Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,033)
- Faculty Publications (568)
- 2022
- Working Paper
The Routledge Handbook of Digital Consumption, Chapter 41: The Internet’s Effects on Consumption: Useful, Harmful, Playful
By: John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
This chapter considers how digital culture has changed over the past decade, as the internet has grown its scope and user base. Billions around the world connect daily to an ever-expanding set of applications. A framework for thinking about digital effects is offered:... View Details
- February 2022 (Revised May 2022)
- Case
Buddy Valastro: Cake Boss
By: Boris Groysberg, Evan M.S. Hecht and Katherine Connolly Baden
Buddy Valastro, celebrity baker and business owner, inherited his father’s bakery—Carlo’s Bake Shop of Hoboken, New Jersey—at the age of seventeen. He had willed the shop to survive and gone on to fame through his television show, “Cake Boss”—the name most people now... View Details
Keywords: Bakery; Entrepreneur; Scalability; Digital; Systems; Process Improvement; Team Effectiveness; Team Building; COVID-19 Pandemic; Food; Entrepreneurship; Family Business; Crisis Management; Change Management; Leadership; Creativity; Operations; Groups and Teams; Brands and Branding; Food and Beverage Industry; United States
- February 2022
- Case
NFX Capital and Moov Technologies
By: Scott Duke Kominers and Nicole Tempest Keller
In July 2019, James Currier, a general partner at San Francisco-based NFX Ventures, was considering a seed stage investment of $1.5 million in Moov Technologies, a B2B marketplace for used industrial equipment. NFX was a venture capital firm focused on seed-stage... View Details
- January 2022
- Supplement
Kornit Digital: The Amazon Warrants (C)
By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher
As of 12/31/21, Amazon held $22 billion of equity and warrants in related companies. In fact, it often requests a free grant of warrants when it enters into a new commercial agreement with a supplier. Over the past 20 years, Amazon has gotten warrants almost 20... View Details
- January 2022
- Case
Bee-ing Better at Bombas
By: Elizabeth A. Keenan, Youngme Moon and John Masko
David Heath and Randy Goldberg founded Bombas in 2013 to serve two missions: to deliver the “best socks in the history of feet,” and to donate socks (the most requested item in homeless shelters) to Americans experiencing homelessness. Eight years later, Bombas had... View Details
Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Values and Beliefs; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Digital Marketing; Distribution; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Quality; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Human Needs; Poverty; Growth and Development Strategy; Apparel and Accessories Industry; New York (city, NY)
- January 2022 (Revised March 2022)
- Technical Note
Deglobalization and Alternative Futures
By: Geoffrey Jones and Valeria Giacomin
This note reviews the evidence that the world is undergoing an era of de-globalization. It shows that available metrics show some support for this theory. However there is also evidence that what is happening might be better described as regionalization. The nature of... View Details
- December 2021
- Case
Burning Glass Technologies: From Data to Product
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Amy Klopfenstein
In May 2021, Matt Sigelman, CEO of Burning Glass Technologies, a company that provided labor market analytics for a variety of markets, navigates his company’s transition from data company to product company. Burning Glass originated as a service that used artificial... View Details
Keywords: Information Technology; Applications and Software; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Strategy; Expansion; Business Strategy; Labor; Employment; Human Capital; Jobs and Positions; Job Design and Levels; Job Search; Human Resources; Selection and Staffing; Recruitment; Employees; Retention; Competency and Skills; Experience and Expertise; Talent and Talent Management; Analytics and Data Science; Business Model; Technology Industry; North and Central America; United States
- 2021
- Book
The Future of Executive Development
By: Mihnea C Moldoveanu and Das Narayandas
Executive development programs have entered a period of rapid transformation, driven by digital disruption and a widening gap between the skills that participants and their organizations demand and those provided by their executive programs. This work delves into the... View Details
- 30 Nov 2021
- Interview
TikTok: Super App or Supernova?
