Publications

03 Apr 2006
What Do You Think?

Has Globalization Reached Its Peak?

powerful as, and less responsible than, the countries in which they operated. Now the focus of interest seems to be different, if one believes the author of a book published several months ago, End of the Line: The Rise and Coming Fall of... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

08 Jun 2009
Research & Ideas

The Return of the Salesman

began to appear in the 1990s, with French historian Laurence Fontaine's Histoire du colportage en Europe: XVe-XIXe siècle, a work translated into English and published by Duke University Press as History of Pedlars in Europe in 1996. This... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

30 Jun 2020
Book

Capitalism Is More at Risk Than Ever

Administration and Senior Associate Dean for International Development. Capitalism at Risk is published by Harvard Business Review Press. Bower and Paine discussed key themes and business examples in our email Q&A. Martha Lagace: What... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

14 Dec 2010
Op-Ed

Tax US Companies to Spur Spending

been a saving grace in ensuring that the financial crisis did not cause further damage to the economy. With traditional monetary and fiscal policy instruments seemingly exhausted, the mobilization of that cash hoard can prove critical to reviving the economy. The... View Details

Keywords: by Mihir A. Desai

29 Jul 2002
Research & Ideas

Get Off the Dime!

accept new software as long as they suffered little inconvenience and little change except reduced costs. They wanted their financial reporting to have their traditional look and feel. They wanted to do maintenance scheduling their way... View Details

Keywords: by John P. Kotter & Dan S. Cohen

September 2024
Case

Eat App: Building and Monetizing an End-to-End Dining Experience Solution

By: Elie Ofek and Ahmed Dahawy

Founded in 2015 in Bahrain, Eat App was an up-and-coming player in the global restaurant management software business. In early 2024, having shifted to a product-led growth strategy, the company’s co-founders faced a host of decisions that could greatly impact their... View Details

Keywords: Price; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Marketing; Negotiation Deal; Internet and the Web; Value Creation; Profit; Revenue; Applications and Software; Product; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Bahrain; United Arab Emirates; Abu Dhabi; Dubai

May 2021
Supplement

Hello Alfred: Come Home Happy — Operating the Business Model Exercise, Instructor Version

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Christopher Payton

On a mission to "automate the on-demand economy," Harvard Business School classmates Marcela Sapone and Jessica Beck launched Hello Alfred in 2013 to provide subscribers with an "Alfred" to complete various chores for a monthly fee. In early 2016, the company has built... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Internet and the Web; Business Startups; Service Operations; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Service Industry; New York (city, NY); Boston

June 2010
Teaching Note

Playing with Fire at Sittercity (A) (TN)

By: Noam T. Wasserman and Rachel Gordon

Note: This mini-Teaching Note was created to provide a brief overview of the teaching plan for this case. Please see the upcoming, fuller Teaching Note for an extensive overview of the underlying research, pedagogical approaches, and other teaching issues. View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Service Delivery; Family Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion; Service Industry; Boston

01 Nov 1999
Lessons from the Classroom

What’s Next & So What? Leading in the 21st Century

industries that can be anybody, anywhere. While some observers have dismissed the phenomenon as exclusive to "a few crazy Internet companies in California," the reality is this: the value of... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

24 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

How To Be an Angel Investor

the big Internet wins of the late 1990s, you may not know a thing about early-stage investing. By the same token, if you had 10 failures in multiple industries, you might not know anything either. But you will if you keep paying... View Details

Keywords: by David Amis & Howard Stevenson

October 2022
Case

EducationSuperHighway 2.0

By: William A. Sahlman, Allison M. Ciechanover and Emily Grandjean

In 2012, Evan Marwell launched EducationSuperHighway (ESH) to address a major problem: though most public K-12 schools in the US had access to the Internet, only roughly 30% had true broadband access that would enable every student to have high speed connectivity. ... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Social Entrepreneurship; Social Issues; Leading Change; Early Childhood Education; Infrastructure; Internet and the Web; Telecommunications Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Telecommunications Industry; United States; San Francisco

01 Feb 2016
Research & Ideas

CEOs and Coaches: How Important is Organizational 'Fit?'

enough? Do companies often try to fit square pegs in round holes when they hire exceptional managers? Does finding a “good fit” matter and does a “good fit” create value for a team or a company? Research has shown, quantitatively, that... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg & Abhijit Naik; Sports

October 2015
Case

Facebook: The First Ten Years

By: Shane Greenstein, Marco Iansiti and Christine Snively

Facebook celebrated its ten year anniversary in February 2014. Over the past decade it has grown into the largest social network in the world with one billion users. After filing an IPO in 2012 at a $104 billion valuation (the third largest IPO in U.S. history), the... View Details

Keywords: Social Networks; Technology; Facebook; Entrepreneurship; Profit; Open Source Distribution; Social and Collaborative Networks; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; Social Media; Information Technology Industry

15 May 2012
First Look

First Look: May 15

Apartment Rental Market Peter A. Coles, Joshua Gans, and Wei-Yuan YuHarvard Business School Case 912-009 Jon Pastor and Lawrence Zhou were inspired by the same problem: the Internet was surprisingly unhelpful in the hunt for an apartment.... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

February 1998 (Revised June 1999)
Case

DigitalThink: Startup

By: William A. Sahlman, Michael J. Roberts and Christina L. Darwall

Describes a recent Berkeley MBA's attempts to start a business aimed at corporate training via the Internet. Describes the very early efforts at finding an attorney, accountant, and financing, and the interrelationships among these choices. View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Problems and Challenges; Business Startups; Service Industry