Publications

September 2023
Case

The Meteoric Rise of Skims

By: Ayelet Israeli, Jill Avery and Leonard A. Schlesinger

Since its founding in 2019 by Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede, Skims, a solutions-oriented brand creating the next generation of underwear, loungewear, and shapewear with an eye toward body-type and skin-tone inclusivity, has experienced a meteoric rise. Kardashian, who... View Details

February 2023
Case

Roblox: Virtual Commerce in the Metaverse

By: Ayelet Israeli and Nicole Tempest Keller

In 2022, Roblox had 58.8 million daily active users, including over half of all children and teens under the age of 16 in the United States. Roblox, a free-to-use “co-experience platform”, allowed users to come together in immersive 3D experiences to socialize, work,... View Details

March 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Reclaiming the Land of Purple: Purpl’s Mission to Unlock Finance in Lebanon

By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger

Karl Naim, Co-Founder and CEO of Purpl, embarked on a venture to lower remittance costs for his native Lebanon. Since October 2019, the Lebanese economy had entered a free fall as its banking sector collapsed and large swathes of its population were plunged into... View Details

Keywords: Business Startup; Fintech; Inflation; Deflation; Cross-border Frictions; Remittances; Business Startups; Diasporas; Financial Crisis; Money; Entrepreneurship; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Poverty; Financial Institutions; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Lebanon

February 2020 (Revised August 2020)
Case

San Francisco Ballet: On 'Pointe' for the Future

By: Rohit Deshpandé and Nicole Tempest Keller

The SF Ballet was regarded as one of the top ballet companies in the world. It had an enviable earned revenue percentage of almost 50% and had an internationally recognized ballet school. However, by 2019 the Ballet faced a number of challenges. Ballet was a European... View Details

Keywords: Arts; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Demographics; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Social Enterprise; Cultural Entrepreneurship; United States; San Francisco

2024
Working Paper

Moral Incoherence During Category Emergence: The Contentious Case of Connected Toys

By: Ryann Noe

Through a longitudinal study of the emergence of connected toys – physical toys that interact with digital devices – I build theory about moral incoherence: when competing views about the moral worth of a category persist over time. During the course of their... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Technology Adoption; Moral Sensibility; Market Entry and Exit; Consumer Behavior

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January 2021 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Eaton Corporation: Portfolio Transformation and the Cost of Capital (Abridged)

By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher

In 2000, Eaton Corporation was a broadly diversified industrial conglomerate. But its strategy was evolving and its focus was narrowing around “power management” and more recently on “intelligent power,” the use of digitally enabled products and services designed to... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Conglomerates; Business Divisions; Cost of Capital; Corporate Finance; Value; Valuation; Industrial Products Industry; United States; Denmark; Republic of Ireland

January–February 2014
Article

The New Patterns of Innovation

By: Rashik Parmar, Ian Mackenzie, David Cohn and David Gann

The search for new business ideas—and models—is hit-or-miss at most firms. Tackling the problem systematically, of course, will improve the odds of success. Traditional ways of framing this search examine competencies, customer needs, and shifts in the landscape. This... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Information Technology; Innovation and Invention

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September 2002 (Revised October 2002)
Case

Managing Knowledge and Learning at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and David Kiron

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) faces a serious loss of knowledge--both because of the "faster, better, cheaper" mandate for Mars missions and from the retirement of key personnel. An extensive knowledge management system for NASA/JPL includes formal knowledge-capture... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Management; Knowledge Dissemination; Leadership Development; Internet and the Web; Risk and Uncertainty; Organizational Culture; Retirement; Human Resources; Human Capital

14 May 2018
Research & Ideas

Amazon vs. Whole Foods: When Cultures Collide

he says. “That might work in a digital platform, where you have tons of data on customer history you can use to drive a recommendation engine, but in a store environment, there is a lot of learning that takes place from employees... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage

