Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,802)
- Faculty Publications (400)
- August 31, 2017
- Article
CEOs Should Get Personally Involved in Talent Development
By: Frank V. Cespedes, Jay Galeota and Michael Wong
Estimates indicate that, globally, human capital has a value about 2.3 times that of physical capital. This difference is likely to widen in increasingly service-driven economies. Yet, most companies maintain their equipment better than their people. The issue is not... View Details
- 2017
- Other Article
Designing an Agile Software Portfolio Architecture: The Impact of Coupling on Performance
By: Alan MacCormack and Robert Lagerstrom
The modern industrial corporation encompasses a myriad of different software applications, each of which must work in concert to deliver functionality to end-users. However, the increasingly complex and dynamic nature of competition in today’s product-markets dictates... View Details
- July 2017 (Revised November 2017)
- Case
Propel
By: Mitchell Weiss and Sarah McAra
In 2014, Jimmy Chen, a former product manager at Facebook, founded the start-up Propel to build software for low-income Americans. After conducting in-depth behavioral research, Chen and his small team in New York City began to develop technology to address the... View Details
Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Govtech; Food Stamps; EBT; Mobile App; User Research; Financial Services Referrals; Grocery Marketing; Customer Discovery; Social Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurship; Public Sector; Business Model; Research; Social Enterprise; Poverty; Welfare; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Industry; United States
- May 2017
- Other Article
Stepwise Distributed Open Innovation Contests for Software Development: Acceleration of Genome-Wide Association Analysis
By: Andrew Hill, Po-Ru Loh, Ragu B. Bharadwaj, Pascal Pons, Jingbo Shang, Eva C. Guinan, Karim R. Lakhani, Iain Kilty and Scott Jelinsky
BACKGROUND:
The association of differing genotypes with disease-related phenotypic traits offers great potential to both help identify new therapeutic targets and support stratification of patients who would gain the greatest benefit from specific drug classes.... View Details
- March 2017 (Revised February 2018)
- Case
VMware and the Public Cloud
By: Raffaella Sadun and Christine Snively
In 2015, VMware, a pioneer in server and network virtualization and a member of parent company EMC’s “federation” of companies, had set its sights on becoming a leading public cloud provider. Two years prior, VMware first entered the public cloud market with its vCloud... View Details
- March–April 2017
- Article
Sink or Swim: The Role of Workplace Context in Shaping Career Advancement and Human-Capital Development
By: Shinjinee Chattopadhyay and Prithwiraj Choudhury
We develop and test predictions on how early-career challenges arising from the workplace context affect short- and long-term career advancement of individuals. Typically an organization’s decision to deploy a manager to one of several possible contexts is endogenous... View Details
- February 2017
- Teaching Note
Oversight Systems
By: Frank Cespedes
This Teaching Note accompanies the case, set in May 2016, which discusses sales strategy and channel partnerships at Oversight Systems, an early stage software firm that developed analytics for organizations to monitor their data for errors, fraud, and operational... View Details
- February 2017 (Revised September 2017)
- Case
Akshaya Patra: Impact at Scale
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby
Akshaya Patra, an Indian NGO, had set an ambitious goal of serving 5 million free meals daily to India's schoolchildren. Founded in 2000, Akshaya Patra had thus far opened 25 high-capacity kitchens in 10 different States to provide a midday meal to nearly 1.65 million... View Details
- February 2017
- Case
GE Digital
By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson
Known for manufacturing industrial equipment, GE has decided to invest in software and analytics capabilities to become a digital industrial company. They have also created a software platform that they hope will power the Industrial Internet. GE executives forecasted... View Details
Keywords: GE; General Electric; Manufacturing; Industrial Internet; Wind Power; Digital Manufacturing; Renewable Energy; Energy; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Applications and Software; Growth and Development Strategy; Transformation; Green Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry; North America
- January 2017 (Revised October 2021)
- Case
Delivering the Goods at Shippo
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Jeffrey F. Rayport and Olivia Hull
Laura Behrens Wu, CEO of software start-up Shippo, prepares her pitch for a Series A funding round following a successful seed round. Customer adoption of Shippo’s e-commerce dashboard application, which allows small and medium retailers to compare delivery rates... View Details
Keywords: Application Program Interface; API; API Strategy; Customer Cohorts; Churn; Retention; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Strategy; Transition; Customer Focus and Relationships; Technological Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Valuation; Shipping Industry; Technology Industry; Retail Industry; San Francisco; California; United States
- November 2016 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team
By: Boris Groysberg, Colleen Ammerman and John D. Vaughan
