Publications

February 2024
Case

Continuity & Change at Boston Consulting Group

By: David G. Fubini, Suraj Srinivasan and David Lane

As the new CEO of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) since autumn 2021, Christoph Schweizer had big shoes to fill—his predecessor, Rich Lesser, had tripled the partnership’s total revenues and created digital initiatives that contributed 40+% of 2021 revenues, more than... View Details

Keywords: Business Organization; Change Management; Talent and Talent Management; Governance; AI and Machine Learning; Environmental Sustainability; Leading Change; Risk Management; Organizational Culture; Partners and Partnerships; Revenue; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Succession; Consulting Industry

February 2024 (Revised January 2025)
Case

AGENTS.inc: Pathways to Growth at an AI Startup

By: Frank Nagle, Manuel Hoffmann, Karoline Ströhlein and Susan Pinckney

The case describes the history of AGENTS.inc. Despite being a small startup, with only four employees, that had never had a funding round, the company boasted an impressive client portfolio including multiple Fortune 500 companies. While AGENTS.inc had been an early... View Details

February 2024
Technical Note

AI Product Development Lifecycle

By: Michael Parzen, Jessie Li and Marily Nika

In this article, we will discuss the concept of AI Products, how they are changing our daily lives, how the field of AI & Product Management is evolving, and the AI Product Development Lifecycle. View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Product Management; Product Life Cycle; Technology; AI and Machine Learning; Product Development

February 2024
Teaching Note

CityScore: Big Data Comes to Boston

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 422-050. In 2016, Mayor Marty Walsh of Boston introduced CityScore, a data dashboard that measured the city’s progress across a range of metrics. View Details

Keywords: Government Administration; Leadership; Transformation; City; Analytics and Data Science; Measurement and Metrics; Public Administration Industry; United States; Boston

February 2024
Module Note

Data-Driven Marketing in Retail Markets

By: Ayelet Israeli

This note describes an eight-class sessions module on data-driven marketing in retail markets. The module aims to familiarize students with core concepts of data-driven marketing in retail, including exploring the opportunities and challenges, adopting best practices,... View Details

February 2024
Supplement

ReNew (B): A New Direction

By: Gunnar Trumbull and Malini Sen

The global renewables sector was in a slump, but the Indian market was booming. India’s largest renewable electricity generator, ReNew, faced a dilemma: it traded on the Nasdaq in New York, but saw huge opportunity in the Indian market. In response, CEO Sumant Sinha... View Details

Keywords: Energy Generation; Renewable Energy; Entrepreneurship; Forecasting and Prediction; Trends; Transformation; Private Ownership; Environmental Sustainability; Mission and Purpose; Expansion; Market Entry and Exit; Energy Industry; Asia; India

February 2024 (Revised March 2024)
Teaching Note

X: The Foghorn Decision

By: Kyle Myers and Walter Frick

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 618-060. View Details

February 2024
Article

Archetypes of Product Launch by Insiders, Outsiders, and Visionaries

By: Shane Greenstein

What archetypes emerge from prominent episodes of product launches? This essay examines a set of episodes in information technology history that led to significant changes in industry leadership. It highlights that, in all of these instances, there is an example of a... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Product Launch; Leadership; Market Entry and Exit

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February 2024
Case

More than Optics: Olympus's Vision to Become a Leading Global MedTech Company

By: David J. Collis and Haisley Wert

In August 2022, CEO Yasuo Takeuchi reflected on Olympus Corporation’s recent transformation from being known as a Japanese consumer camera company to becoming a leading global medical technology (MedTech) company. Over the past dozen years, Takeuchi and prior... View Details

Keywords: Global Human Resource Management; Medical Technology; Corporate Strategy; Transformation; Globalization; Business Model; Leading Change; Organizational Structure; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Japan; United States

