Strategy

- June 2025
- Case
AI Wars in 2025

By: Andy Wu and Anna Yang

In June 2025, Google leaders in Mountain View, CA convened after its parent company Alphabet shed a quarter-trillion in market capitalization in a matter of months. The immediate spark—the quiet revelation that Google searches had dipped for the first time in 20 years—masked a deeper shift: hundreds of millions were now turning first to generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and upstart DeepSeek, asking questions that once flowed automatically to Google Search. After two decades of dominating search, Google’s mission to “organize the world’s information” was now in peril. The company now faced a future in which the world’s queries might bypass it altogether.
- June 2025
- Case
AI Wars in 2025

By: Andy Wu and Anna Yang

In June 2025, Google leaders in Mountain View, CA convened after its parent company Alphabet shed a quarter-trillion in market capitalization in a matter of months. The immediate spark—the quiet revelation that Google searches had dipped for the first time in 20 years—masked a deeper shift: hundreds of millions were now turning first to generative...
- June 2025
- Case
Roku and The Future of Television, 2025

By: David B. Yoffie, Julie Cruz and Samari Gilbert
- June 2025
- Case
Roku and The Future of Television, 2025

By: David B. Yoffie, Julie Cruz and Samari Gilbert
- June 2025
- Article
Outcome and Process Frames: Strategic Renewal and Capability Reprioritization at the Federal Bureau of Investigation

By: Ryan Raffaelli, Tiona Zuzul, Ranjay Gulati and Jan Rivkin

[Research Summary]: Framing is critical for leaders who must build support for strategic renewal. While research has concentrated on renewal that replaces one set of capabilities with another, we explore a distinctive challenge: how leaders persuade stakeholders to endorse the reprioritization of resources toward a capability set that must coexist with an existing one. Moreover, while research has focused on how leaders build employee support for renewal, we examine how to persuade those overseeing resource allocation. Our study analyzes Director Robert Mueller's 12-year effort at the FBI—after the 9/11 terrorist attacks—to build up counterterrorism capabilities while maintaining existing law enforcement capabilities. We offer a novel distinction between outcome frames and process frames and discuss how each frame, sequenced properly, is relevant to strategic renewal. [Managerial Summary]: This study examines how leaders can build support for strategic renewal when an organization must develop new capabilities while maintaining existing ones. We analyze how FBI Director Robert Mueller, in the wake of 9/11, used strategic communication—or framing—to persuade members of Congress overseeing the FBI's budget to support the development of new counterterrorism capabilities alongside its traditional law enforcement mandate. We highlight two types of frames: outcome frames (focused on what the organization seeks to achieve) and process frames (emphasizing how the organization operates). Our findings reveal that sequencing these types of frames is essential. By using outcome frames to address immediate concerns and shifting to process frames to resolve longer-term tensions, leaders can build stakeholder support for complex resource reprioritization efforts.
- June 2025
- Article
Outcome and Process Frames: Strategic Renewal and Capability Reprioritization at the Federal Bureau of Investigation

By: Ryan Raffaelli, Tiona Zuzul, Ranjay Gulati and Jan Rivkin

[Research Summary]: Framing is critical for leaders who must build support for strategic renewal. While research has concentrated on renewal that replaces one set of capabilities with another, we explore a distinctive challenge: how leaders persuade stakeholders to endorse the reprioritization of resources toward a capability set that must coexist...

About the Unit

The Strategy unit studies firms as competitors in an economic landscape. Key issues include: the development and effectiveness of firm strategy at both a business and corporate level; the analysis of the competitive environment; and the sustainability of strategy over time.

Our research, course development, and teaching draws on multiple disciplines, including economics, sociology, and political science, and focuses on both domestic and global competition. The objective of the work is to generate findings and develop concepts that will help managers improve their strategic decisions while advancing the state of knowledge in the academic study of strategy and related disciplines.

Recent Publications

AI Wars in 2025

By: Andy Wu and Anna Yang

June 2025 |
Case |
Faculty Research

In June 2025, Google leaders in Mountain View, CA convened after its parent company Alphabet shed a quarter-trillion in market capitalization in a matter of months. The immediate spark—the quiet revelation that Google searches had dipped for the first time in 20 years—masked a deeper shift: hundreds of millions were now turning first to generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and upstart DeepSeek, asking questions that once flowed automatically to Google Search. After two decades of dominating search, Google’s mission to “organize the world’s information” was now in peril. The company now faced a future in which the world’s queries might bypass it altogether.

