Publications

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October 1995 (Revised June 1996)
Case

Li & Fung (Trading) Ltd.

Li & Fung, one of the largest export trading companies in Asia, works primarily as an agent to connect U.S. and European manufacturers and retailers of nondurable, mass-market consumer goods with suppliers located all over East Asia who manufacture products according... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Marketplace Matching; Supply Chain Management; Trade; Manufacturing Industry; Retail Industry; Asia; United States; Europe

16 Jun 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Search Diversion, Rent Extraction and Competition

Keywords: by Andrei Hagiu & Bruno Jullien; Retail

20 Jul 2009
Research & Ideas

Markets or Communities? The Best Ways to Manage Outside Innovation

platform. The core insight here is to create incentives for many entrants to generate lots of variety of products and services on the platform. The firm plays a very light gatekeeper role. Q: Who inside a... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

2010
Book

The New Science of Retailing: How Analytics Are Transforming the Supply Chain and Improving Performance

By: Marshall Fisher and Ananth Raman

Retailers today are drowning in data but lacking in insight: They have huge volumes of information at their disposal. But they're unsure of how to sort through it and use it to make smart decisions. The result? They're struggling with profit-sapping supply chain... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Logistics; Supply Chain Management; Mathematical Methods; Retail Industry

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11 Oct 2007
Working Paper Summaries

How Firms Respond to Being Rated

Keywords: by Aaron K. Chatterji & Michael W. Toffel

January 2025 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Blue Frontier: Disrupting Air Conditioning

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jacob A. Small

Serial entrepreneur Daniel Betts founded Blue Frontier in South Florida to offer a climate-friendly solution to increase air conditioning efficiency and dehumidify using new technology he developed. Backed by significant venture capital, Blue Frontier had to choose... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Technological Innovation; Market Entry and Exit; Performance Efficiency; Business Strategy; Florida

November 2002 (Revised June 2003)
Case

China's Rural Leap Forward

By: Bruce R. Scott and Jamie Matthews

Collectively owned township and village enterprises (TVEs) played a pivotal role in China's rapid growth during the 1980s and 1990s. Although they originated in the policies and institutions of the Maoist era, TVEs thrived only after Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms... View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Public Sector; Public Ownership; Development Economics; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Macroeconomics; Emerging Markets; China

The New Rules for Bringing Innovations to Market, Harvard Business Review, March 2004

It's tough to get consumers to adopt innovations--and it's getting tougher all the time. That's because more and more markets are taking on the characteristics of networks. The interconnections among today's companies are so plentiful that often a... View Details

03 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 3

authors provide a checklist that managers can use on a daily basis to monitor their progress-enhancing behaviors. Read the article: http://hbr.org/2011/05/the-power-of-small-wins/ar/1 The Best Way to Name Your Product 2.0 Authors:Marco... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2003 (Revised May 2006)
Case

Eyeblaster: Enabling the Next Generation of Online Advertising

By: Elie Ofek

Eyeblaster management has to decide on the best course of action to sustain its momentum from enabling online rich media advertising. Pressure from competitors is forcing the company to re-evaluate its previous marketing strategy that focused primarily on getting... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Marketing Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Performance Evaluation; Digital Marketing; Growth and Development Strategy

November – December 2011
Article

Competitive Strategy for Open Source Software

By: Vineet Kumar, Brett Gordon and Kannan Srinivasan

Commercial open source software (COSS) products-privately developed software based on publicly available source code-represent a rapidly growing, multibillion-dollar market. A unique aspect of competition in the COSS market is that many open source licenses require... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Competitive Strategy; Product Development; Growth and Development; Markets; Motivation and Incentives; Quality; Policy; Perspective; Profit; Open Source Distribution; Emerging Markets

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Read Now

02 Mar 2007
What Do You Think?

What Is the Government’s Role in US Health Care?

Original Article Healthcare will grab more and more headlines in the U.S. in the coming months. Any service that is on track to consume 40 percent of the gross national product of the world's largest economy by the year 2050 will be hard... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Health

September 2003 (Revised September 2004)
Case

Hearthside Homes

By: Jason R. Barro, Brian J. Hall and Aaron Zimmerman

Investigates the "controllability problem" inherent in bonus systems. Ideally, an incentive system accurately measures performance in areas that the individual can control. But most measures are either too broad, including factors outside the influence of the employee,... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Housing; Performance Evaluation; Construction Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Real Estate Industry

November 2009 (Revised May 2017)
Case

Miracle Life, Inc.

By: Lauren Cohen and Christopher Malloy

Miracle Life is a firm with a unique setup and organizational structure. Specifically, it is a network marketing firm, also known as multi-level marketing (MLM) firm, which utilizes a large distributor base and depends on this individual distributor base to sell its... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Cash Flow; Stocks; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Marketing; Distribution; Organizational Structure

25 Feb 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Fear of Rejection? Tiered Certification and Transparency

Keywords: by Emmanuel Farhi, Josh Lerner & Jean Tirole

2013
Dissertation

Designing Freemium: A Model of Consumer Usage, Upgrade, and Referral Dynamics

By: Clarence Lee, Vineet Kumar and Sunil Gupta

Abstract. Over the past decade "freemium" (free + premium) has become the dominant business model among internet start-ups for its ability to acquire and monetize a large install-base with limited marketing resources. Freemium is a hybrid strategy where a firm offers... View Details

Keywords: Discrete-Continuous Choice Dynamic Structural Models; Bayesian Estimation; Word-of-Mouth; Digital Services; Freemium; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Motivation and Incentives; Marketing Strategy; Internet and the Web; Consumer Behavior; Marketing Reference Programs; Business Startups

18 Apr 2013
Working Paper Summaries

The Impact of Pooling on Throughput Time in Discretionary Work Settings: An Empirical Investigation of Emergency Department Length of Stay

Keywords: by Hummy Song, Anita L. Tucker & Karen L. Murrell; Health

2017
Chapter

The Swedish Competitiveness Scorecard 2017

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

The Swedish Competitiveness Scorecard assesses Sweden's current competitiveness across a broad range of indicators, applying an impact logic from competitiveness fundamentals to productivity and prosperity outcomes. On these indicators Sweden is compared to a peer... View Details

Keywords: Competitiveness; Sweden; Economic Policy; Economy; Policy; Competition; Sweden