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Brian Kenny
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, was launched in 2012 around the simple idea of helping users entertain themselves on their smartphones while on the Beijing Subway. By May 2020, TikTok operated in 155 countries and had roughly 1 billion monthly active users, placing... View Details
- 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
Keywords: Digital Marketing; Marketplaces; Retailing; Internet Marketing; E-Commerce Strategy; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Channels; Brands and Branding; Luxury; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Transformation; E-commerce; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; Web Services Industry; Technology Industry; United Kingdom; Europe; Portugal; China
- 2021
- Chapter
Digital Infrastructure
By: Shane Greenstein
What determines the supply of innovative digital infrastructure and how does variance in supply shape the performance of digital services? The essay reviews research into the economic impact of deployment, innovation, and adoption of digital infrastructure. It... View Details
Keywords: Information Technology; Infrastructure; Economics; Policy; Research; Analysis; United States
- October 2021 (Revised September 2022)
- Case
GoPro: Becoming a Subscription Hero
By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini and Nicole Tempest Keller
In 2021, Nick Woodman, founder and CEO of GoPro, was reviewing the company’s subscription offering, considering whether to extend it beyond benefits that were directly related to the company’s iconic camera. Founded in 2002, GoPro had gained renown for its innovative... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Newsweek: Driving a Digital First Strategy
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Suraj Srinivasan
The case describes the transformation at Newsweek, the storied news magazine that had fallen from its commanding position as a premier print publication unable to find its footing in the fast changing digital media landscape. After buying Newsweek and taking over as... View Details
- 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
- August 2021
- Case
Livongo: Scaling a Purpose-Driven Organization in Healthcare
By: Ranjay Gulati, Aseem Shukla and Reva Nohria
When seasoned entrepreneur Glen Tullman founded the chronic health care startup Livongo in 2014, it was personal. His son lived with diabetes, and Tullman knew firsthand how taxing it could be to manage such an unrelenting disease. Livongo set out to empower people... View Details
- August 2021 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Lexoo: Building a Long-Lasting Platform (Abridged)
By: Chiara Farronato and Elena Corsi
Lexoo, a UK-based online marketplace for legal services, was facing the strategic choice of how to grow from early start-up to mature platform. Daniel van Binsbergen, Lexoo's CEO, and web developer Chris O'Sullivan, CTO, had set up Lexoo to help Small and Medium-Sized... View Details
- August 2021 (Revised March 2022)
- Case
Camera IQ and the Metaverse: Building Augmented Reality Brand Experiences
By: Jill Avery and Rayan Nahas
Camera IQ, a camera marketing software company that empowered brands to create and launch augmented reality experiences (AREs) across social platforms, had just raised an additional $5 million to fund further product development and expand its marketing and sales... View Details
Keywords: Brand Management; Virtual Reality; Augmented Reality; B2B; Technology Platform; Marketing; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Digital Marketing; Internet and the Web; Growth Management; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Social Media; E-commerce; Applications and Software; Digital Platforms; Advertising Industry; United States
- August 2021 (Revised November 2023)
- Supplement
Coats: Supply Chain Challenges
By: Willy C. Shih
Coats, the largest thread maker in the world, transformed its business to digital colour measurement so that it could respond better to customer demand in the garment industry for rapid product cycles and more fragmented colour choices. Its embrace of digital colour... View Details
- August 2021
- Supplement
Coats: Supply Chain Challenges: Spreadsheet Supplement
By: Willy C. Shih
Coats, the largest thread maker in the world, transformed its business to digital colour measurement so that it could respond better to customer demand in the garment industry for rapid product cycles and more fragmented colour choices. Its embrace of digital colour... View Details
- August 2021
- Case
Apax Digital
By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
The Apax Digital team faced important decisions as they contemplated raising a second fund. Apax Digital Fund I was a $1.1 billion vehicle focused on mid-market growth equity and growth buyouts in the technology sector. The fund had performed well, and the Managing... View Details