Publications

October 2024
Supplement

a16z: Governance in Decentralized Protocols (B)

By: Shai Bernstein and Liang Wu

August 2024
Case

Zipline: Expanding the World's Largest Autonomous Drone Delivery Network

By: Tarun Khanna and George Gonzalez

Zipline initially established the world's largest logistics network in Rwanda and Ghana by delivering medical supplies to hospitals via automated drones from a centralized hub. The company is now looking to expand to the U.S. home delivery market and designed a... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Growth and Development Strategy; Logistics; Expansion; Air Transportation; Rwanda; Ghana; United States

June 2024
Case

Building Innovation at VINCI

By: Dennis Campbell, Aluna Wang and Carlota Moniz

This case study explores how the VINCI Group, a French multinational operating in concessions, energy, and construction, bolstered awareness and adoption rates of new technologies within the organization. Through its separate innovation hub, Leonard, VINCI aimed to... View Details

March 2024
Case

Biomanufacturing Decentralization by Stämm

By: Paul A. Gompers, Jenyfeer Martínez Buitrago and Mariana Cal

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, cousins Llamazares and D’Alvia founded Stämm, a startup based on the idea of decentralizing biomanufacturing processes and downsizing biotech facilities. After raising its seed and series A rounds, and while finalizing its series B round in... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Selection and Staffing; Technological Innovation; Science-Based Business; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Launch; Research and Development; Biotechnology Industry; Latin America; South America; Argentina; Buenos Aires

February 2024 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Uniswap: Fighting a Vampire Attack (A)

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Shweta Bagai and Liang Wu

This is the first of a three-case series that explores the challenges faced by Uniswap, a key player in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. Founded by Hayden Adams, the case traces Uniswap's rapid growth from a simple idea inspired by a Reddit post to becoming one... View Details

January 2024
Supplement

Buurtzorg

By: Ethan Bernstein and Tatiana Sandino

As co-founders of home nursing company Buurtzorg, Jos de Blok and Gonnie Kronenberg prized both self-management and organizational learning. Buurtzorg’s 10,000 nurses across 950 neighborhood nursing teams in the Netherlands were empowered to manage themselves, both in... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Design; Management Style; Business Model; Knowledge Dissemination; Learning; Organizational Culture; Health Industry; Netherlands

2024
Working Paper

The Impact of Culture Consistency on Subunit Outcomes

By: Jasmijn Bol, Robert Grasser, Serena Loftus and Tatiana Sandino

We examine the association between subunit culture consistency—defined as the congruence between the organizational values espoused by top management and those perceived and practiced by subunit employees—and subunit outcomes. Using data from 235 subunits of a North... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Culture; Employees; Creativity; Satisfaction

December 2023
Teaching Note

Buurtzorg

By: Ethan Bernstein and Tatiana Sandino

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 122-101. As co-founders of home nursing company Buurtzorg, Jos de Blok and Gonnie Kronenberg prized both self-management and organizational learning. Buurtzorg’s 10,000 nurses across 950 neighborhood nursing teams in the Netherlands were... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Employee Relationship Management; Knowledge Dissemination; Knowledge Management; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Learning; Health Industry; Netherlands

October 2023 (Revised April 2024)
Case

ghSMART & Co: Building and Scaling a Time Smart Firm

By: Ashley Whillans and Sara Coronel Rodriguez

"For ghSMART, freedom is the first principle from which all good things flow”—Geoff Smart, Chairman and Founder, ghSMART. ghSMART was a leadership advisory firm that was grounded in the principle of freedom. Talented Consultants and Partners could work remotely from... View Details

Keywords: Time; Consulting Firms; Time Management; Talent and Talent Management; Employee Relationship Management; Innovation Strategy; Knowledge Sharing; Organizational Culture; Going Public; Partners and Partnerships; Expansion; Reputation

2023
Working Paper

Centralization and Organization Reproduction: Ethnic Innovation in R&D Centers and Satellite Locations

By: William R. Kerr

We study the relationship between firm centralization and organizational reproduction in satellite locations. For decentralized firms, the ethnic compositions of inventors in satellite locations mostly resemble their host cities, with little link to the inventor... View Details

Keywords: Ethnicity; Business Offices; Research and Development; Innovation and Invention; Organizational Design

