Publications
Publications
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- Faculty Publications (625)
- September 2021 (Revised December 2023)
- Case
On the Bubble: Startup Bootstrapping
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Tom Quinn and Annelena Lobb
Bubble was a software company in the low-code/no-code market, making tools that allowed users without traditional programming backgrounds or technical skills to build software. The case covers cofounder Joshua Haas’s engineering background, as he experienced a high... View Details
Keywords: Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Plan; Disruption; Transformation; Trends; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Relationship Management; Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Equity; Executive Compensation; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Job Interviews; Growth and Development Strategy; Ownership Stake; Opportunities; Applications and Software; Technology Adoption; Technology Industry; Web Services Industry; New York (city, NY); California; France
- September 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
Telepass: From Tolling to Mobility Platform
By: Chiara Farronato, Stefano Denicolai and Sarah Mehta
Telepass, until very recently the sole processor of electronic toll payments on Italy’s highways, has ambitions beyond tolling. Since the mid-2010s, the company has been expanding into adjacent services. In 2017, Telepass launched TelepassPay—a mobile payment... View Details
Keywords: Mobile Payment; App; Mobility Services; Analysis; Change; Change Management; Transformation; Transition; Innovation and Invention; Strategy; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Transportation; Transportation Networks; Value; Value Creation; Consumer Behavior; Technology Industry; Transportation Industry; Insurance Industry; Europe; Italy; Milan
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Demand for Executive Skills
By: Stephen Hansen, Raffaella Sadun, Tejas Ramdas and Joseph B. Fuller
We use a unique corpus of job descriptions for C-suite positions to document skills requirements in top managerial occupations across a large sample of firms. A novel algorithm maps the text of each executive search into six separate skill clusters reflecting... View Details
- September 13, 2021
- Article
Managing Through Crunch Time—Without Burning Out Your Team
By: Flavio Serapiao, Andrew Hill and Boris Groysberg
Crunch times—the long, stressful hours of work that are often required in the final weeks before a new product launch—can have an inordinate impact on the success of businesses and they’re powerful shapers of organizational culture. Effective leaders understand that... View Details
- September 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
STARZPLAY: Shooting for the Stars
By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini and Alpana Thapar
In mid-2021, Maaz Sheikh, cofounder and CEO of STARZPLAY, a Dubai-based subscription video on demand (SVOD) provider that catered to the Middle East and North Africa region, was wrestling with how to find the right balance between continued subscriber growth and... View Details
Keywords: Pricing; Growth; Profitability; Subscription Business; Business Model Innovation; Fintech; Subscription; Performance Measurement; Promotions; International Marketing; Streaming; Competition; Marketing; Price; Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Performance; Measurement and Metrics; Business Model; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Middle East; North Africa
- August 2021 (Revised March 2023)
- Technical Note
Crossing Borders and Cultures: Global Branding
By: Jill Avery and Michael Moynihan
Many of the world's most valuable brands are global in scope. They benefit from shared meanings, systems, and stories across markets, and much of their allure for consumers lies in their "global-ness." Creating value from global brands requires successfully managing... View Details
- August 2021
- Case
Mylestone: Can Multiple Pivots Preserve the Life of a Death Tech Startup?
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Marilyn Morgan Westner
Dave Balter and Jim Myers co-founded Mylestone, a death tech startup that applied technology to transform how grieving people memorialize the dead. The startup addressed a cultural problem and promised to solve a pressing need in the antiquated, multi-billion dollar... View Details
- August 2021 (Revised November 2023)
- Supplement
Coats: Supply Chain Challenges
By: Willy C. Shih
Coats, the largest thread maker in the world, transformed its business to digital colour measurement so that it could respond better to customer demand in the garment industry for rapid product cycles and more fragmented colour choices. Its embrace of digital colour... View Details
- August 2021 (Revised November 2023)
- Teaching Note
Coats: Supply Chain Challenges
By: Willy C. Shih
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 621-115.