2024
Working Paper

Platform Information Provision and Consumer Search: A Field Experiment

By: Lu Fang, Yanyou Chen, Chiara Farronato, Zhe Yuan and Yitong Wang

Despite substantial efforts to help consumers search in more intuitive ways, text search remains the predominant tool for product discovery online. In this paper, we explore the effects of visual and textual cues for search refinement on consumer search and purchasing... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; E-commerce; Decision Choices and Conditions; Learning; Internet and the Web

2024
Working Paper

The Wandering Scholars: Understanding the Heterogeneity of University Commercialization

By: Josh Lerner, Henry Manley, Carolyn Stein and Heidi Williams

University-based scientific research has long been argued to be a central source of commercial innovation and economic growth. Yet at the same time, there have been long-held concerns that many university-based discoveries never realize their potential social... View Details

Keywords: Research; Higher Education; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention

January 2024 (Revised June 2024)
Case

School of Rock: Tuning into Structured Empowerment (A)

By: Tatiana Sandino, Jeffrey Rayport, Samuel Grad and Stacy Straaberg

In summer 2021, School of Rock was a youth-oriented music education company with 291 franchise- and company-owned schools globally. Before CEO Rob Price’s hire in 2017, School of Rock’s nonconformist rock ‘n’ roll culture led to variability in teaching styles,... View Details

January 2024
Case

Flashfood: The Magic of Commitment

By: Reza Satchu and Patrick Sanguineti

Josh Domingues had accomplished what countless young entrepreneurs long to achieve: founding a promising company that aspires to make the world a tangibly better place. Shocked to learn that international food waste cumulatively amounted to the world’s third largest... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneur; Founder; Startup; Business Model; Business Startups; Food; Applications and Software; Mission and Purpose; Environmental Sustainability; Canada

2024
Working Paper

Contributing to Growth? The Role of Open Source Software for Global Startups

By: Nataliya Langburd Wright, Frank Nagle and Shane Greenstein

How does participating in open source software (OSS) communities spur entrepreneurial growth? To address this question, we analyze novel data matching accounts from GitHub—the largest OSS hosting platform—to the universe of global software venture-backed firms... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Open Source Distribution; Entrepreneurship; Business Growth and Maturation; Human Capital; Valuation; Corporate Strategy

SSRN

January 2024
Case

The Financial Times (FT) and Generative AI

By: Andrew Rashbass, Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Jordan Mitchell

In September 2023, John Ridding, CEO of the Financial Times, was considering the possible impact of Generative AI on the industry and his business. Having navigated successfully the seismic shift from print to digital, and reporting record results, the company... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Change Management; Journalism and News Industry

January 2024 (Revised January 2025)
Case

Colbún and Chile's Energy Transition

By: Forest Reinhardt, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Mariana Cal

In May 2023, Colbún, Chile’s second-largest electricity generator, plans capacity expansions using renewable energy and storage. This strategy supports Chile’s commitment to carbon neutrality (also known as net zero emissions) by 2050. The case delves into the... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Energy Generation; Renewable Energy; Climate Change; Investment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Infrastructure; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Expansion; Business Strategy; Energy Industry; Utilities Industry; Latin America; South America; Chile

January 2024
Case

BWX Technologies

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Yuan Zou and Aldo Sesia

Rex Geveden and Robb LeMasters, CEO and CFO of BWX Technologies, Inc. (BWXT), were concerned that investors and analysts did not fully appreciate the company's transformation from a nuclear reactor provider to the US Navy and Canadian utilities to a multi-product line... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Communication Intention and Meaning; Business and Shareholder Relations; Valuation; Diversification; United States; Canada

January 2024
Article

Fencing Off Silicon Valley: Cross-Border Venture Capital and Technology Spillovers

By: Ufuk Akcigit, Sina T. Ates, Josh Lerner, Richard Townsend and Yulia Zhestkova

The treatment of foreign investors is a contentious topic in U.S. entrepreneurship policy. We model a setting where foreign corporate investments in Silicon Valley may allow U.S. entrepreneurs to pursue technologies that they could not otherwise, but may also lead to... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Corporate Venture Capital; Knowledge Spillovers; Foreign Direct Investment; Innovation and Invention; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Policy

SSRN