Defense - Publications - Faculty & Research

20 Dec 2010
Research & Ideas

Panama Canal: Troubled History, Astounding Turnaround

declined after World War II. What happened? A: In defense terms, the United States finally had to recognize something that naval strategists had long realized: The Panama Canal had no strategic value. Military analysts recognized as early... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Transportation

01 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Encouraging Dissent in Decision-Making

McNamara had hired to be comptroller of the Defense Department. "Unfortunately, McNamara himself contributed to the very shortcoming he speaks of—his domineering style led him to shut out other voices," recalls George. It was a... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons

08 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

Keep Your Weary Workers Engaged and Motivated

defensive drives. The implicit, almost unconscious ways we get information and reassure each other are lost when people go remote. Colleagues are not going to overhear useful conversations while getting coffee. Because of this, functions... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

26 May 2022
HBS Case

Apple vs. Feds: Is iPhone Privacy a Basic Human Right?

folks there,” said Cook at the time, in defense of Apple’s decisions. A follow-on case written last year as the COVID-19 pandemic raged explores how Cook was presented with another privacy quandary: Public health officials wanted to use... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

08 Mar 2019
Research & Ideas

Seven Negotiation Lessons from Amazon's HQ Disaster in Queens

Identify all likely and potential opponents at the outset of the process. Project advocates often find themselves in reactive, defensive mode, having focused too late on opponents who have seized the initiative. For Amazon’s project,... View Details

Keywords: by James K. Sebenius; Real Estate; Construction

Article

Mission-Driven Governance

By: Raymond Fisman, Rakesh Khurana and Edward Martenson

The purpose of this paper is to provide a useful, easily applied theory of governance performance. The existing model is fundamentally adversarial, rooted in the paradigm of principal-agent conflict. At its base is an image of governance as a never-ending struggle... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Knowledge Management; Standards; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Evaluation

Citation

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19 Mar 2014
Research & Ideas

A Brand Manager’s Guide to Losing Control

charge of public discussions about the brands they use. And while marketers have tried to take part, they've had to face the fact that social media platforms are primarily meant for conversations among consumers, not for one-way brand messages that feel like... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Advertising

02 Mar 2009
Research & Ideas

When Goal Setting Goes Bad

in the sciences. It may have also increased the degree to which the United States and the Soviet Union spent limited funds on mutually unhelpful defense expenditures. So, I think the answer is in the eyes of the beholder. Personally, I... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

13 Feb 2020
Book

Open Your Organization to Honest Conversations

defense against hearing the truth because it’s hard to have your assumptions and practices disconfirmed,” Beer says. “But it’s important to listen.” Reflect, diagnose, and develop a plan. The leadership team needs to reflect on the truth,... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

05 Feb 2018
What Do You Think?

Should Companies Disclose Employee Compensation?

million fee. The situation came to light when the negotiation leaked. (The dispute was apparently resolved when Wahlberg agreed to donate his $1.5 million to Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund.) This Hollywood soap opera raises an interesting... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Financial Services

27 Aug 2013
Working Paper Summaries

The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Market

Keywords: by Yongwook Paik & Feng Zhu; Legal Services

February 2019 (Revised August 2019)
Case

KangaTech

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Patrick J. Ferguson, Sarah Fleischer, Jin Hyun Paik and Steven Randazzo

On a warm January afternoon in 2019, Steve Saunders, Dave Scerri, Carl Dilena, and Nick Haslam (see Exhibit 1 for biographies), co-founders of KangaTech, wrapped up the latest round of discussions about the future direction of their sports-technology start-up. Focused... View Details

Keywords: Startup; Technology Commercialization; Prototype; Business Startups; Technological Innovation; Sports; Health; Commercialization; Research and Development; Decision Making; Growth and Development Strategy; Technology Industry; Sports Industry; Health Industry; Australia

Citation

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17 Jan 2023
Book

Good Companies Commit Crimes, But Great Leaders Can Prevent Them

meaning it has an actual impact on employee behavior. It’s not simply enough to have policies and procedures on paper. Companies are becoming more savvy because they realize the best defense is offense. Lambert: Are companies beginning to... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

18 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

'Likes' Lead to Nothing—and Other Hard-Learned Lessons of Social Media Marketing

plenty of die-hard fans willing to push back when a consumer issues an online attack, Avery says. “The best defense against people who are speaking badly about you on social media is to have an incredibly loyal relationship with your... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Advertising; Technology

04 Mar 2019
What Do You Think?

What’s the Antidote to Surveillance Capitalism?

user as the customer to the user as the product. The best defense against any form of totalitarianism is, as Zuboff puts it, “naming and taming.” Her book does the naming. She believes it’s up to each of us, our children, and their... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Advertising; Consumer Products

17 Sep 2021
Research & Ideas

The Trial of Elizabeth Holmes: Visionary, Criminal, or Both?

after dropping out of Stanford University, knew the product didn’t deliver while she solicited new business and investments. Defense attorneys say Holmes “believed” in the revolutionary blood-testing device and that “trying hard and... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Biotechnology; Technology; Medical Devices & Supplies

18 Dec 2013
HBS Case

Lessons from the Lance Armstrong Cheating Scandal

illegal substances.) In his interview with Winfrey, Armstrong's main defense was a variation of "everyone else is doing it." “How do you start to go down that slippery slope?” Because doping was so widespread in the sport, he... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Sports

06 Sep 2004
Research & Ideas

The Innovator’s Battle Plan

appeal to new customers.12 When confronted with wireless technologies, for example, the incumbent phone companies chose growth-driven co-option. They developed wireless technology using internal resources and tried to market it to new customers. View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott D. Anthony & Erik A. Roth

01 Mar 2021
Research & Ideas

How Systemic Racism Can Threaten National Security

the single most important public good: defense of national boundaries from external attacks.” Quantifying racism’s toll Economists have looked more frequently at racism’s destructive influence on the US economy in recent years, yet few... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

06 Dec 2017
What Do You Think?

Is It Time To Break Up Amazon, Apple, Facebook, or Google?

Can a Platform-Based Tech Giant Be Broken Up? The answer to this month’s question of whether platform-based tech giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook, or Google should be broken up was a resounding “no.” “TD in FL” put it succinctly with one of the age-old View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Technology; Web Services

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