competitive threat, rather than hiding it, can actually help a brand. We demonstrate through lab and field studies that highlighting a large competitor's size... View Details

Keywords: Brands; Brand Management; Brand Positioning; Competitive Positioning; Brands and Branding; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Air Transportation Industry; United States