Faced with continuing cost pressure, should Coats, the world's largest thread maker, relocate some of its make-to-stock manufacturing to an ultra-low-cost region while leaving make-to-order demand close to customers? View Details
- August 2021
- Supplement
Coats: Supply Chain Challenges: Spreadsheet Supplement
By: Willy C. Shih
Coats, the largest thread maker in the world, transformed its business to digital colour measurement so that it could respond better to customer demand in the garment industry for rapid product cycles and more fragmented colour choices. Its embrace of digital colour... View Details
- August 2021
- Case
Apax Digital
By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
The Apax Digital team faced important decisions as they contemplated raising a second fund. Apax Digital Fund I was a $1.1 billion vehicle focused on mid-market growth equity and growth buyouts in the technology sector. The fund had performed well, and the Managing... View Details
- July 2021 (Revised September 2024)
- Case
Supreme: Remaining Cool While Pursuing Growth
By: Jill Avery, Sandrine Crener, Marie-Cecile Cervellon and Ranjit Thind
Following VF Corporation’s acquisition of cult streetwear brand Supreme, consumers and industry pundits were nervous that becoming part of a large, public corporation would put an end to Supreme’s slow and careful growth trajectory as pressure for quarterly results... View Details
- July 2021 (Revised August 2021)
- Supplement
Airbnb Emerges from the Pandemic: Lessons for Stakeholder Governance (B)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Allison M. Ciechanover
As the COVID pandemic spread in early 2020, global travel ground to a halt. For Airbnb, the San Francisco-based platform for renting accommodations, the impact was both swift and severe as revenues plummeted more than 70% over the prior year. Responding to the sudden... View Details
Keywords: Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Leadership; Two-Sided Platforms; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Value Creation; Decision Making; Goals and Objectives; Travel Industry; Tourism Industry; Service Industry; United States
- 2021
- Article
Nudging the Commute: Using Behaviorally-Informed Interventions to Promote Sustainable Transportation
By: Ashley Whillans, Joseph Sherlock, Jessica Roberts, Shibeal O'Flaherty, Lyndsay Gavin, Holly Dykstra and Michael Daly
Dramatic reductions in carbon emissions must take place immediately. A human-centric method of reducing environmental impacts is to “nudge” employees away from single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs) toward more sustainable commuting options. While an abundance of research... View Details
- June 10, 2021
- Article
Preparing Hospitals for the Next Pandemic
By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Barak D. Richman
The COVID-19 epidemic response has shown that the U.S. is blessed with heroic physicians and other health care providers, researchers, and facilities. But it has also revealed a health care system that was woefully unprepared for the surge of pandemic patients. In the... View Details
- June 2021
- Case
Akira Fukabori and Kevin Kajitani at avatarin (A)
By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards
In 2016, Akira Fukabori and Kevin Kajitani, aeronautical engineers at All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd., began to wonder why, in a world of accelerating globalization and digital connectivity, those who lived in far-remote villages or impoverished urban areas could not... View Details
Keywords: Agility; Ecosystem; Innovation Ecosystems; Crowdsourcing; Open Innovation; Partnership; Government; Collaboration; Co-creation; Purpose; Impact; Social Impact; Movement; Organizational Behavior; Organizational Ambidexterity; Ambidexterity; Culture; Culture Change; Global Teams; Experimentation; Space; Airline Industry; Start-up; Platform Business; Platform Strategy; Platform; Digital; Robotics; Robots; Mobility; Strategy; COVID-19; Intrapreneurship; Public-private Partnership; XPRIZE; Space Industry; Avatar; Telepresence; Innovation Lab; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Partners and Partnerships; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Alignment; Leadership; Leading Change; Diversity; Organizational Culture; Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Transportation Industry; Aerospace Industry; Japan
- June 2021
- Case
Akira Fukabori and Kevin Kajitani at avatarin (A) (Abridged)
By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards
In 2016, Akira Fukabori and Kevin Kajitani, aeronautical engineers at All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd., began to wonder why, in a world of accelerating globalization and digital connectivity, those who lived in far-remote villages or impoverished urban areas could not... View Details
Keywords: Agility; Ecosystem; Innovation Ecosystems; Innovation; Crowdsourcing; XPRIZE; Open Innovation; Partnership; Government; Collaboration; Co-creation; Purpose; Impact; Social Impact; Movement; Organizational Behavior; Organizational Ambidexterity; Ambidexterity; Culture; Culture Change; Global Teams; Experimentation; Space; Space Industry; Airline Industry; Start-up; Platform Business; Platform Strategy; Platform; Digital; Robotics; Robots; Avatar; Telepresence; Innovation Lab; Mobility; COVID-19; Intrapreneurship; Public-private Partnership; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Partners and Partnerships; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Alignment; Leadership; Leading Change; Diversity; Organizational Culture; Change Management; Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Transportation Industry; Aerospace Industry; Japan
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Demand for Executive Skills
By: Stephen Hansen, Tejas Ramdas, Raffaella Sadun and Joseph B. Fuller
We use a unique corpus of job descriptions for C-suite positions to document skills requirements in top managerial occupations across a large sample of firms. A novel algorithm maps the text of each executive search into six separate skill clusters reflecting... View Details
- 2021
- Chapter
Digital Transformation and the Salesforce: Observations, Warnings, and Recommendations
Sales is a crucial test for organizational change, including productive use (or not) of new technologies. Changes in selling always have wider organizational implications, because so many other decisions and resource commitments in firms depend upon demand forecasts... View Details
- May 2021
- Simulation
Customer Compatibility Exercise Application
By: Ryan W. Buell
Customers impose considerable variability on the operating systems of service organizations. They show up when they wish (arrival variability), they ask for different things (request variability), they vary in their willingness and ability to help themselves (effort... View Details