Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(147)
- Faculty Publications (36)
Page 1 of 36
Results →
- September 2024
- Case
Eat App: Building and Monetizing an End-to-End Dining Experience Solution
By: Elie Ofek and Ahmed Dahawy
Founded in 2015 in Bahrain, Eat App was an up-and-coming player in the global restaurant management software business. In early 2024, having shifted to a product-led growth strategy, the company’s co-founders faced a host of decisions that could greatly impact their... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
The New Digital Divide
By: Mayana Pereira, Shane Greenstein, Raffaella Sadun, Prasanna Tambe, Lucia Ronchi Darre, Tammy Glazer, Allen Kim, Rahul Dodhia and Juan Lavista Ferres
We build and analyze new metrics of digital usage that leverage telemetry data collected by Microsoft during operating system updates across forty million Windows devices in U.S. households. These measures of US household digital usage are much more comprehensive than... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Navigating Software Vulnerabilities: Eighteen Years of Evidence from Medium and Large U.S. Organizations
By: Raviv Murciano-Goroff, Ran Zhuo and Shane Greenstein
How prevalent are severe software vulnerabilities, how fast do software users respond to the availability of secure versions, and what determines the variance in the installation distribution? Using the largest dataset ever assembled on user updates, tracking server... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
The Value of Open Source Software
By: Manuel Hoffmann, Frank Nagle and Yanuo Zhou
The value of a non-pecuniary (free) product is inherently difficult to assess. A pervasive
example is open source software (OSS), a global public good that plays a vital role in the economy
and is foundational for most technology we use today. However, it is... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Residential Battery Storage - Reshaping the Way We Do Electricity
By: Christian Kaps and Serguei Netessine
In this paper, we aim to understand when private households invest in behind-the-meter battery storage next to rooftop solar and how those batteries impact households, the electricity market, and emissions. We answer three main research questions: 1) When do customers... View Details
- 2023
- Article
Towards Bridging the Gaps between the Right to Explanation and the Right to Be Forgotten
By: Himabindu Lakkaraju, Satyapriya Krishna and Jiaqi Ma
The Right to Explanation and the Right to be Forgotten are two important principles outlined to regulate algorithmic decision making and data usage in real-world applications. While the right to explanation allows individuals to request an actionable explanation for an... View Details
- January 2023 (Revised December 2023)
- Case
OhmConnect: Energizing the Future
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Jennifer Fonstad and Nicole Tempest Keller
Founded in 2013, OhmConnect was a free consumer web app that alerted customers about peak hours of electricity demand, and paid them to lower their energy use at home during these periods. The company sold the aggregated reductions generated by thousands of households... View Details
Keywords: App Development; Renewable Energy; Electricity Usage; Regulations; VC; Technology; Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC); Scalability; Applications and Software; Growth and Development Strategy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business Model; Venture Capital; Energy Industry; United States; California; Texas; Europe
- November–December 2022
- Article
The Value of Descriptive Analytics: Evidence from Online Retailers
By: Ron Berman and Ayelet Israeli
Does the adoption of descriptive analytics impact online retailer performance, and if so, how? We use the synthetic difference-in-differences method to analyze the staggered adoption of a retail analytics dashboard by more than 1,500 e-commerce websites, and we find an... View Details
- May 2022
- Article
Strengthening Digital Infrastructure: A Policy Agenda for Free and Open Source Software
By: Frank Nagle
While there is little debate that digital forces are playing an increasingly crucial role in the economy, there
is limited understanding of the importance of the digital infrastructure that underlies this role. Much of the
discussion around digital infrastructure has... View Details
- May 2022
- Case
Rawbank's Illico Cash: Can 'Fast Money' Overcome Cash Dependency in the DRC?
