Publications

March 2009
Case

Incept LLC and Confluent Surgical (A)

By: Bhaskar Chakravorti, Toby E. Stuart and James Weber

A venture capitalist must decide whether to invest in a medical technology company that licenses intellectual property from a privately held IP holding company based on a platform technology. Entrepreneurs Amar Sawhney and Fred Khosravi founded Incept LLC to... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Intellectual Property; Rights; Agreements and Arrangements; Partners and Partnerships; Trust; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

May 2025
Supplement

On (B): The Cyclon Spins On

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Karolin Frankenberger, Sascha Mader and Karen Elterman

A follow-up to the On case (723-430), this short case explores how the performance athletic shoe company On expanded its Cyclon subscription and recycling program through 2024, adding two new shoe models to the subscription and a one-time-purchase recyclable T-shirt. View Details

November 2022
Background Note

The Future of E-Commerce: Lessons from the Livestream Wars in China

By: Ayelet Israeli, Jeremy Yang and Billy Chan

This note explores the emerging multi-billion dollar commerce trend of livestream commerce. Livestream commerce is the sale of goods or services directly to consumers via live shows on digital platforms (such as social media or e-commerce platforms). It is a form of... View Details

TeachingInterests

Field Course: Social Innovation Lab

This course provides students an opportunity to address a social enterprise topic with the discipline of business tools and techniques. Students will work in teams, choosing among three types of projects: a) developing a business plan for your own social enterprise;... View Details

Article

How Direct-to-Consumer Brands Can Continue to Grow

By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Daniel Corsten, Matt Higgins and Leonard A. Schlesinger

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands such as Allbirds, Casper, Peloton, and Warby Parker have creatively found a weakness in the marketing citadel of incumbent brands. By using data gleaned from daily interactions with customers, these brands have been able to adapt how... View Details

Keywords: Direct-to-consumer; Customer Journey; Business Model; Customer Relationship Management; Growth and Development Strategy

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12 Aug 2008
First Look

First Look: August 12, 2008

Amazon.com: The Brink of Bankruptcy Harvard Business School Case 809-014 Enables a thorough analysis of the Amazon.com business model and its evolution from 1994 to 2001. The... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January–February 2023
Article

The Overlooked Key to a Successful Scale-Up

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Davide Sola and Martin Kupp

Many start-ups experience enormous popularity and runaway growth, but only a few go on to become stable giants. What separates them from the pack? They all go through a developmental stage called extrapolation, say three business school professors.
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Keywords: Entrepreneurship And Strategy; Scalability; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Entrepreneurship

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11 Dec 2007
First Look

First Look: December 11, 2007

stock prices had been reached. Despite Fisher's poor prediction on that occasion, he played a neglected, but significant role in the growth of the forecasting industry and in the rise of a class of early business analysts. An... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

24 Jan 2024
Op-Ed

Why Boeing’s Problems with the 737 MAX Began More Than 25 Years Ago

older airplane models at the expense of all-new aircraft. Secondly, in 2001 Condit moved Boeing’s headquarters from its original home in Seattle to Chicago—all to gain $60 million in state and local tax credits over 20 years. With none of... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George; Air Transportation; Transportation; Aerospace

March 2023
Teaching Note

VideaHealth: Building the AI Factory

By: Karim R. Lakhani

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 621-021. The case “VideaHealth: Building the AI Factory” examines the creation of dental startup VideaHealth (Videa) and the development of its artificial intelligence (AI)-led business strategy through the eyes of founder and CEO Florian... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Applications and Software; Business Model; Marketing Strategy; Product Development; Health Industry; Technology Industry

February 2010 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Local Motors: Designed by the Crowd, Built by the Customer

By: Michael I. Norton and Jeremy Dann

In the wake of the meltdown among U.S. auto manufacturers in 2009, Jay Rogers, CEO of Local Motors, has a new approach for the automotive industry: decide which models are produced through online design competitions, and then allow customers to "build their own cars"... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Customer Focus and Relationships; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Product Design; Product Development; Creativity; Social and Collaborative Networks; Customization and Personalization; Auto Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States

July 2020
Article

Who Should Select New Employees, Headquarters or the Unit Manager? Consequences of Centralizing Hiring at a Retail Chain

By: Carolyn Deller and Tatiana Sandino

We examine how changing the allocation of hiring decision rights in a multiunit organization affects employee-firm match quality, contingent on a unit’s circumstances. Our research site, a U.S. retail chain, switched from a decentralized hiring model (hiring by... View Details

Keywords: Control; Selection; Decentralization; Company Values; Retail Chains; Employees; Selection and Staffing; Local Range; Business Headquarters; Decision Making

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14 Feb 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Does It Pay to Be a Whistleblower?

Keywords: Re: Jonas Heese; Banking

29 Aug 2006
First Look

First Look: August 29, 2006

the firm-size distribution; controlling for level of economic development, regulation, institutional constraints, and other variables that might affect the business environment; and using different empirical specifications. We further... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

30 May 2023
Research & Ideas

Can AI Predict Whether Shoppers Would Pick Crest or Colgate?

but large language models like generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) may allow companies to rely on AI to uncover consumers’ tastes, according to new research from Harvard Business School and Microsoft.... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

October 2013 (Revised April 2015)
Case

Myomo: Getting Sales in Motion

By: Frank V. Cespedes, Shikhar Ghosh and Matthew Preble

In late 2012, the management team of Myomo, a startup which had designed a unique myoelectric arm brace for patients with dysfunctional arms, was deciding which of the three sales models the company had tested to pursue as its sales strategy going forward. Each model... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Marketing Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Health Care and Treatment; Business Startups; Sales; Growth and Development Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Health Industry

September 2023
Technical Note

Free and Open Source Software and Hardware

By: Frank Nagle

This technical note surveys the concepts of free and open source software and hardware. It introduces the concepts in general, providing a brief history of their development and numerous examples of how companies employ them in practice. Further, it identifies various... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Nonprofit Organizations; Competitive Strategy; Patents; Information Technology; Business Model; Open Source Distribution; Applications and Software; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry

Research Summary

Reinvention and "Technology Reemergence"

By: Ryan L. Raffaelli

The prevailing view of industry and technology evolution has emphasized displacement, on the assumption that old technologies and organizational forms will disappear when newer ones arrive. Professor Raffaelli's research challenges this view by illuminating how and... View Details

Keywords: Turnarounds; Innovation And Management; Technology Evolution; Change Management; Disruption; Transformation; Transition

2013
Book

Beyond the Idea: How to Execute Innovation in Any Organization

By: Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble

By offering specific action steps, Beyond the Idea extends the elegant conceptual insights from How Stella Saved the Farm, Govindarajan and Trimble's parable. Beyond the Idea shows exactly how to: - Build a team with a very particular structure, one... View Details