Publications

May 1996
Case

Honeywell Defense Avionics

By: D. Quinn Mills and Paul Clark

Keywords: Information Technology; National Security; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry

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November 2019 (Revised April 2021)
Case

United Technologies: Are the Parts Worth More Than the Whole?

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

After spending more than 50 years creating a diversified industrial conglomerate that Fortune magazine described as “arguably the most profitable conglomerate in America” in 2014, UTC’s CEO Greg Hayes was under pressure from activist investors (Dan Loeb and Bill... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Business Conglomerates; Financial Management; Corporate Governance; Organizational Structure; Investment Funds; Value Creation; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry; United States

November 2019
Supplement

United Technologies Corp.: Are the Parts Worth More Than the Whole?

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

After spending more than 50 years creating a diversified industrial conglomerate that Fortune Magazine described as “arguably the most profitable conglomerate in America” in 2014, UTC’s CEO Greg Hayes was under pressure from activist investors (Dan Loeb and Bill... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Business Conglomerates; Financial Management; Corporate Governance; Organizational Structure; Diversification; Valuation; Investment Activism; Financial Strategy; Investment Funds; Value Creation; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry; United States

15 Mar 2016
First Look

March 15, 2016

collection of startup aerospace engineering companies that were intent on disrupting the American space sector with new technologies, management approaches, and competitive pressure. NASA hoped to leverage New Space to outsource its... View Details

30 Oct 2005
Research & Ideas

Tuning Jobs to Fit Your Company

vital to strategy implementation (for example, at exclusive hotel chains) or when the organizational design is highly complex because of sophisticated technologies and a complex value chain (in aerospace or computers, for instance). In... View Details

Keywords: by Robert Simons

21 Nov 2017
News

Alumni Peer into the Future of Energy

world will have recognized the urgency of the climate change problem. I think the best analogy for the state of the industry, once that realization has set in, is aerospace in the 1960s and the moon shot, where there’s a real problem and... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley; solar power; wind power

01 Mar 2011
News

James McNerney Jr.

2005, McNerney assumed his current role at Chicago-based Boeing. With just over $68 billion in annual revenues and more than 157,000 employees, Boeing is the world’s largest aerospace company, manufacturing and supporting commercial... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; interview; Transportation Equipment Manufacturing; Manufacturing; Air Transportation; Transportation

Research Summary

Overview

By: Willy C. Shih

Willy's research interests reflect the 28 years he spent in industry, during which he logged many questions on firm performance, relative competitiveness, and firm culture as an impediment to change. His primary interests today are in the drivers of industrial... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Technology; Competitiveness; Competitive Dynamics; Supply Chains; Production; Operations; Product Development; Supply Chain Management; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry; United States; Asia; Europe

11 Dec 2018
Research & Ideas

Free Trade Needs Nurturing—and Other Lessons from History

Question: What patterns emerge from history that can help us better understand where we are today? Sophus Reinert: To many people, globalization is teleological, something that necessarily becomes stronger over time and leads to an ever-more economically interconnected... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Aerospace; Aerospace; Aerospace; Aerospace; Aerospace; Aerospace; Aerospace; Aerospace; Aerospace; Aerospace

July 15, 2022
Article

Does Elon Musk Have a Strategy?

By: Andy Wu and Goran Calic

Does Elon Musk have a strategy? Or is he just out there winging it? Looking at Musk’s many companies, common themes stand out across three areas: what fits into his vision for problems to solve, how he designs an organization as a solution to those problems, and why he... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Strategy; Vision; Resources; Organization; Platform; Closed Systems; Leadership; Complexity; Organizational Design; Vertical Integration; Problems and Challenges; Success; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry

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01 Mar 2010
News

Lords of Strategy

of all time” demonstrated an early penchant for competition. A peripatetic Army brat, Porter was an all-state football and baseball player in New Jersey before majoring in aerospace engineering at Princeton (where he finished first in his... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

August 2023
Case

Salma Qarnain: Spaceships to Broadway

By: Leslie Perlow, Mel Martin and Hannah Weisman

Salma Qarnain, daughter of Pakistani Muslim immigrants, is an engineer trained at Stanford and MIT. She began her career building spacecrafts but 30 years later finds herself pursuing her calling, acting on Broadway. The case explores Qarnain’s career path, family... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Job Search; Job Design and Levels; Happiness; Identity; Well-being; Work-Life Balance; Family and Family Relationships; Theater Entertainment; Film Entertainment; Talent and Talent Management; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry; United States; New York (city, NY); Boston; California

May 2019
Case

Elon Musk's Big Bets Update, 2019

By: David B. Yoffie and Daniel Fisher

This short case provides an update to Elon Musk's strategy and tactical moves with Tesla, Solar City, and SpaceX from 2016-2019. View Details

September 2014
Article

The Interrelationships Between Brand and Channel Choice

By: Scott Neslin, Kenshuk Jerath, Anand Bodapati, Eric T. Bradlow, John A. Deighton, Sonja Gensler, Leonard Lee, Elisa Montaguti, Rahul Telang, Raj Venkatesan, Peter C. Verhoef and Z. John Zhang

We propose a framework for the joint study of the consumer's decision of where to buy and what to buy. The framework is rooted in utility theory where the utility is for a particular channel/brand combination. The framework contains firm actions, the consumer search... View Details

Keywords: Brand Choice; Channel Choice; Utility Theory; Marketing; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Behavior; Learning; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry; Aerospace Industry

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February 2022 (Revised September 2022)
Case

Lilium: Preparing for Takeoff

By: Navid Mojir, Vincent Dessain, Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej and Emer Moloney

Lilium is a German company focused on developing electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOLs) that can be used to offer air taxi services. The company went public in September 2021 through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deal, raising more than... View Details