Publications

Find at Harvard

Article

Spontaneous Deregulation: How to Compete with Platforms That Ignore the Rules

By: Benjamin Edelman and Damien Geradin

Many successful platform businesses—think Airbnb, Uber, and YouTube—ignore laws and regulations that appear to preclude their approach. The rule-flouting phenomenon is something we call "spontaneous private deregulation," and it is not new. Benign or otherwise,... View Details

Keywords: Regulation; Deregulation; Innovation And Strategy; Innovation Strategy; Laws and Statutes; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

Find at Harvard

2012
Working Paper

Platform Competition under Partial Belief Advantage

This paper considers platform competition in a two-sided market that includes buyers and sellers. One of the platforms benefits from a partial belief advantage, in that each side believes that it is more likely that the other side will join the advantaged platform. We... View Details

Keywords: Two-Sided Platforms; Competition; Business Model; Decisions

August 2007
Module Note

Managing Networked Businesses: Platform Evolution Module

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Offers an overview of conceptual content and pedagogical guidance for instructors using a six-session module, "Platform Evolution," from "Managing Networked Businesses" (MNB), a case-based MBA elective course on platform-mediated networks. The module explores the... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Networks; Business or Company Management; Rights; Business Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Multi-Sided Platforms; Market Transactions; Innovation and Invention; Marketing; Competition; Market Entry and Exit

08 Mar 2004
Research & Ideas

Creating Value in Your Business Ecosystem

delivery of a company's own offerings. Like an individual species in a biological ecosystem, each member of a business ecosystem ultimately shares the fate of the network as a whole, regardless of that member's apparent strength. From... View Details

Keywords: by Marco Iansiti & Roy Levien

March 2020 (Revised November 2020)
Case

FinTech Hive at DIFC: Creating a Fintech Ecosystem in Dubai

By: Marco Di Maggio and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in 2019 as Raja Al Mazrouei, executive vice president of FinTech Hive (the Hive) at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the first and largest financial technology accelerator in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia region, contemplates her... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Emerging Markets; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Management; Information Technology; Growth Management; Financial Markets; Financial Institutions; United Arab Emirates; Middle East; Dubai

Educators

22 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Platform Competition under Asymmetric Information

Keywords: by Hanna Halaburda & Yaron Yehezkel; Technology

22 Jul 2019
News

How To Be a Digital Platform Leader

15 Oct 2019
News

Advancing China’s Impact Investing Ecosystem

hoped to advance an impact investing ecosystem in China. The course was taught by Shawn Cole, the John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration, and Senior Lecturer Vikram S. Gandhi. In just weeks, she... View Details

February 2022 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Sekisui House and the In-Home Early Detection Platform

By: John D. Macomber and Akiko Kanno

To address an aging population and sales declines, a major Japanese homebuilder considers pivoting to provide and support an in-home health detection platform, in competition with tech companies. This case considers the point of view of major builders regarding how... View Details

Keywords: Voice Assistants; Architecture; Smart Home; Aging Society; Digitalization; Real Estate; Home Automation; Sensors; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Health Care and Treatment; Housing; Age; Real Estate Industry; Construction Industry; Health Industry; Japan

Educators

03 Jan 2022
News

Pushing Social Media Platforms to Self-Regulate

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

Video

Explore the HBS Online Course Platform

16 Feb 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Platform Competition Under Partial Belief Advantage

Keywords: by Hanna Halaburda & Yaron Yehezkel; Consumer Products

Repositioning and Cost-Cutting: The Impact of Competition on Platform Strategies

We study how platform firms use repositioning and cost-cutting in response to competition, elucidate external and internal factors that constrain or enable these responses, and examine how the firms’ responses affect their performance. Our empirical context is... View Details

March 2014
Teaching Note

Intuit QuickBooks: From Product to Platform

By: Andrei Hagiu and Elizabeth J. Altman

This case focuses on the challenges and opportunities faced by a successful incumbent organization attempting to transform a large portion of its business from a traditionally product-centric operating mode to a platform-based one that leverages network effects to... View Details

23 Apr 2024
In Practice

Getting to Net Zero: The Climate Standards and Ecosystem the World Needs Now

With each month clocking record-breaking temperatures across the planet, this Earth Day reflected the renewed urgency of regulators and businesses to find climate-change solutions. The US Securities and Exchange Commission recently adopted new rules that will mandate... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

April 2011
Case

The Sandbox: Creating a Bottom-Up Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Lynda M. Applegate, Rhea Ghosh and Amar Kumar

Discussion of new model of Social Enterprise that applies the venture capital model to social enterprise. View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Non-Governmental Organizations; Venture Capital; Business Model

Educators

May 2017
Teaching Note

CIC: Catalyzing Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (A) & (B)

By: William R. Kerr and Alexis Brownell

Teaching Note for HBS Nos. 817-126 and 817-127. View Details

2023
Working Paper

Senior Team Emotional Dynamics and Strategic Decision Making at a Platform Transition

By: Timo O. Vuori and Michael L. Tushman

Based on an inductive case study, we develop an emotional-temporal process model of an incumbent’s strategic decision making at a platform transition. We describe the senior team’s emotional response to this transition and the impact of these emotions on their... View Details

Keywords: Emotions; Decision Choices and Conditions; Transition; Digital Platforms