BrightStar Care was a rapidly growing franchise of home health care agencies. Founded by husband and wife team JD and Shelly Sun as a single agency near Chicago in 2002, BrightStar had opened nearly 300 franchises across the United States by 2016, generating over $300... View Details
Keywords: Health Care Services; Entrepreneurs; Board Of Directors; Boards Of Directors; Health Care Industry; Growth Strategy; Organizational Change; Brand Positioning; Entrepreneurial Organizations; Entrepreneurial Management; Franchising; Family-owned Business; Home Health Care; Managing Growth; Management Styles; Organizational Development; Talent Management; Women Executives; Women And Leadership; Business Startups; Family Business; Small Business; Talent and Talent Management; Governing and Advisory Boards; Health Care and Treatment; Human Capital; Leadership Development; Leadership Style; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Management Skills; Management Style; Management Succession; Management Systems; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Strategy
- November 2016 (Revised November 2016)
- Case
Radial Analytics Probes Post-Acute Care
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Olivia Hull
Thaddeus Fulford-Jones and Eric Weiss, founders of healthcare technology startup Radial Analytics, have been busy developing a software program designed to save hospitals money and improve patient outcomes by producing customized care plans for patients leaving the... View Details
Keywords: Electronic Medical Records; Electronic Health Records; Data Science; Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Business Model; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention; Growth Management; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Science-Based Business; Business Strategy; Health Industry; Technology Industry; Cambridge; Massachusetts
- November 2016 (Revised November 2016)
- Case
Mark43
By: Thomas Eisenmann, Mitch Weiss and Halah AlQahtani
The founders of Mark43, an early-stage startup that provides software for law enforcement agencies, must decide whether to bid on a request for proposals (RFP) from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). On the one hand, LAPD would be a second large and influential... View Details
- October 2016 (Revised February 2019)
- Case
PTC: A Transformation to IoT
By: Rajiv Lal and Sarah McAra
In the 2010s, PTC, a leading provider of software for discrete manufacturers, faced maturing markets and changing customer needs as smart, connected products took hold—the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT). PTC saw a first mover advantage in entering the IoT space... View Details
- October 2016 (Revised October 2023)
- Case
Bootstrapping at Lightricks
By: Robert White, Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Christine Snively
By August 2015, two-year-old mobile imaging software startup Lightricks had developed and released two best-selling paid mobile apps, grown to a team of 30, earned a revenue run rate of nearly $10 million, and achieved modest profitability. The bootstrapped company had... View Details
- October 2016 (Revised November 2016)
- Case
Innovating Beyond Ochsner
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Olivia Hull
The Ochsner Health System has developed a proprietary software tool designed to treat hypertension. Built into the system’s electronic medical records, the Hypertension Digital Medicine program allows patients to record their blood pressure at home and share readings... View Details
Keywords: Electronic Medical Records; Telemedicine; Hypertension; High Blood Pressure; Chronic Disease; Entrepreneurship; Health Disorders; Business Model; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention; Growth Management; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Science-Based Business; Business Strategy; Health Industry; Technology Industry; New Orleans; Louisiana
- October 2016
- Article
Technical Debt and System Architecture: The Impact of Coupling on Defect-related Activity
By: Alan MacCormack and Daniel J. Sturtevant
Technical debt is created when design decisions that are expedient in the short-term increase the costs of maintaining and adapting this system in future. An important component of technical debt relates to decisions about system architecture. As systems grow and... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
Pebble: Wearables Pioneer
By: David Yoffie and Allison Ciechanover
In the summer of 2016, wearables “wunderkind” and Pebble founder and CEO, Eric Migicovsky, was pleased with the young startup’s success in the five years since its founding. The Silicon Valley–based company had recently shipped its two millionth smartwatch; held the... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
MyTime
By: Juliane Begenau and Robin Greenwood
Ethan Anderson, the CEO of San Francisco–based e-commerce company MyTime, must decide on the company's growth strategy. MyTime’s first product was a website and mobile app that offered consumers a convenient way to book appointments with local merchants throughout the... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised September 2016)
- Case
Spectio: A Digital Lighting Company
By: Rajiv Lal and Sarah McAra
Spectio Tech, founded in 2005, developed and implemented intelligent LED lighting solutions for the industrial market. Sensors and wireless connectivity embedded in its LED fixtures not only significantly reduced lighting-related energy use—by up to 90% in some... View Details