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All HBS Web
(913)
- Faculty Publications (154)
- April 2019 (Revised March 2020)
- Case
Handy: The Future of Work? (A)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Kieron Stopforth
Witnessing numerous lawsuits alleging that online platform companies misclassified workers as contractors when they were actually employees, Handy’s founders faced a series of decisions. Handy was an online platform business that enabled customers to book appointments...
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Keywords:
Employment;
Working Conditions;
Entrepreneurship;
Compensation and Benefits;
Internet and the Web;
Ethics;
Fairness;
Service Industry;
United States
Hsieh, Nien-hê, and Kieron Stopforth. "Handy: The Future of Work? (A)." Harvard Business School Case 319-103, April 2019. (Revised March 2020.)
- January 2019 (Revised October 2019)
- Case
Rural Taobao: Alibaba's Expansion into Rural E-Commerce
By: Tarun Khanna, Ryan Allen, Adam Frost and Wesley Koo
Alibaba's Rural Taobao initiative had been launched in 2014 as a public service initiative to increase e-commerce adoption in China’s remote rural areas. In the first two iterations of the initiative, dubbed “1.0” and “2.0,” Alibaba had partnered with local businesses...
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Keywords:
Strategy;
Business Growth;
Ecommerce;
Corporate Social Responsibility;
Business And Government;
Emerging Market;
Digital Platforms;
Internet and the Web;
Emerging Markets;
Rural Scope;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Competitive Strategy;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Business and Government Relations;
Decision Making;
E-commerce;
China
Khanna, Tarun, Ryan Allen, Adam Frost, and Wesley Koo. "Rural Taobao: Alibaba's Expansion into Rural E-Commerce." Harvard Business School Case 719-433, January 2019. (Revised October 2019.)
- January–February 2019
- Article
Why Some Platforms Thrive and Others Don't
By: Feng Zhu and Marco Iansiti
In the digital economy, scale is no guarantee of continued success. After all, the same factors that help an online platform expand quickly—such as the low cost of adding new customers—work for challengers too. What, then, allows platforms to fight off rivals and grow...
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Zhu, Feng, and Marco Iansiti. "Why Some Platforms Thrive and Others Don't." Harvard Business Review 97, no. 1 (January–February 2019): 118–125.
- December 2018
- Article
Improving Resilience Among Employees High in Depression, Anxiety, and Workplace Distress
By: Allison L. Williams, Acacia C. Parks, Grace Cormier, Julia Stafford and A.V. Whillans
Depression and anxiety are costly for both employees and employers, in terms of direct medical costs as well as costs stemming from lost productive time and missed days at work. Resilience training has been shown to improve workplace functioning for employees, which...
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Keywords:
Depression;
Anxiety;
Engagement;
Resilience;
Presenteeism;
Employee Engagement;
Mental Health;
Employees;
Emotions;
Health;
Internet and the Web;
Performance Productivity
Williams, Allison L., Acacia C. Parks, Grace Cormier, Julia Stafford, and A.V. Whillans. "Improving Resilience Among Employees High in Depression, Anxiety, and Workplace Distress." International Journal of Management Research 9, nos. 1-2 (December 2018): 4–22.
- September 2018 (Revised November 2018)
- Case
An Innovative Anti-bribery Commitment?
By: Eugene Soltes
Reebonz, an online luxury goods platform based in Singapore that operates across the Asia-Pacific region, offers its investors the opportunity to redeem shares if either the firm or its founder are investigated by the U.S. or U.K governments with regard to complying...
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Keywords:
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act;
United Kingdom Bribery Act;
Law;
Leadership;
Moral Sensibility;
Financial Services Industry;
Technology Industry;
United States;
United Kingdom;
Asia
Soltes, Eugene. "An Innovative Anti-bribery Commitment?" Harvard Business School Case 119-039, September 2018. (Revised November 2018.)
- September 2018 (Revised October 2018)
- Supplement
Lexoo: Building a Long-Lasting Platform
By: Chiara Farronato and Elena Corsi
Lexoo, a UK-based online marketplace for legal services, was facing the strategic choice of how to grow from early start-up to mature platform. Daniel van Binsbergen, Lexoo's CEO, and web developer Chris O'Sullivan, CTO, had set up Lexoo to help Small and Medium-Sized...
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- June 2018
- Case
The Grommet in 2018
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Karen Gordon Mills and Lena Goldberg
The Grommet, an online product launch platform, was at the brink of scaling its business. The Grommet's daily launch and sale of innovative consumer products, using personal videos created by product makers, had led to its initial success. In 2014, the company launched...
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- March 2018 (Revised July 2018)
- Case
Cadre
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Scott Duke Kominers and David Lane
Late in 2017, CEO Ryan Williams and his team debated whether Cadre should become not only a technology-enabled investment manager, but also an online trading exchange providing high levels of liquidity for investors in commercial real estate (CRE) equity. Cadre was a...