Citation

Educators

Roku and The Future of Television, 2025

By: David B. Yoffie, Julie Cruz and Samari Gilbert

June 2025 |
Case |
Faculty Research

Citation

Educators

On Video Supplement

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Karolin Frankenberger and Sascha Mader

June 2025 |
Supplement |
Faculty Research

Citation

Purchase

Outcome and Process Frames: Strategic Renewal and Capability Reprioritization at the Federal Bureau of Investigation

By: Ryan Raffaelli, Tiona Zuzul, Ranjay Gulati and Jan Rivkin

June 2025 |
Article |
Strategic Management Journal

[Research Summary]: Framing is critical for leaders who must build support for strategic renewal. While research has concentrated on renewal that replaces one set of capabilities with another, we explore a distinctive challenge: how leaders persuade stakeholders to endorse the reprioritization of resources toward a capability set that must coexist with an existing one. Moreover, while research has focused on how leaders build employee support for renewal, we examine how to persuade those overseeing resource allocation. Our study analyzes Director Robert Mueller's 12-year effort at the FBI—after the 9/11 terrorist attacks—to build up counterterrorism capabilities while maintaining existing law enforcement capabilities. We offer a novel distinction between outcome frames and process frames and discuss how each frame, sequenced properly, is relevant to strategic renewal. [Managerial Summary]: This study examines how leaders can build support for strategic renewal when an organization must develop new capabilities while maintaining existing ones. We analyze how FBI Director Robert Mueller, in the wake of 9/11, used strategic communication—or framing—to persuade members of Congress overseeing the FBI's budget to support the development of new counterterrorism capabilities alongside its traditional law enforcement mandate. We highlight two types of frames: outcome frames (focused on what the organization seeks to achieve) and process frames (emphasizing how the organization operates). Our findings reveal that sequencing these types of frames is essential. By using outcome frames to address immediate concerns and shifting to process frames to resolve longer-term tensions, leaders can build stakeholder support for complex resource reprioritization efforts.

Keywords: Framing; Stakeholder Management; Capabilities; Transformation; Leading Change; Crisis Management; Resource Allocation; Government and Politics; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Public Administration Industry

Citation

Read Now

Dynamic Competition for Customer Memberships

By: Cristian Chica, Julian Jimenez-Cardenas and Jorge Tamayo

Summer 2025 |
Article |
Journal of Economics & Management Strategy

A competitive two-period membership (subscription) market is analyzed. Two symmetric firms charge a “membership” fee that allows consumers to buy products or services at a given unit price for both periods. Firms can choose between long- or short-term memberships. When firms employ long-term membership, they have incentives to prevent their old customers from being poached by competitors, and to price-discriminate with their membership fee and unit price regarding customer purchase behavior. In contrast, with short-term membership, they do not discriminate between new and old customers with their unit price but only with their membership fees. Overall, the number of consumers poached is smaller with long-term memberships, but the equilibrium profits are higher when firms offer short-term memberships. Moreover, short-term membership is a Nash equilibrium.

Keywords: Competitive Price Discrimination; Membership; Dynamic Competition; Competition; Price; Consumer Behavior; Business Model

Citation

Purchase

Boutiqaat: Influencing Retail in MENA

By: Juan Alcacer and Noor Al Qadhi

May 2025 |
Teaching Note |
Faculty Research

Boutiqaat, a Kuwait-based e-commerce platform, scaled an influencer-driven beauty retail model across MENA and now faces critical strategic choices about offline expansion and globalization. Founded in 2015, Boutiqaat combined social commerce, localized logistics, and private label products to build a differentiated digital platform. Students must evaluate whether Boutiqaat should establish flagship stores to deepen its omnichannel retail footprint or focus on expanding internationally beyond the Gulf and Jordan. The case explores platform strategy, influencer ecosystems, customer experience differentiation, and internationalization challenges in emerging markets. It is ideal for teaching courses in digital strategy, global entrepreneurship, scaling tech ventures, , and platform-based business models.

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Digital Strategy; Growth and Development; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Retail Industry; Kuwait; Saudi Arabia; Middle East; North Africa

Citation

Boutiqaat: Influencing Retail in MENA

By: Juan Alcacer and Noor Al Qadhi

May 2025 |
Case |
Faculty Research

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Digital Strategy; Growth and Development; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Retail Industry; Kuwait; Saudi Arabia; Middle East; North Africa

Citation

Educators

On (B): The Cyclon Spins On

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Karolin Frankenberger, Sascha Mader and Karen Elterman

May 2025 |
Supplement |
Faculty Research

A follow-up to the On case (723-430), this short case explores how the performance athletic shoe company On expanded its Cyclon subscription and recycling program through 2024, adding two new shoe models to the subscription and a one-time-purchase recyclable T-shirt.