Publications

January 2008 (Revised February 2011)
Case

Rubbish Boys

By: Noam Wasserman and Rachel Galper

It looked like founder-CEO Brian Scudamore might not be able to pursue franchising as a growth option for his junk-removal business after all. Over the years, he had overcome many hurdles, including buying out his "too-fiery" co-founder, firing all of his employees so... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Problems and Challenges; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Partners and Partnerships; Business Growth and Maturation; Franchise Ownership; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry; Canada; North America

03 Oct 2023
HBS Case

Layoffs Can Be Bad Business: 5 Strategies to Consider Before Cutting Staff

response to more temporary economic shifts, such as recession, often proves less successful, Sucher says. “These are some of those commonsense things that may not occur to people because they are thinking... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Telecommunications; Technology; Financial Services; Manufacturing

Jan W. Rivkin

Jan W. Rivkin is a Professor in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. In the past, he has served as Faculty Chair of the MBA Program, Senior Associate Dean for Research, and head of the Strategy Unit. His research, course development, and teaching focus on... View Details

Keywords: internet; internet; internet; internet; internet

09 May 2024
Research & Ideas

Called Back to the Office? How You Benefit from Ideas You Didn't Know You Were Missing

significant R&D operations. “We can use the same words as scientists to describe what they do—develop plans, think creatively and prospectively, and manage their priorities in certain ways,” Duede says. “And these are the kinds of... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

13 Jul 2016
HBS Case

How Uber, Airbnb, and Etsy Attracted Their First 1,000 Customers

lack of hand towels. The last thing a company wants during its early phases is negative word-of-mouth. “You are still a startup,” says Teixeira. “You have to find people who are willing to accept your flaws... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Retail; Service; Transportation

29 Apr 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Exclusive Preferential Placement as Search Diversion: Evidence from Flight Search

Keywords: by Benjamin G. Edelman & Zhenyu Lai; Publishing; Technology

06 Oct 2023
Book

Yes, You Can Radically Change Your Organization in One Week

classic thing we see happen is, if it's an academic institution, senior faculty have gathered to talk about junior faculty and solutions to some of the junior faculty's concerns. There are no junior faculty... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

Elie Ofek

Elie Ofek is a Professor in the Marketing unit at the Harvard Business School. Professor Ofek's research focuses on new product strategies in technology-driven business environments as well as in consumer-oriented companies in general. He explores interactions... View Details

Keywords: internet; internet; internet; internet

14 Jun 2023
Research & Ideas

Four Steps to Building the Psychological Safety That High-Performing Teams Need

to be candid, to ask for help, to share mistakes, we won’t get things done,” Edmondson explains. After all, very few jobs are performed alone, and in a world where remote work is on the rise and teams are far-flung, that sense View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

February 2018
Case

EmQuest: Travel Distribution in the Digital Era

By: Karim R. Lakhani and Gamze Yucaoglu

EmQuest, Emirates Group’s travel distribution company, must decide what to do with its contract with the global distribution system it uses, Sabre. Since its founding in 1988, EmQuest was servicing travel agents in the MENA region by providing a connection to over 400... View Details

Keywords: UAE; Decision; Business Model; Competitive Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Business Strategy; Value Creation; Change Management; Emerging Markets; For-Profit Firms; Competitive Advantage; Travel Industry; United Arab Emirates

June 2024
Article

Oral History and Business History in Emerging Markets

By: Geoffrey Jones

This article describes the motivation, structure and use of the Creating Emerging Markets (CEM) oral history-based project at the Harvard Business School. The project consists of lengthy interviews with business leaders from emerging markets. By June 2024 183... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Economies; Oral History; Emerging Markets; Business History; Research

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17 Oct 2023
HBS Case

With Subscription Fatigue Setting In, Companies Need to Think Hard About Fees

fact, they can just as easily lose great customers in the process. “There is such a thing as a poorly thought-out subscription model,” says Ofek, the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing at HBS. “You... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Consumer Products; Information; Information Technology

Web

The Value Chain - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

embedded, are the basic units of competitive advantage. set of choices Strategy is reflected in the set of choices about how the activities in the value chain are configured... View Details

30 Jan 2024
Research & Ideas

‘Intrinsic Joy’ Sparks Ideas Better than Cash

and producing things for everyone else.” You Might Also Like: University of the Future: Finding the Next World Leaders in Higher Ed The Best Person to Lead Your Company Doesn't Work There—Yet Why a Failed... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Technology

March 2019 (Revised June 2021)
Case

HelloSelf: Foundation

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

On January 6, 2019, HelloSelf, a London-based “BrainTech” company, founded a year earlier by Charles Wells, soft launched. The proposition was simply to help its members “Be your Best Self.” The company provided its registered members with access to a clinical... View Details

Article

Decisions about Medication Use and Cancer Screening across Age Groups in the United States

By: Kathleen M. Fairfield, Bethany S. Gerstein, Carrie A. Levin, Vickie Stringfellow, Heidi Wierman and Mary McNaughton-Collins

Objective
To describe decision process and quality for common cancer screening and medication decisions by age group.

Methods
We included 2941 respondents to a national Internet survey who made at least one decision about colorectal, breast,... View Details

Keywords: Screening; Decision Making; Health Care and Treatment; Health Testing and Trials