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- March 2018
- Case
Lufax: FinTech and the Transformation of Wealth Management in China
By: Christopher J. Malloy, Lauren H. Cohen and Anthony K. Woo
This case examines the rise and competitive positioning of Lufax, an online marketplace headquartered in Shanghai, China, and a pioneer in the origination and trading of financial assets. The company had grown at a remarkable rate, and was awarded “Trading Platform of...
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Keywords:
Asset Management;
Internet and the Web;
Competitive Strategy;
Situation or Environment;
Product Positioning;
Financial Services Industry;
China
Malloy, Christopher J., Lauren H. Cohen, and Anthony K. Woo. "Lufax: FinTech and the Transformation of Wealth Management in China." Harvard Business School Case 218-088, March 2018.
- January 2018 (Revised October 2019)
- Case
ZBJ: Building a Global Outsourcing Platform for Knowledge Workers (A)
By: Feng Zhu, Weiru Chen and Shirley Sun
ZBJ.com (ZBJ), an online platform that connects knowledge workers to small- and medium-sized enterprises, is China’s largest outsourcing platform. Founded by Mingyue Zhu in 2006, ZBJ had grown into a unicorn with 4,000 employees and a daily transaction volume of RMB15...
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Keywords:
Outsourcing;
Disintermediation;
Digital Platforms;
Information Technology;
Problems and Challenges;
Global Strategy;
Information Technology Industry;
China
Zhu, Feng, Weiru Chen, and Shirley Sun. "ZBJ: Building a Global Outsourcing Platform for Knowledge Workers (A)." Harvard Business School Case 618-044, January 2018. (Revised October 2019.)
- December 2017 (Revised March 2019)
- Case
Armarium: Luxury Fashion Brands for Rent
By: Jill Avery, David Fubini, Natasha Dossa and Devon Stewart
Armarium, a two-sided online platform that offered consumers the opportunity to rent the most coveted, current season high fashion clothing and accessories from the top global luxury brands, had emerged from its first sales season with two distinct customer segments:...
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Keywords:
Brand Management;
Retailing;
Sharing Economy;
Luxury Brand;
Ecommerce;
Startup;
Fashion;
Brand Positioning;
Customer Acquisition;
Internet Marketing;
Marketing;
Marketing Channels;
Marketing Strategy;
Brands and Branding;
Business Startups;
Luxury;
Consumer Behavior;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Social Media;
E-commerce;
Fashion Industry;
Retail Industry;
Apparel and Accessories Industry;
United States;
North America
Avery, Jill, David Fubini, Natasha Dossa, and Devon Stewart. "Armarium: Luxury Fashion Brands for Rent." Harvard Business School Case 518-047, December 2017. (Revised March 2019.)
- September 2017 (Revised November 2018)
- Case
Marriott International: The Next 90 Years
By: Chiara Farronato and Gary Pisano
The case examines how Marriott should respond to the potential threats from new home-sharing platforms and the rise of online travel agencies. In 2017 Marriott was the largest hotel chain, with more than one million rooms and 7% of worldwide room supply. In the...
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Keywords:
Airbnb;
Competitiveness;
Threats;
Disruption;
Lodging Industry;
Long-term Growth;
Loyalty Program;
Marriot;
Online Platforms;
Online Travel Agencies;
Digital Platforms;
Disruptive Innovation;
Competitive Strategy;
Competition;
Customer Focus and Relationships;
Customer Satisfaction;
Internet and the Web;
Tourism Industry;
Travel Industry;
Accommodations Industry
Farronato, Chiara, and Gary Pisano. "Marriott International: The Next 90 Years." Harvard Business School Case 618-017, September 2017. (Revised November 2018.)
- September 2017 (Revised June 2019)
- Case
Dianrong: Marketplace Lending, Blockchain, and 'The New Finance' in China
By: Christopher J. Malloy, Lauren H. Cohen and Anthony K. Woo
This case examines the strategic positioning of Dianrong, one of the largest online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms in China, in its attempt to become a foundational player in the expansion of the FinTech sector in Asia. Dianrong had recently announced the...
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Keywords:
Financing and Loans;
Internet and the Web;
Supply Chain;
Finance;
Innovation and Invention;
Competition;
Product Positioning;
Strategy;
Financial Services Industry;
China
Malloy, Christopher J., Lauren H. Cohen, and Anthony K. Woo. "Dianrong: Marketplace Lending, Blockchain, and 'The New Finance' in China." Harvard Business School Case 218-043, September 2017. (Revised June 2019.)
- 2017
- Working Paper
Nowcasting the Local Economy: Using Yelp Data to Measure Economic Activity
By: Edward L. Glaeser, Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca
Can new data sources from online platforms help to measure local economic activity? Government datasets from agencies such as the U.S. Census Bureau provide the standard measures of economic activity at the local level. However, these statistics typically appear only...
