Publications

SSRN

Read Now

April 2006 (Revised March 2007)
Case

Black Duck Software

By: Constance E. Bagley and David Lane

Black Duck Software involves a venture-backed start-up that converted software developers' concerns about violating copyright licensing agreements or open source protocols into an opportunity to help firms use technology to better manage their compliance efforts.... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Law; Open Source Distribution; Applications and Software; Business Startups; Copyright

07 Apr 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Explaining the Vertical-to-Horizontal Transition in the Computer Industry

Keywords: by Carliss Baldwin; Computer

January 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Digital Transformation at Tata Steel

By: Krishna Palepu, Das Narayandas, Radhika Kak and Rachna Tahilyani

T.V. Narendran, CEO of Tata Steel, India’s oldest steel manufacturing firm, had taken concrete business and cultural transformation steps to future-ready the firm since taking over in 2013. He had deleveraged and instilled financial discipline, acquired new businesses,... View Details

Keywords: Digital Transformation; Digital Strategy; Change Management; Growth and Development Strategy; E-commerce; Steel Industry; Asia; India

Article

Marginality and Problem-Solving Effectiveness in Broadcast Search

By: Lars Bo Jeppesen and Karim R. Lakhani

We examine who the winners are in science problem-solving contests characterized by open broadcast of problem information, self-selection of external solvers to discrete problems from the laboratories of large R&D intensive companies, and blind review of solution... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Open Source Distribution; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Markets; Independent Innovation and Invention; Problems and Challenges; Research and Development; Gender; Science

Find at Harvard

February 2001
Case

Sun Microsystems, Inc.: Solaris Strategy

In the late 1990s, Sun Microsystems' Solaris has emerged as the dominant UNIX-based alternative to Microsoft for server operating systems. At the same time, the open source operating system Linux has appeared unexpectedly, and it is generating significant excitement... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Competition; Open Source Distribution; Standards

Find at Harvard

September 2022
Case

Proactive for Her

By: Rembrand Koning and Kairavi Dey

Proactive for Her began amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in August 2020 as a digital platform to provide accessible, evidence-based, primary, preventive non-judgmental healthcare services for Indian women, who were often dissuaded from seeking help as premarital sex and... View Details

Keywords: Women's Health; Healthcare; India; Start-up; Telehealth; Digital Platforms; Health Care and Treatment; Customer Focus and Relationships; Business Startups; Health Industry; Asia; South Asia; India

25 Apr 2023
Op-Ed

How SHEIN and Temu Conquered Fast Fashion—and Forged a New Business Model

Two China-based retail platforms, SHEIN and Temu, are getting a huge amount of attention in the fashion industry these days. I believe that the significance of these platforms goes way beyond the ability to give consumers trendy,... View Details

Keywords: by John Deighton; Fashion; Retail; Consumer Products

November 2005 (Revised July 2009)
Case

Trolltech (Norway) - Will Cenapio Steal Christmas?

Describes the creation of an open source software venture in Norway, Australia, and the United States that lands a strategic OEM deal with a leading Japanese manufacturer of embedded devices (PDAs in this instance). Details the evolution of the two companies'... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Conflict and Resolution; Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Open Source Distribution; Information Infrastructure; Entrepreneurship; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Information Technology Industry; Australia; Japan; Norway; United States

25 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

How Transparency Sped Innovation in a $13 Billion Wireless Sector

products. But, in general, I would have to say the more partners, the better.” You Might Also Like: Open Source Software: The $9 Trillion Resource Companies Take for Granted How to Make AI 'Forget' All the... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Technology

05 Jan 2017
Working Paper Summaries

High-Skilled Migration and Agglomeration

Keywords: by Sari Pekkala Kerr, William Kerr, Çağlar Özden, and Christopher Parsons

June 2008 (Revised October 2009)
Case

InnoCentive.com (A)

By: Karim R. Lakhani

InnoCentive.com, a firm connecting R&D labs of large organizations to diverse external solvers through innovation contests, has to decide if it will enable collaboration in its community. Case covers the basics of a distributed innovation system works and the... View Details

Keywords: Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Open Source Distribution; Research and Development; Competition; Cooperation

June 2014
Teaching Note

Google Glass

By: Thomas Eisenmann

In early 2014, business development executives at Google were formulating a distribution strategy for Glass, a wearable computer that projected information on a display viewable with an upward glance. Options, which were not mutually exclusive, included 1) continuing... View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Distribution Channels; Technology Adoption; Product Marketing; Computer Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States

April 2009 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Linden Lab: Crossing the Chasm

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

In early 2008, managers at Linden Lab, creator of the virtual world Second Life, faced decisions about the company's growth strategy. Despite profound initial skepticism about demand for a user-generated virtual world that was not a traditional game, Second Life had... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Infrastructure; Technology Adoption; Digital Platforms

26 Sep 2023
Book

Digital Strategy: A Handbook for Managing a Moving Target

and integrating it into other products that form an integral part of ecosystems or when it is delivered through platform marketplaces (Cusumano et al., 2019a), the product’s relevant market and the logic of competition themselves change... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Information Technology; Technology

2007
Working Paper

Competition in Modular Clusters

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and C. Jason Woodard

The last twenty years have witnessed the rise of disaggregated "clusters," "networks," or "ecosystems" of firms. In these clusters the activities of R&D, product design, production, distribution, and system integration may be split up among hundreds or even thousands... View Details

Keywords: Price; Profit; Digital Platforms; Industry Clusters; Competition; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration

Read Now

Research Summary

Managing Networked Businesses

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Platform-based businesses that leverage network effects face a distinctive set of management challenges. A platform encompasses components and rules that facilitate interactions between the platform's users. A platform-based product or service exhibits a network... View Details

November – December 1998
Article

Clusters and the New Economics of Competition

By: Michael E. Porter

This article explains how clusters foster high levels of productivity and innovation and lays out the implications for competitive strategy and economic policy. Economic geography in an era of global competition poses a paradox. In theory, location should no longer be... View Details

Keywords: Economics; United States

Find at Harvard