September 2023
Case

THREAD Research: Decentralized Clinical Trials and Beyond

By: Satish Tadikonda, Amanda McEwen and William Marks

September 2023
Case

Diamond Standard

By: Lauren H. Cohen, Zhaoheng Gong and Grace Headinger

Cormac Kinney, Founder and CEO of Diamond Standard, was on a mission to transform the U.S. diamond market through unlocking the precious gems as market-traded assets. As a serial FinTech entrepreneur, he hoped to add an additional service to his vault: Carats. The... View Details

July 13, 2023
Article

Threads Foreshadows a Big—and Surprising—Shift in Social Media

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Liang Wu

Threads, Meta’s Twitter competitor, has become the fastest downloaded app in history. One of the reasons for this is because it allows users to port over their profiles and follows from the already popular social media platform Instagram, also owned by Meta—a feature... View Details

Keywords: Decentralization; Twitter; Facebook; Instagram; Crypto Economy; Blockchain; Network; Industrial Organization; Competition; Open Innovation; Open Platforms; Open Source Innovation; Social Networks; Social Media; Applications and Software; Information Technology Industry

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January 12, 2023
Article

Progressive Decentralization: A High-level Framework

By: Jad Esber and Scott Duke Kominers

We explain a high-level framework for designing for future decentralization up front, and offer some guidance about when and how to do so. The guidelines apply to both web3 projects and more traditional organizations. View Details

Keywords: Crypto Economy; Cryptocurrency; Decentralization; Decentralized Autonomous Organizations; Entrepreneurial Journey; Entrepreneurial Management; Organization Behavior; Organization And Management Theory; Organization Form; Organizational Structure

December 7, 2022
Article

Why Decentralized Crypto Platforms Are Weathering the Crash

By: Shai Bernstein and Scott Duke Kominers

In the past year, crypto markets dropped from $2.9 trillion in value to around $800 billion. In the wake of the collapse, crypto lenders and exchanges have been accused of fraud and other wrongdoing. What went wrong? One factor is competition. In theory, competition... View Details

Keywords: Crypto Economy; Cryptocurrency; Financial Complexity; Financial Crisis; Decentralization; Decentralized Markets; Decentralized Autonomous Organizations; Finance; Market Design; Financial Services Industry

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2022
Working Paper

The Limits of Decentralized Administrative Data Collection: Experimental Evidence from Colombia

By: Natalia Garbiras-Diaz and Tara Slough

States collect vast amounts of data for use in policymaking and public administration. To do so, central governments frequently solicit data from decentralized bureaucrats. Because central governments use these data in policymaking, decentralized bureaucrats may face... View Details

Keywords: Decentralization; Policy-making; Policy/economics; Policy Evaluation; Governance; Government Administration; Government and Politics; Government Legislation; Policy; Public Opinion; Analytics and Data Science; Latin America; South America; Colombia

August 2022
Case

SuperRare: Turning an NFT Marketplace into a DAO

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Scott Duke Kominers and Amy Klopfenstein

In June 2021, John Crain and Jonathan Perkins, the founders of SuperRare, a marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), contemplate whether to transform their company into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). Crain and Perkins founded SuperRare in 2018 to... View Details

July 28, 2022
Article

DAO Governance Attacks, and How to Avoid Them

By: Pranav Garimidi, Scott Duke Kominers and Tim Roughgarden

Many web3 projects embrace permissionless voting using a fungible and tradable native token. Permissionless voting can offer many benefits, from lowering barriers to entry to increasing competition. Token holders can use their tokens to vote on a range of issues—from... View Details

Keywords: Crypto Economy; Cryptocurrency; Governance; Voting; Decentralized Autonomous Organizations; Organizational Structure; Digital Platforms

2024
Working Paper

Do Collusive Norms Maximize Profits? Evidence From a Vegetable Market Experiment in India

By: Abhijit Banerjee, Greg Fischer, Dean Karlan, Matt Lowe and Benjamin N. Roth

Social norms have been shown to facilitate anti-competitive behavior in decentralized markets. We demonstrate that these norms can also reduce aggregate profits. First, we present descriptive evidence of competition-suppressing norms in Kolkata vegetable markets.... View Details

Keywords: Collusion; Competition; Market Entry and Exit; Small Business; Microeconomics; Kolkata

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