Publications

August 2019 (Revised February 2020)
Teaching Note

Sidewalk Labs: Privacy in a City Built from the Internet Up

By: Leslie John and Mitch Weiss

Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.

The case serves as a microcosm of issues of digital privacy: the availability of data – personal data in particular – has tremendous potential to improve people’s lives... View Details

Keywords: Privacy; Privacy By Design; Privacy Regulation; Platforms; Data; Data Security; Behavioral Science; Analytics and Data Science; Safety; Entrepreneurship; Business and Government Relations; Consumer Behavior; Digital Platforms

21 Feb 2012
First Look

First Look: Feb. 21

information is a central determinant of a firm's demand function, even for purchases as large as college attendance. When Do User Innovators Start Firms? A Theory of User Entrepreneurship Authors:Sonali Shah... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 1987 (Revised June 1989)
Background Note

Note on Financial Contracting: ""Deals""

By: William A. Sahlman

Describes the issues involved in designing and evaluating financial contracts between users and suppliers of capital and between companies and employees. A simple conceptual framework is introduced and some critical issues addressed: 1) How is cash allocated? 2) How is... View Details

Keywords: Contracts; Framework; Problems and Challenges; Corporate Finance

October 2008
Case

TripIt: The Traveler's Agent

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Gabriele Piccoli and Kathryn Brohman

In July 2008, the co-founders of TripIt, a free online travel organizer that aggregated travelers' bookings from many top travel websites, had recently secured $5.1 million in new financing. While the co-founders believed that their company offered travelers a unique... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Investment; Profit; Revenue; Growth and Development Strategy; Competition; Internet; Travel Industry

2018
Working Paper

Need for Speed: The Impact of Website Performance on Online Retail

By: Santiago Gallino, Nil Karacaoglu and Antonio Moreno

The share of e-commerce sales is rapidly increasing and so are the associated losses generated by website outages and slow websites. We leverage novel retail and website performance data to investigate the impact of website performance on online sales. This question is... View Details

Keywords: Online Retail; Quasi-experiments; Abandonment; Synthetic Control; Internet and the Web; Performance; Service Operations

SSRN

23 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 23, 2008

Psychology. Vol. 40, edited by Mark P. Zanna, 61-149, 2008 Abstract The stereotype content model (SCM) defines two fundamental dimensions of social perception, warmth and competence, predicted respectively by perceived competition and... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

02 Mar 2016
What Do You Think?

Is Apple’s Real Privacy Challenge Technology Innovation Itself?

can access contents on an alleged terrorist’s iPhone has generated a vigorous debate with daily developments. As they say, this is a big deal. It raises critical questions. Apple argues that doing what the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Technology

September 2010
Case

Angie's List

Angie's List is a paid subscription-based service that gives consumers online access to member-submitted reviews of plumbers, electricians, and other home service providers. Customer and revenue growth are strong, but customer acquisition costs are high and the company... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Price; Competitive Advantage; Product Launch; Service Industry; United States

October 2021
Article

Can Self-Regulation Save Digital Platforms?

By: Michael A. Cusumano, Annabelle Gawer and David B. Yoffie

This article explores some of the critical challenges facing self-regulation and the regulatory environment for digital platforms. We examine several historical examples of firms and industries that attempted self-regulation before the Internet. All dealt with similar... View Details

Keywords: Self-regulation; Government Regulation; Digital Platforms; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

21 May 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Do Friends Influence Purchases in a Social Network?

Keywords: by Raghuram Iyengar, Sangman Han & Sunil Gupta; Technology

2010
Book

The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development

By: Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman

Discussions of the economic impact of open source software often generate more heat than light. Advocates passionately assert the benefits of open source, while critics decry its effects. Missing from the debate is rigorous economic analysis and systematic... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Economic Growth; Policy; Government and Politics; Open Source Distribution; Software

15 Aug 2023
HBS Case

(Virtual) Reality Check: How Long Before We Live in the 'Metaverse'?

coordinating all the pieces of the ecosystem,” he says. “It's not just a matter of a headset. You also have to have content like games or simulations or social media interaction platforms. We still haven't seen what that killer app is... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Technology; Computer; Information Technology

April 2013
Article

What Roger Fisher Got Profoundly Right: Five Enduring Lessons for Negotiators

By: James K. Sebenius

Roger Fisher, who died in 2012, enjoyed a remarkable career that modeled one way that an academic, especially in a professional school such as law or business, could make a significant, positive, and lasting difference in the world. Distinctive aspects of his career... View Details

Keywords: Bargaining; Conflict Resolution; Dealmaking; Negotiation; Personal Development and Career; Conflict and Resolution

21 Oct 2024
Research & Ideas

What Happens in Vegas Could Shape the Metaverse

a virtual world than a video game: Millions of users have gathered on the platform for online concerts headlined by Ariana Grande, Travis Scott, and other stars. Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Fortnite parent company Epic Games, has likened the... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Nover; Computer; Information Technology

January 2023
Teaching Note

Duolingo: Teaching Languages to the Masses

By: Youngme Moon

Teaching Note for HBS Case 323-016. At the time the case is written, Duolingo is the most popular language learning service in the world. The company has more than 40 million monthly active users, and the company’s total annual revenue has reached $250 million a year.... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Customer Relationship Management; Acquisition; Retention; Innovation and Invention

November 2011
Article

Social Strategies That Work

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

Although most companies have collected lots of friends and followers on social platforms such as Facebook, few have succeeded in generating profits there. That's because they merely port their digital strategies into social environments by broadcasting their commercial... View Details

Keywords: Social Platforms; Social Strategies; Social and Collaborative Networks; Customers; Relationships; Business Strategy; Profit

25 Mar 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Incompatible Assumptions: Barriers to Producing Multidisciplinary Knowledge in Communities of Scholarship

Keywords: by Corinne Bendersky & Kathleen L. McGinn; Education

November 2006 (Revised October 2007)
Background Note

A Brief Note on Deferred Taxes: An Analysis Perspective

Provides an overview of accounting for deferred taxes. The primary objective is to provide external users with a basic understanding of deferred taxes. A simple illustrative example is provided, which is followed by a discussion of several important issues likely to be... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Financial Statements; Taxation; Legal Liability; Valuation

Article

Faithful and Customizable Explanations of Black Box Models

By: Himabindu Lakkaraju, Ece Kamar, Rich Caruana and Jure Leskovec

As predictive models increasingly assist human experts (e.g., doctors) in day-to-day decision making, it is crucial for experts to be able to explore and understand how such models behave in different feature subspaces in order to know if and when to trust them. To... View Details

Keywords: Interpretable Machine Learning; Black Box Models; Decision Making; Framework