By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger
Thomas de Dreux-Brézé, the Head of Strategy and Project Management at Rawbank Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was perplexed as he reviewed annual adoption rates for the bank’s launch of Illico Cash 2.0. As the bank’s mobile money app, Illico Cash... View Details
Keywords: Fintech; Inflation; Deflation; Rural; Urban; Emerging Market; Mobile Technology; Finance; Money; Inflation and Deflation; Business Growth and Maturation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Demographics; Developing Countries and Economies; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Behavioral Finance; Currency; Banks and Banking; Commercial Banking; Financial Strategy; Rural Scope; Urban Scope; Innovation Strategy; Emerging Markets; Network Effects; Consumer Behavior; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Technology Adoption; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Congo, Democratic Republic of the
- Winter 2021
- Article
Mobile Internet Usage and Usage-based Pricing
By: Jeffrey Prince and Shane Greenstein
Using data on mobile Internet usage of thousands of individuals, we provide some of the first analyses linking mobile usage to key demographics such as income. We find a reverse-U relationship between mobile Internet usage and income—notably different than the... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Hidden Software and Veiled Value Creation: Illustrations from Server Software Usage
By: Raviv Murciano-Goroff, Ran Zhuo and Shane Greenstein
How do you measure the value of a commodity that transacts at a price of zero from an economic standpoint? This study examines the potential for and extent of omission and misattribution in standard approaches to economic accounting with regards to open source... View Details
- March 2021
- Article
The Impact of the General Data Protection Regulation on Internet Interconnection
By: Ran Zhuo, Bradley Huffaker, KC Claffy and Shane Greenstein
The Internet comprises thousands of independently operated networks, where bilaterally negotiated interconnection agreements determine the flow of data between networks. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes strict restrictions on... View Details
- January 2021
- Case
Anodot: Autonomous Business Monitoring
By: Antonio Moreno and Danielle Golan
Autonomous business monitoring platform Anodot leveraged machine learning to provide real-time alerts regarding business anomalies. Anodot’s solution was used in various industries in order to primarily monitor business health, such as revenue and payments, product... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Value of Descriptive Analytics: Evidence from Online Retailers
By: Ron Berman and Ayelet Israeli
Does the adoption of descriptive analytics impact online retailer performance, and if so, how? We use the synthetic difference-in-differences method to analyze the staggered adoption of a retail analytics dashboard by more than 1,500 e-commerce websites, and we find an... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
The Impact of the General Data Protection Regulation on Internet Interconnection
By: Ran Zhuo, Bradley Huffaker, KC Claffy and Shane Greenstein
The Internet comprises thousands of independently operated networks, where bilaterally negotiated interconnection agreements determine the flow of data between networks. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes strict restrictions on... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
The Effect of Payment Choices on Online Retail: Evidence from the 2016 Indian Demonetization
By: Chaithanya Bandi, Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe and Zhiji Xu
The Indian banknote demonetization in 2016 was one of the most significant international events of that year. Overnight, 86% of Indian currency in circulation was declared invalid unless exchanged for new bills. The sudden and unexpected demonetization constituted a... View Details
- July–August 2018
- Article
Learning by Contributing: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Contribution to Crowdsourced Public Goods
By: Frank Nagle
As the economy becomes more information based, firms are increasingly using crowdsourced public goods as inputs for innovation and production. Counterintuitively, some firms pay their employees to contribute to the creation of these goods, which can be used freely by... View Details
- June 2018
- Article
Personal and Social Usage: The Origins of Active Customers and Ways to Keep Them Engaged
By: Clarence Lee, Elie Ofek and Thomas Steenburgh
We study how digital service firms can develop an active customer base, focusing on two questions. First, how does the way that customers use the service postadoption to meet their own needs (personal usage) and to interact with one another (social usage) vary across... View Details
- September 2017
- Teaching Note
The Productivity Decline: Demographics, Robots, or Globalization?
By: Laura Alfaro and Hayley Pallan
In the early 21st century, there was a noticeable trend of declining productivity growth. Despite the persistent decline in productivity growth, a consensus on its explanation had not been reached. Some of the debate focused on the technicalities of productivity... View Details