Publications

February 2018 (Revised September 2018)
Case

Huawei: How Can We Lead the Way?

By: Elie Ofek, Tian Tao, Eden Yin and Nancy Hua Dai

On September 12, 2017, just as Apple’s Tim Cook was unveiling the iPhone X, Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group (CBG), and Glory Cheung, his Chief Marketing Officer, were discussing some key strategic issues regarding Huawei’s smartphone business.... View Details

Keywords: Product Launch; Product Positioning; Marketing Communications; Price; Competitive Strategy; Global Strategy

2014
Teaching Note

Yonyou 2013 (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Zheng Xiaoming and Ziqian Zhao

The case describes how a leading Chinese management software provider Yonyou (formerly known as "UFIDA") disrupted its value chain-based business model to transform itself into a platform provider. The case describes Yonyou's past success, the market forces and... View Details

Keywords: Business Models; ERP; Platforms; Strategy; Transformations; China; Information Technology; China

June 2020
Case

Agile Consumer Product Innovation with Alibaba's Tmall Innovation Center

By: William R. Kerr, Daniel O'Connor and James Palano

Consumer products companies were beset by changes on all sides during the 2010s. Customers were increasingly turning to ecommerce platforms rather than shopping in-store. Meanwhile, nimble, digitally-savvy competitors were gaining market share by capitalizing on the... View Details

Keywords: Future Of Work; Retail; Ecommerce; Alibaba; Consumer Products; Innovation; Innovation and Invention; Product Development; Consumer Behavior; E-commerce; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry; China

06 Feb 2013
What Do You Think?

Is ‘Conscious Capitalism’ an Antidote to Income Inequality?

with a new name The ideas are feel good and to be desired but will fail in the market place which gives capital the primary (and therefore only) stake in the outcome of social human enterprise." Jan Fersubg... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

October 2000 (Revised May 2001)
Case

Digitas (A): Strategic Interactive Group

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, David Lane and Courtenay Sprague

Kathy Biro, president of Digitas, an e-strategy consulting firm, has successfully grown out of the company's roots in the strategic interactive group. Her challenges now include managing the integration of the SIG with Digitas's other component, direct marketing firm... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Business Strategy; Internet and the Web; Integration; Expansion; Business or Company Management; Business Model; Organizational Design; Consulting Industry; Massachusetts

15 Dec 2017
News

Patient-Powered Precision

August 2001 (Revised June 2002)
Case

IBM Software Solutions (A)

By: Michael L. Tushman, Charles A. O'Reilly III and Robert Chapman Wood

Executives and managers of key IBM software units struggle to make IBM a top player in the post-mainframe era. When one software unit introduces a visionary product with potential to create a new leadership position for the firm, the result is an epic conflict in the... View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Managerial Roles; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Conflict Management; Information Technology Industry

October 1998
Case

Excite, Inc.--1998

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Kelley Porter

Reviews recent trends and the evolution of the emerging portal industry, highlighting the competitive position of the industry's major participants. The business model of Excite, Inc., and its major competitors are presented. In addition, the case looks at the new... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Business Model; Emerging Markets; Transformation; Market Entry and Exit; Industry Structures; Web Services Industry

January 2024
Case

The Financial Times (FT) and Generative AI

By: Andrew Rashbass, Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Jordan Mitchell

In September 2023, John Ridding, CEO of the Financial Times, was considering the possible impact of Generative AI on the industry and his business. Having navigated successfully the seismic shift from print to digital, and reporting record results, the company... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Change Management; Journalism and News Industry

Emil Siriwardane is an associate professor of business administration in the Finance Unit.

Professor Siriwardane’s research studies the ways in which financial intermediaries influence capital markets, how perceptions of risk impact business cycles,... View Details

December 2020
Article

Different Founders, Different Firms: A Comparative Analysis of Academic and Non-academic Startups

By: Maria P. Roche, Annamaria Conti and Frank T. Rothaermel

What role do differences in founders' occupational backgrounds play in new venture performance? Analyzing a novel dataset of 2,998 founders creating 1,723 innovative startups in biomedicine, we find that the likelihood and hazard of achieving a liquidity event are... View Details

Keywords: Founders; Innovation; Occupational Imprinting; Academic Startups; Non-academic Startups; Founder Heterogeneity; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention; Performance; Demographics; Analysis

Read Now

March 2024
Case

Ava DuVernay's Array: Disrupting the Hollywood Film Industry

By: Anita Elberse and Morgan Brewton-Johnson

In February 2023 acclaimed filmmaker Ava DuVernay is filming her latest movie, Origin, a daring adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. With Origin, DuVernay is pioneering a method to finance the endeavor—through a combination of... View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Intellectual Property; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Disruption; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

April 2021
Article

Homing and Platform Responses to Entry: Historical Evidence from the U.S. Newspaper Industry

By: K. Francis Park, Robert Seamans and Feng Zhu

We examine how heterogeneity in customers’ tendencies to single-home or multi-home affects a platform’s competitive responses to new entrants in the market. We first develop a formal model to generate predictions about how a platform will respond. We then empirically... View Details

Keywords: Single-homing; Multi-homing; Platform Responses; Newpaper; Television; Digital Platforms; Market Entry and Exit; Newspapers; Television Entertainment; History; Journalism and News Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry

December 2020 (Revised February 2021)
Case

Kerry Group: Inspiring Food, Nourishing Life

By: Forest L. Reinhardt, José B. Alvarez, Damien McLoughlin, Tonia Labruyere and Tonia Junker

The Irish company Kerry Group, one of the leading global players in the taste and nutrition industry, wants to ensure its future growth in developing and developed markets. Founded in 1972 as a dairy cooperative, it had grown into a provider of taste and nutrition... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Environmental Sustainability; Food; Nutrition; Growth and Development Strategy; Global Range; Market Entry and Exit; Customer Relationship Management; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

January 2008
Article

The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy

By: Michael E. Porter

This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. In 1979, a young associate professor at Harvard Business School published his first... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Five Forces Framework; Industry Growth; Industry Structures; Business and Government Relations; Competitive Strategy