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Glaeser, Edward L., Hyunjin Kim, and Michael Luca. "Nowcasting the Local Economy: Using Yelp Data to Measure Economic Activity." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 18-022, September 2017. (Revised October 2017.)
- Article
Finding the Platform in Your Product: Four Strategies That Can Reveal Hidden Value
By: Andrei Hagiu and Elizabeth J. Altman
Five of the 10 most valuable companies in the world today—Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft—derive much of their worth from their multisided platforms (MSPs), which facilitate interactions or transactions between parties. Many MSPs are more valuable than...
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Hagiu, Andrei, and Elizabeth J. Altman. "Finding the Platform in Your Product: Four Strategies That Can Reveal Hidden Value." Harvard Business Review 95, no. 4 (July–August 2017): 94–100.
- Article
Repositioning and Cost-Cutting: The Impact of Competition on Platform Strategies
By: Robert Seamans and Feng Zhu
Organizational structures are increasingly complex. In particular, more firms today operate as multi-sided platforms. In this paper, we study how platform firms use repositioning and cost-cutting in response to competition, elucidate external and internal factors that...
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Keywords:
Platform Strategy;
Repositioning;
Cost-cutting;
Intra-firm Learning;
Multi-Sided Platforms;
Cost Management;
Product Positioning;
Organizational Structure;
Competitive Strategy;
Knowledge Acquisition;
Journalism and News Industry
Seamans, Robert, and Feng Zhu. "Repositioning and Cost-Cutting: The Impact of Competition on Platform Strategies." Strategy Science 2, no. 2 (June 2017): 83–99.
- April 2017 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
edaixi (eWash): Digital Transformation of Laundry Services (A)
By: Feng Zhu, Weiru Chen, Chuang Chen and Ciwu Lin
Founded in 2013 as a laundry service featuring online ordering for home pickup and delivery, China’s edaixi (eWash) illustrated the online-to-offline (O2O) business model. As yet unclear in 2016 was the optimal way to organize third-party laundry service providers,...
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Keywords:
Laundry;
O2O;
Online-to-offline;
Business Model;
Service Operations;
Ownership Type;
Digital Platforms;
Transformation;
China
Zhu, Feng, Weiru Chen, Chuang Chen, and Ciwu Lin. "edaixi (eWash): Digital Transformation of Laundry Services (A)." Harvard Business School Case 617-034, April 2017. (Revised February 2020.)
- April 2017 (Revised February 2020)
- Supplement
edaixi (eWash): Digital Transformation of Laundry Services (B)
By: Feng Zhu, Weiru Chen, Chuang Chen and Ciwu Lin
Founded in 2013 as a laundry service featuring online ordering for home pickup and delivery, China’s edaixi (eWash) illustrated the online-to-offline (O2O) business model. As yet unclear in 2016 was the optimal way to organize third-party laundry service providers,...
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Keywords:
Laundry;
O2O;
Online-to-offline;
Service Operations;
Business Model;
Digital Platforms;
Transformation;
Service Industry;
China
Zhu, Feng, Weiru Chen, Chuang Chen, and Ciwu Lin. "edaixi (eWash): Digital Transformation of Laundry Services (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 617-038, April 2017. (Revised February 2020.)
- January 2017 (Revised August 2019)
- Case
X Fire Paintball & Airsoft: Is Amazon a Friend or Foe? (A)
By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella
Three years after launching his brick-and-mortar store, X Fire Paintball and Airsoft, Steve Herbert Sr. and his sons began selling products on Amazon.com’s third-party Marketplace, and online sales expanded rapidly. Over time, X Fire noticed that products of which it...
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Keywords:
Ethics;
Competition;
Digital Platforms;
Internet and the Web;
Small Business;
Retail Industry;
Canada
Zhu, Feng, and Angela Acocella. "X Fire Paintball & Airsoft: Is Amazon a Friend or Foe? (A)." Harvard Business School Case 617-046, January 2017. (Revised August 2019.)
- January 2017 (Revised August 2019)
- Supplement
X Fire Paintball & Airsoft: Is Amazon a Friend or Foe? (B)
By: Feng Zhu and Angela Acocella
Three years after launching his brick-and-mortar store, X Fire Paintball and Airsoft, Steve Herbert Sr. and his sons began selling products on Amazon.com’s third-party Marketplace and online sales expanded rapidly. Over time, X Fire noticed that products of which it...
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Keywords:
Ethics;
Competition;
Digital Platforms;
Internet and the Web;
Small Business;
Retail Industry;
Canada
Zhu, Feng, and Angela Acocella. "X Fire Paintball & Airsoft: Is Amazon a Friend or Foe? (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 617-047, January 2017. (Revised August 2019.)