Publications

May 2019
Teaching Note

Upwork: Creating the Human Cloud/Upwork in 2019

By: David B. Yoffie

This teaching note serves as a guide to teaching: Upwork: Creating the Human Cloud and Upwork in 2019. View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Platform; Technology; Digital Platforms

July 2017 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Upwork: Creating the Human Cloud

By: Dylan Minor and David Yoffie

Stephane Kasriel, the new CEO of Upwork, the leading platform for freelance labor, needs to decide on how to redesign its business model. While the firm has been growing rapidly since the merger of Odesk and eLance, the newly combined firm continues to face problems of... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Platform; Platform Businesses; Technology; Business Model; Digital Platforms; Growth and Development Strategy; Internet and the Web; Labor

March 2021
Case

Wearable Technology

By: Andy Wu, Jacob Chouinard and Christie Klauberg

Wearable electronics were endpoint devices designed to be worn, sense the human body and interact with the environment around the wearer, connecting humans to the Internet of Things. Wearable technology received a great deal of attention in the past decade and reached... View Details

Keywords: Wearables; Internet Of Things; Technological Innovation; Product Development; Technology Adoption; Analysis

Article

The Impact of the 'Open' Workspace on Human Collaboration

By: Ethan Bernstein and Stephen Turban

Organizations’ pursuit of increased workplace collaboration has led managers to transform traditional office spaces into “open,” transparency-enhancing architectures with fewer walls, doors, and other spatial boundaries, yet there is scant direct empirical research on... View Details

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09 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Organizations

In Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices, the authors combine the latest thinking from the biological and social sciences to lay out a new theory on human nature. The idea: We are all influenced and... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Lawrence & Nitin Nohria

July 1997
Case

Technology Crisis and the Future of Agribusiness: Antibiotic Resistance in Humans and Animals

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Juan Enriquez-Cabot

Keywords: Agribusiness; Health Pandemics; Crisis Management; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

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October 2015
Case

DRW Technologies

By: Stephen A. Greyser and William Ellet

Ed Claiborne is a newly hired corporate vice president of procurement for DRW Technologies, a company that produces advanced military systems with 21 plants in the United States. Claiborne was hired from another company from within the industry, and the news of his... View Details

Keywords: Announcements; Management Style; Organizational Structure; Leadership Style; Human Resources

19 Sep 2019
News

Predicting Human Behaviors

Above: Sid Misra (MBA 2013) cofounder, Perceptive Automata (Len Rubenstein; courtesy of Perceptive Automata) Amid the hubbub of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the world’s largest technology tradeshow, Sid Misra (MBA 2013)... View Details

Keywords: April White

16 Nov 2011
News

Are Humans Cost-Effective?

On Halloween, before a raucous audience in Burden Hall, Watson, the IBM game-playing computer, took on student teams from HBS and MIT in a friendly game of Jeopardy! During the match, a slimmed-down, traveling version of Watson showed off its impressive brainpower and... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons

December 2023
Article

Self-Orienting in Human and Machine Learning

By: Julian De Freitas, Ahmet Uğuralp, Zeliha Uğuralp, Laurie Paul, Joshua B. Tenenbaum and T. Ullman

A current proposal for a computational notion of self is a representation of one’s body in a specific time and place, which includes the recognition of that representation as the agent. This turns self-representation into a process of self-orientation, a challenging... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Behavior; Learning

April 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

Unleashing Human Magic at Best Buy

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger, Sunil Gupta and Amram Migdal

The case examines the transformation of Best Buy under CEO Hubert Joly's leadership from 2012. Facing significant business challenges, including competition from online and physical retailers, Joly implemented the "Renew Blue" turnaround strategy, which focused on... View Details

01 Jun 2000
News

Capturing Human Capital

expansion of the service-based economy, rapid technological innovation, deregulation and privatization, and today's knowledge revolution as forces that are "driving companies to fundamentally rethink their business models and radically... View Details

October 2005 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Infosys (A): Strategic Human Resource Management

By: Thomas J. DeLong, Jaya Tandon and Ganesh Rengaswamy

Hema Ravichandar, head of human resources, was given a new and aggressive milestone to reach: ensure Infosys is on the Top 10 lists of both Best Performing Companies and Best Employers by 2007. No large organization had ever been able to achieve this distinction... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Transition; Cost; Human Resources; Employee Relationship Management; Problems and Challenges; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology Industry

July 1995 (Revised April 1996)
Case

Cambridge Technology Partners (A)

By: Teresa M. Amabile, George P. Baker III and Michael Beer

Cambridge Technology Partners uses a highly innovative product strategy, supported by a human resources strategy, that has been very successful. However, high growth rates jeopardize product quality while tension about relative compensation levels between sales and... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Compensation and Benefits; Organizational Culture; Quality; Human Resources; Relationships; Innovation and Invention; Consulting Industry; Massachusetts

26 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

How Humans Outshine AI in Adapting to Change

humans. “People were solving everything faster; self-orientation doesn’t seem to exist at all for AI,” De Freitas says. How does the technology need to improve? Developers still need to figure out how and where AI can learn to... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Technology; Technology

July 2024
Article

How Artificial Intelligence Constrains Human Experience

By: A. Valenzuela, S. Puntoni, D. Hoffman, N. Castelo, J. De Freitas, B. Dietvorst, C. Hildebrand, Y.E. Huh, R. Meyer, M. Sweeney, S. Talaifar, G. Tomaino and K. Wertenbroch

Many consumption decisions and experiences are digitally mediated. As a consequence, consumer behavior is increasingly the joint product of human psychology and ubiquitous algorithms (Braun et al. 2024; cf. Melumad et al. 2020). The coming of age of Large Language... View Details

Keywords: Large Language Model; User Experience; AI and Machine Learning; Consumer Behavior; Technology Adoption; Risk and Uncertainty; Cost vs Benefits

28 Feb 2011
News

Rebooting the Human Condition

engineered cells, biological tissue, and robots. This perfect storm of innovation will allow humans to shape their own evolution (as well as that of other species) and create solutions to energy, health, and economic problems. Enriquez... View Details

Keywords: Health, Social Assistance; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

February 2015 (Revised November 2015)
Supplement

Building an Integrated Biopharma Company: Crucell (B)

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Marianne Van Der Steen and Susan Harmeling

The Crucell (B) case updates events at Crucell since 2009. In September, 2009, Johnson & Johnson acquired 18% of Crucell for $400 million. This investment was part of a business development deal. Subsequently, in 2012, Johnson & Johnson acquired Crucell for $2.8... View Details

Keywords: Biotechnology; Biopharmacy Company; Licensing Agreements In Biopharmacy; Licensing; Human Cell-line Technology; Vaccine; Healthcare Innovation; Global Health; Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Acquisition; Innovation and Invention; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry