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• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | November 2020

  Social Salary Setting at Spiber

  Ashley Whillans and John Beshears

  This case tells the story of Spiber, a Japanese technology start-up company. To reflect the company’s values, the leadership team implemented a new and unique salary-setting process: each employee had the authority to choose their own salary. In the course of discussing the case, students are asked to contemplate the challenges that managers face when incentivizing innovation and are invited to brainstorm methods for motivating the behaviors that drive innovation. Students consider the merits of Spiber’s new compensation system and reflect on issues of pay equity. The case allows for a rich discussion regarding the design of effective and fair compensation systems, with a special emphasis on exploring how organizational culture and the broader social and cultural context in which an organization is embedded shape employees’ responses to compensation systems.

  Keywords: compensation; general management; employee benefits; happiness; incentives; motivation; negotiation;

  Citation:

  Whillans, Ashley, and John Beshears. "Social Salary Setting at Spiber." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 921-014, November 2020.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2016 (Revised September 2020)

  T-Mobile in 2013: The Un-Carrier

  John Beshears, Francesca Gino, Jonathan Lee and Sean (Yixiang) Wang

  By 2013, the U.S. wireless industry was in the midst of a costly transition. As consumers began to embrace more sophisticated mobile devices, the industry's four main players spent heavily to improve their infrastructures for providing reliable high-speed data services. T-Mobile, the smallest of the four major carriers, lacked the scale of its competitors and risked falling further behind in the contest for market share. Faced with this daunting business environment, T-Mobile's new CEO declared war on the rest of the industry, decrying competitor pricing practices and upending the traditional contract-based business model. This case provides background information on the state of the wireless industry in 2013 and follows T-Mobile's early steps to transform its market position.

  Keywords: Business Model; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Product Positioning; Competition; Wireless Technology; Telecommunications Industry; United States;

  Citation:

  Beshears, John, Francesca Gino, Jonathan Lee, and Sean (Yixiang) Wang. "T-Mobile in 2013: The Un-Carrier." Harvard Business School Case 916-043, February 2016. (Revised September 2020.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2020 (Revised August 2020)

  CredEx Fintech: Business Model Transformation During the Digital Era

  Laura Huang, Raphael Amit and Xu Han

  Founded in 2010, CredEx has been a fast and constant innovator in the microfinance industry in China. Tang Xia, CEO and co-founder of CredEx, has led the company through a number of profound business model innovations in response to external environment changes, which transformed the company from an offline, operation heavy micro lending company to an online, data driven FinTech company. This case describes CredEx’s business model transformation process since its founding and explores the drivers and challenges in different stages of business model innovation and transformation. Ultimately, the case highlights the key capabilities needed to digitize a traditional finance business as well as the organizational changes needed to enable the digitization.

  Keywords: digitization; fintech; Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Transformation; Microfinance; Organizational Change and Adaptation;

  Citation:

  Huang, Laura, Raphael Amit, and Xu Han. "CredEx Fintech: Business Model Transformation During the Digital Era." Harvard Business School Case 420-080, April 2020. (Revised August 2020.)  View Details

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