by Mark Mortensen - Publications - Faculty & Research

02 Mar 2016
What Do You Think?

Is Apple’s Real Privacy Challenge Technology Innovation Itself?

put it, “Remember, if you lose personal liberty and privacy, you lose everything. Be very careful what you would wish for in the cause of ‘national interest’.” Commenting that it requires some subtlety to get this balance between security and privacy right, Jim Dyer... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Technology

15 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

Five Questions for Paul Gompers and Josh Lerner

booms, we have seen the impositions of tougher standards by venture capitalists when examining whether to fund or refinance companies, a decrease in the valuations assigned to these firms, and a slowing of the frenetic pace of investment.... View Details

Keywords: by Carol Elsen; Financial Services

03 Mar 2010
What Do You Think?

To What Degree Does “Identity” Affect Economic Performance?

Summing Up Is "identity" a victim of competitiveness? A recent study of organizational behavior published by Timothy Kieningham and Lerzan Toksoy shows that employees' perceptions of their employers' levels of commitment to them... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

08 Jun 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Twenty-first Century Skill: Trading Carbon Credits

several decision points. At the 7-minute mark of trading, each firm decides whether to invest in clean technology, which ultimately could save the company money by reducing emissions, but comes with up-front... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

10 Jan 2018
Research & Ideas

Working for a Shamed Company Can Hurt Your Future Compensation

you may find some people getting a [compensation] discount they don’t deserve.” Don’t try to hide the past The researchers have also produced several business cases examining what executives who have found themselves nicked by a black... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

29 Oct 2014
Research & Ideas

Inventing Products is Less Valuable Than Inventing Ideas

In a well-marked line from the movie The Social Network, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg turns to the Winklevoss twins, who are suing him for stealing their invention, and says: "If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology

21 Oct 2024
Research & Ideas

What Happens in Vegas Could Shape the Metaverse

constraints, Stephenson believed a digital world could be truly limitless. Chatter about the metaverse peaked in late 2021, almost three decades after Stephenson’s novel was published, when Mark Zuckerberg announced he would build the... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Nover; Computer; Information Technology

03 Jul 2018
What Do You Think?

Should CEO Satya Nadella Cancel Microsoft’s Contract with ICE?

high tech community about social issues and the use of its technology. Senior executives of Apple, Tesla, Google, Uber, and Cisco, among others, already had spoken out about the treatment of migrants. A collection, led by View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Computer; Technology

20 Mar 2013
Research & Ideas

How CEOs Sustain Higher-Ambition Goals

At a recent Harvard Business School conference, dozens of CEOs committed to the idea of working toward "higher-ambition" goals that go beyond just short-term shareholder value. Inspired by the book Higher Ambition: How Great Leaders... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

17 May 2004
Research & Ideas

Why We Don’t Study Corporate Responsibility

conclusion after studying research published between 1958 and 2001. Their findings were recorded in their paper "Social Issues and Management: Our Lost Cause Found," published by the Journal of Management, December, 2003. View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

28 Oct 2015
Research & Ideas

A Dedication to Creation: India's Ad Man Ranjan Kapur

One day in 1966 while Ranjan Kapur was walking in midtown Manhattan, a black limo pulled up alongside. A man he instantly recognized as advertising icon David Ogilvy, founder of the agency where Kapur had recently been hired, stepped out and greeted him View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Advertising

10 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

How to Put Meaning Back into Leading

perceived them to be extremely efficient. At the same time, large work organizations destabilized extended family and community relations: first, by removing individuals from their family and community and placing them in factories for... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

06 Jun 2013
Op-Ed

How to Do Away with the Dangers of Outsourcing

path between the traditional top-down, inside-the-tent corporate structure and unbridled license to suppliers to do as they want. Marked by high levels of direction and support, this approach offers... View Details

Keywords: by Ranjay Gulati; Manufacturing; Apparel & Accessories; Fashion

17 Jun 2017
Research & Ideas

Amazon, Whole Foods Deal a Big Win for Consumers

Source: 400tmax Editor's Note. Online retailing behemoth Amazon announced June 16 that it would acquire upscale grocery chain Whole Foods Market in a deal valued at more than $13 billion. Though the company has dabbled with the idea of a brick-and-mortar footprint in... View Details

Keywords: by Jose Alvarez and Len Schlesinger; Retail

06 Sep 2004
What Do You Think?

How Do We Prepare for a World Without Cheap Oil?

government incentives to bolster their arguments. This view was characterized by Mark Townsend Cox, who commented, "I can count almost twenty methods of creating electricity without burning something,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

08 May 2020
Research & Ideas

We’ve Now Been Asking “What Do You Think?” for 20 Years

This month marks the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of my “What do you think?” column. The Working Knowledge website was the brainchild of a faculty and staff committee organized in 2000 by then Dean... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

14 Feb 2005
Research & Ideas

Desktop Search and Revenue Streams

and other types of data are still locked away from Internet users. It's really going to be about great execution.— Mark Kroese, MSN "Rather than leave someone behind, the approach we at Google take is, 'Let's make all that... View Details

Keywords: by Julie Jette

18 Jun 2014
Research & Ideas

Leading Innovation is the Art of Creating ‘Collective Genius’

of Leading Innovation, was written by Hill, the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration, with Greg Brandeau, former CTO of The Walt Disney Studios and current COO/president of Media Maker; Emily Truelove, a PhD candidate... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

14 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

Pay-for-Performance Doesn’t Always Pay Off

pay-for-performance plans in the early 1990s. Within three years, all had dropped them. In a recent talk to HBS faculty and in two working papers, which he co-authored with Nancy Katz and Mark D. Cannon, respectively, Beer explained why... View Details