November 2022
Teaching Note

Proximie: Using XR Technology to Create Borderless Operating Rooms

By: Ariel D. Stern, Alpana Thapar and Menna Hassan

Founded by Nadine Hachach-Haram in 2016, Proximie was a digital medicine platform that used mixed reality and a host of digital audio and visual tools to enable clinicians, proctors, and medical device company personnel to be virtually present in operating rooms (ORs),... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Business Growth and Maturation; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Decision Making; Health Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

24 Oct 2023
Research & Ideas

When Tech Platforms Identify Black-Owned Businesses, White Customers Buy

areas with less anti-Black racial bias. “Collectively, our findings suggest that digital platforms can effectively boost the performance of minority firms, particularly during a time of increased national awareness of the challenges that... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Food & Beverage

11 Apr 2023
Research & Ideas

Is Amazon a Retailer, a Tech Firm, or a Media Company? How AI Can Help Investors Decide

that maintain the system, review the categories and how they classify companies. "In the last 20 years, the boundaries of businesses have become much more diffuse because of digital technology driven business models." In contrast, the... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Consumer Products; Real Estate; Financial Services; Retail

28 Nov 2018
HBS Case

On Target: Rethinking the Retail Website

provide new opportunities,” Datar says. “Even today, not all retailers have embraced data fully to the point where they think of themselves as data companies, and it might be why many companies are suffering.” Several traditional retailers are indeed tripping over the... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Retail

June 2020
Teaching Note

Armarium: Luxury Fashion Brands for Rent

By: Jill Avery and David Fubini

Armarium, a two-sided digital platform that offered consumers the opportunity to rent the most coveted, current season high fashion clothing and accessories from the top global luxury brands, had emerged from its first sales season with two distinct customer segments:... View Details

Keywords: Luxury Brand; Fashion; Sharing Economy; Two-sided Marketplace; Target Market; Customer Selection; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Luxury; Two-Sided Platforms; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Customer Value and Value Chain; Fashion Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; North America

April 2021
Case

Transforming BlackBerry: From Smartphones to Software

By: Ranjay Gulati and Nicole Tempest Keller

On the verge of failure, BlackBerry brought in John Chen as CEO in 2013 to orchestrate a bold turnaround of the company. Once an iconic leader in the smartphone market, BlackBerry was best known for its tactile QWERTY keyboard, strong security, and a focus on business... View Details

Keywords: Pivot; Managing Change; Turnaround; Smartphone; Change Management; Leading Change; Transformation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Digital Platforms; Change; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Competitive Strategy; Cybersecurity; Technology Industry; Transportation Industry; Canada

07 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

How Teams Work: Lessons from the Pandemic

meetings, and made an effort to replicate them online, “the results were striking,” the researchers write. “The challenge of replicating ‘hallway’ conversations via digital communication led interviewees to realize that these... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

10 Feb 2020
In Practice

6 Ways That Emerging Technology Is Disrupting Business Strategy

Even though the internet has been publicly available for almost three decades, executives at just about every company are wrestling with how to use digital technology to advance their business strategy. We asked professors from Harvard... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

27 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Hard Work Isn't Enough: How to Find Your Edge

strategies to give it headwinds and tailwinds,” she says. “That’s when you’re unstoppable.” About the Author Dina Gerdeman is senior writer at Harvard Business School Working Knowledge. HBS Digital Media Producer Amelia Kunhardt produced... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

June 2016 (Revised January 2018)
Case

Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Growing from One Thousand to One Million Customers

By: Thales S. Teixeira and Morgan Brown

By 2016, two-sided online platforms (or marketplaces) were pervasive among the highest growing internet startups around. These marketplaces sought to match suppliers of assets for rent, physical products or services with customers demanding them. Among the most notable... View Details

Keywords: Airbnb; Etsy; Uber; Growth Hacking; Two Sided Markets; Digital Platforms; Marketing; Digital Marketing; Growth Management; Service Industry