Publications

November 2017
Teaching Note

Tencent

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

Teaching Note for HBS No. 718-426. Tencent had undergone many transformations since it was founded in 1998 as a simple messaging service. In 2017, it was the largest online games provider in China with a wide range of game types, China’s largest social networking... View Details

Keywords: Tencent; Tencent Holdings; WeChat; Social Networking; Social Networks; Gaming; Gaming Industry; Video Games; Computer Games; Mobile Gaming; Portals; Payments; Mobile Payments; O2O; Online-to-offline; E-commerce; Messaging; Subscription Model; Freemium; Mobile App Industry; Smartphone; PC; Monetization Strategy; Antitrust; Streaming; Cloud Computing; Artificial Intelligence; Big Data; Alibaba; Facebook; JD.com; Tesla; Bundling; Synergies; Digital Strategy; Imitation; Licensing; Agility; Entry Barriers; Online Platforms; Advertising; Digital Marketing; Business Ventures; Acquisition; Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Conglomerates; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Organization; For-Profit Firms; Joint Ventures; Restructuring; Communication Technology; Blogs; Interactive Communication; Interpersonal Communication; Entertainment; Film Entertainment; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Music Entertainment; Investment; Investment Portfolio; Price; Revenue; Geographic Scope; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Business History; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Positioning; Social Marketing; Network Effects; Market Entry and Exit; Digital Platforms; Industry Growth; Monopoly; Media; Distribution Channels; Service Delivery; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Public Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Business and Government Relations; Groups and Teams; Networks; Opportunities; Social and Collaborative Networks; Strategy; Adaptation; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Cooperation; Corporate Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Applications and Software; Information Infrastructure; Value Creation; Emerging Markets; Product Development; Segmentation; Business Units; Communication; Profit; Communications Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Financial Services Industry; Information Industry; Information Technology Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Music Industry; Service Industry; Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; Video Game Industry; Web Services Industry; Asia; China; Canton (province, China)

July 2003 (Revised August 2003)
Case

Global Healthcare Exchange

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Jamie Ladge

Founded in March 2000 at the height of the dot-com bubble, Global Healthcare Exchange (GHX) was one of 90 online marketplaces in the health care industry. The company's founders were among the largest suppliers in the industry, including Johnson & Johnson, GE Medical,... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Entrepreneurship; Price; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Supply and Industry; Organizational Design; Expansion; Internet and the Web; Valuation; Health Industry

November 2017 (Revised October 2018)
Case

Brandless: Disrupting Consumer Packaged Goods

By: Jill Avery

Brandless, an online direct-to-consumer seller of upscale private-label consumer packaged goods, offered consumers a limited assortment of values-conscious products delivered directly to their homes with the simplicity of one fixed $3 price point that promised an... View Details

18 Feb 2009
First Look

First Look: February 18, 2009

Working PapersDeterring Online Advertising Fraud Through Optimal Payment in Arrears (revised) Author:Benjamin Edelman Abstract Online advertisers face substantial difficulty in selecting and supervising... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

November 2021 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Farfetch: Digital Transformation for Luxury Brands

By: Sunil Gupta, Jill Avery, Elena Corsi and Federica Gabrieli

Farfetch, a global luxury technology platform and digital marketplace had been surfing the wave of digital transformation in the luxury fashion industry since 2008. While the company’s stock price and market valuation had fluctuated since its IPO in 2018, it had... View Details

February 2024
Case

FIGS: Scrubbing the Status Quo

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Nicole Tempest Keller

In October 2023, FIGS had revolutionized the medical scrubs industry with its fashionable and functional designs, but the venture was at a critical juncture. The digitally native vertical brand (DNVB) had gone public in a successful IPO in 2021 and reached $500 million... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Channels; Corporate Strategy; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Fashion Industry; United States; California; Los Angeles; Europe; Canada

15 Mar 2016
First Look

March 15, 2016

governments by oil and gas firms, and negative stock price reactions for affected firms at the announcement of regulations mandating disclosure. This suggests that sample firm managers and their investors perceive that there are private... View Details

March 2008 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Facebook

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Aaron Smith, David Chen and Brian Feinstein

As Facebook topped one billion monthly users in October 2012, the online social network continued to face questions about how best to monetize its surging traffic. The company could invest further in new advertising products, which represented the majority of the... View Details

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

January 2022
Case

Walmart USA—Searching for Growth

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Maria P. Roche

In 2022, Doug McMillon, president and CEO of Walmart, and his team looked back at a difficult but ultimately successful past year. The global pandemic had posed enormous challenges, but the company had weathered the storm successfully, raising same-store sales growth,... View Details

Keywords: Health Pandemics; Growth and Development Strategy; Sales; Business Strategy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Retail Industry

April 2005
Case

Handleman Company

By: Janice H. Hammond and Kevin Dolan

Describes the organization and operations of the Handleman Co., an intermediary in the music industry that buys recorded music and resells it to mass retailers such as Wal-Mart. The company provides distribution, inventory management, retail merchandising, and category... View Details

Keywords: Business Organization; Music Entertainment; Cost Management; Growth and Development; Business or Company Management; Distribution Channels; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Online Technology; Value Creation; Music Industry

01 Jun 2007
What Do You Think?

How Should Pay Be Linked to Performance?

for shareholders. However, there is a sense, expressed by John Ippolito, that there is a lack of perception in boards of directors of "what constitutes 'creating value' in the enterprise many boards are too ready to turn over the keys to the incoming CEO—then... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

02 Aug 2007
What Do You Think?

How Will Millennials Manage?

seems to look at its successor as beneath their own." There were a number of suggestions about how millennials might manage differently from their predecessors. For example, Bette Price said, " this group will be fine managers... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

21 Jan 2014
First Look

First Look: January 21

Hervas-Drane Abstract—We analyze the implications of consumer privacy for competition in the marketplace. We consider a market where firms set prices and disclosure levels for consumer information, and consumers observe both before... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2017 (Revised August 2019)
Case

X Fire Paintball & Airsoft: Is Amazon a Friend or Foe? (A)

By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella

Three years after launching his brick-and-mortar store, X Fire Paintball and Airsoft, Steve Herbert Sr. and his sons began selling products on Amazon.com’s third-party Marketplace, and online sales expanded rapidly. Over time, X Fire noticed that products of which it... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Competition; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Small Business; Retail Industry; Canada

05 Apr 2011
First Look

First Look: April 5

those that return instantaneous results—even when those results are identical. In five experiments that simulate service experiences in the domains of online travel and online dating, we demonstrate the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2021 (Revised May 2025)
Case

Bed Bath & Beyond: The New Strategy to Drive Shareholder Value

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel W. Fisher

At one time, Bed Bath & Beyond was one of the most successful specialty retailers in the United States—its growth and profit margins far exceeded both peer retailers in the home goods market as well as many other discount retailers. But in 2014, its stock price peaked,... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation; Diversification; Corporate Governance; Leading Change; Performance Evaluation; Valuation; Investment Activism; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

2019
Working Paper

Large-Scale Demand Estimation with Search Data

By: Tomomichi Amano, Andrew Rhodes and Stephan Seiler

In many online markets, traditional methods of demand estimation are difficult to implement because assortments are very large and individual products are sold infrequently. At the same time, data on consumer search (i.e., browsing) behavior are often available and are... View Details

Keywords: High-dimensional Data; Demand Estimation; Consideration Sets; Consumer Search