Publications

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January 2020
Case

Ninja: Which Platform Wins Esports' Biggest Star?

By: Anita Elberse and Michal T. Leszczynski

It is July 2019, and the business of esports and gaming is booming. Tyler Blevins—better known as Ninja—has risen to stardom playing the immensely popular shooter game Fortnite. He has become the most followed streamer in the world and, helped by his management company... View Details

Keywords: Esports; Platforms; Superstar; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Internet and the Web; Personal Development and Career; Decision Making; Digital Platforms; Video Game Industry; Technology Industry

30 Apr 2024
Book

When Managers Set Unrealistic Expectations, Employees Cut Ethical Corners

In the 1990s, when Harvard Business School Professor Lynn S. Paine was researching and writing about examples of corporate misconduct, she hoped more businesses would take decisive action to root out fraud... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

April 2021 (Revised May 2021)
Case

Kitopi: The Brave New World of Cloud Kitchens

By: Antonio Moreno and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in February 2021 as Mohamad Ballout, co-founder and CEO of Kitopi, a Dubai-based managed cloud kitchen platform, is looking over the company’s 2020 results. Propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, delivery orders had been on the rise globally and dine-in... View Details

Keywords: Cloud Kitchens; Food; Operations; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Food and Beverage Industry; Middle East; North Africa

June 2005 (Revised May 2006)
Case

Alex Montana at ESH Manufacturing Co.

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Michael Kernish

Alex Montana sat at his desk pondering the career decision before him. Alex was director of the North American division of ESH Manufacturing, a $4.6 billion, Cleveland-based company with operations on three continents. ESH's CEO had just offered Montana a promotion to... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Decision Choices and Conditions; Personal Development and Career; Work-Life Balance; Manufacturing Industry; Cleveland

21 Dec 2011
Research & Ideas

The Most Common Strategy Mistakes

"Michael Porter didn't get to be a giant in the field of competition and strategy by hunting small game." Joan Magretta begins her new book on Harvard Business School's Michael Porter's work by noting that, from the start of his... View Details

Keywords: by Joan Magretta

19 Jun 2012
First Look

First Look: June 19

making complex decisions. Under some circumstances, unconscious thought improves decisions even more than conscious thought. Executive functioning depends on energy provided by glucose, and we know from... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2000 (Revised December 2000)
Background Note

Online Content Providers

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Alastair Brown

Describes the business model for online content providers, companies that distribute copyright content via the Internet. Focuses on their revenue and cost drivers and on the ways that online content providers create value for consumers. Also investigates the benefits... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Customers; Value Creation; Business Model; Internet and the Web; Cash Flow; Risk and Uncertainty; Growth and Development Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Decision Making; Profit; Information Industry

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October 2003 (Revised January 2016)
Exercise

The BCPC Internet Strategy Team: An Exercise

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Laura Feldman

This short fictional case forms the basis of a team decision-making exercise. The case, inspired by a real decision facing a major telecommunications company, describes a cross-functional management team convened by the CEO for the purpose of developing a... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Decision Making; Risk and Uncertainty; Information Management; Perspective; Product Launch; Internet and the Web; Knowledge Sharing; Telecommunications Industry

07 Jul 2010
First Look

First Look: July 7

that the regional location decisions of these firms upon moving to western Germany were driven by non-economic factors and heuristics rather than existing industrial conditions. Relocating firms increased... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Article

Moment-to-moment Optimal Branding in TV Commercials: Preventing Avoidance by Pulsing

By: Thales S. Teixeira, Michel Wedel and Rik Pieters

We develop a conceptual framework for understanding the impact that branding activity (the audio-visual representation of brands) and consumers' dispersion of attention have on their moment-to-moment avoidance decisions during television advertising. It formalizes this... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Decision Choices and Conditions; Television Entertainment; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Mathematical Methods

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Read Now

22 May 2007
First Look

First Look: May 22, 2007

ten hours of the crisis. Amid the uncertainty of those first hours, the leadership team must make a range of decisions to orchestrate the company's response and manage the rest... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

August 2, 2016
Article

Uncalculating Cooperation Is Used to Signal Trustworthiness

By: Jillian J. Jordan, Moshe Hoffman, Martin A. Nowak and David G. Rand

Humans frequently cooperate without carefully weighing the costs and benefits. As a result, people may wind up cooperating when it is not worthwhile to do so. Why risk making costly mistakes? Here, we present experimental evidence that reputation concerns provide an... View Details

Keywords: Social Evaluation; Experimental Economics; Moral Psychology; Cooperation; Reputation; Decision Making

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01 Jun 2023
HBS Case

A Nike Executive Hid His Criminal Past to Turn His Life Around. What If He Didn't Have To?

shot and killed a teenager. Miller had served four years in juvenile detention for that murder and had later spent five additional years in prison for a smattering of armed robberies. Eventually, while... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Apparel & Accessories

14 May 2018
Research & Ideas

Amazon vs. Whole Foods: When Cultures Collide

other hand, always prided itself on its personal touch, empowering individual stores—even individual employees—to make decisions about products that emphasize high quality, healthy, and local foods. That... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage

28 Aug 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Channels of Influence

Keywords: by Lauren Cohen, Umit G. Gurun & Christopher J. Malloy

April 2011 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Internet Securities, Inc.: Path to Sustainability

By: Lynda M. Applegate, William R. Kerr and Ryan Johnson

Founded in 1994 when the Internet was still a "toy for techies," the case is set in 1998 when Internet IPOs were red-hot. Internet Securities provides hard-to-find financial, business, economic, and political information on emerging markets. Information from over 600... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Business Model; Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Venture Capital; Cash Flow; Initial Public Offering; Analytics and Data Science; Growth and Development Strategy; Valuation