Survivability Design in Hostile Environments: Lessons from Squids, Ships, Startups, and Supply Chains

Survivability Design in Hostile Environments:
Lessons from Squids, Ships, Startups, and
Supply Chains
Tojin T. Eapen a | Daniel J. Finkenstadt b *
a University of Missouri, Department of Marketing, Columbia, MO, USA
b Naval Postgraduate School, Department of Defense Management, Monterey, CA, USA
* Corresponding author: daniel.finkenstadt@wolfstake.org
ABSTRACT
This paper introduces a novel ERP model of survivability design using natural analogies.
Management theories frequently emerge from biological metaphors. Every entity seeks to
continue existence, to survive. Firms, governments, and individuals balance survivability
factors of efficiency, resilience, and prominence (ERP) to stay alive. The researchers employ a
comparative analysis methodology between squids, military ships, startup firms in the
defense industry, and strategic supply chains using these analogies and a novel ERP model as
an analytical framework.Comparing the cases yields general principles of strategic design that
potentially extend to other entities that function in hostile environments. These principles
primarily relate to the relative significance of threats, the importance of ERP factors, the
nature of interrelationships among the ERP factors, and the tradeoffs involved while taking
actions to improve survivability. The paper offers insights into the use of ERP analogical case
analysis as a means for interdependent entities to co-create strategies to plan for and
overcome dilemmas in hostile environments.
Keywords: Survivability Design, Hostile Environments, Bioinspired Design, Nature-
Inspired Strategies.
INTRODUCTION
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of designing systems that are able to
survive and flourish in a world where many unknowns exist. This type of system design, which
can thrive in an uncertain hostile environment, is commonly known as "survivability design".
Historically, survivability design has been a key consideration in the design of military crafts
like aircraft and navy vessels (Ball and Atkinson 1995; Ball and Calvano 1994). Today,
businesses and organizations have a heightened awareness of the importance of incorporating
survivability design into their operations. This includes using techniques like contingency
planning to anticipate and prepare for unforeseen circumstances. These plans are typically
developed to address challenges that may arise in hostile environments (Handfield et al.
2021).
The design field recognizes the importance of robust frameworks in the area of strategic
design to aid research and decision-making in organizations (de Moura et al. 2011; Meroni
2008; Noble 2011). Analogical reasoning has been a valuable tool in design theory and practice
(Dorst and Lamber 2006; Goel 1997), with nature and biology providing a wealth of analogies
for designers (Mak and Shu 2004). This paper aims to build on existing literature by

Eapen, T. & Finkenstadt, D. J.
(2023). Survivability Design in
Hostile Environments: Lessons
from Squids, Ships, Startups, and
Supply Chains. Strategic Design
Research Journal. Volume 15,
number 03, September -
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10.4013/sdrj.2022.153.07.
page 308
presenting a strategic model of survivability design. Our proposal is based on an analogical
comparison with living organisms that thrive in hostile environments with high levels of
uncertainty.
1. NATURE OF HOSTILE ENVIRONMENTS
Numerous independent decision-making entities operate in environments that can be
designated as hostile – where the very survival of the focal entity is threatened. By entity, we
mean any independent thing of existence. A business firm operating in an uncertain
macroeconomic environment or a critical infrastructure system struggling to cope in the face
of a disruptive pandemic comes to mind. However, these are not the only examples. There are
analogous specimens in nature, such as marine animals in harsh underwater environments,
or examples in kinetic operations such as a military vehicle in enemy territory. The study of
such entities can help us better understand how to design survivable systems in a generic
environment that is hostile.
Three distinct threat elements characterize hostile environments: (1) limited resources, (2)
uncertainty environmental forces, and (3) the presence and attention of antagonistic objects.
The dynamic response of the entity to the three elements – limited resources, uncertain forces,
and rival attention, determines its survivability. We can track the “health” of a focal entity by
observing three macro survivability factors associated with an entity of interest: efficiency,
resilience, and prominence. Each of these factors contributes to survivability directly and
through its influence on the other two factors (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Survivability Factors: Efficiency, Resilience, and Prominence
Efficiency is the degree to which the entity can best use its resources with the least waste.
Resilience is the degree to which it can withstand, avoid, or recover from impacts from
uncertain environmental forces. Prominence, in hostile environments, reflects the degree of
attention a focal entity receives from other unfriendly decision-making entities such as rivals
and predators, while maintaining or controlling the relative attention of decision-making
entities they wish to attract such as mates or their own prey. We refer to the trifecta as the

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ERP factors, where each of the factors can be viewed as a generic response function to one of
the threat elements as linked in Table 1.
Table 1: Threats and Survivability Health Factors Linkage
Threat Element Survivability Factor
Limited Resources Efficiency
Uncertain Environmental Forces Resilience
Attention from Antagonistic Entities Prominence
When the threat consists of limited resources, the entity can improve its survival by improving
its efficiency and eliminating different waste forms. Two of the most critical resources are
energy and time, and these are considered exchangeable; if you run faster, you burn fuel
quicker. Resilience represents the ability to withstand environmental forces and avoid
damage. The higher the force the entity can withstand, the greater the resilience. Palm trees
that bend in the wind versus snap under the influence of a given force, the lower the damage,
the greater the resilience. An entity may be resilient to one type of force and non-resilient to
another. For example, a mine-resistant vehicle can withstand improvised explosive devices
but is too bulky to keep from rolling over under uneven terrain. Commonly, we observe a
tradeoff between efficiency and resilience. The underlying reason for this tradeoff is that an
entity requires extra resources to be deployed to manage uncertain environmental forces.
These extra resources comprise redundancies, reinforcements, or repair systems, enabling an
entity to overcome extreme conditions. Thus, a higher level of resilience leads to higher
resource demands and consequently lower levels of efficiency. Moreover, high efficiency
requires fine-tuning to a specific environmental condition, preventing an entity from
developing resilience.
In the presence of antagonistic entities such as predators and rivals, a focal entity can improve
its survivability by modifying its prominence. The relationship between the health factor and
survivability is monotonic when it comes to efficiency and resilience. Everything else equal,
the greater the efficiency or resilience, the better the survivability. In the case of prominence,
the relationship with survivability is more nuanced. Both low and high-prominence strategies
may be applied to avoid or scare a predator. In nature, we see low prominence strategies
employed in biological organisms such as camouflage, hiding, and refuging being used and
high prominence methods such as deimatic behavior (startle displays) and conspicuous
coloration against predators. The use of prominence strategies is occasionally complicated by
friendly entities in the environment towards which the focal entity might desire to use a
different form of prominence strategy. For instance, an animal may desire to attract a mate
while it is trying to avoid a predator. A business firm may attempt to hide its actions from
competitors while garnering the attention of customers or investors.
Moreover, an entity might utilize multiple prominence strategies against an antagonistic
entity if one fails or as a means to reinforce the effects. Thus, an entity is well served if it has
access to multiple prominence strategies and the ability to switch between such strategies.
Forces that pull at the tension between resilience and efficiency can be avoided or mitigated
with the effective use of prominence strategies. In such cases, what would be a need for higher
resilience can instead focus more on energy efficiency using effective prominence reduction
to unwanted attention from hostile forces (i.e., predators, competitors, regulators, and
adversaries).

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2. STATIC AND DYNAMIC SURVIVABILITY DESIGN IN NATURE AND
BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTS
To overcome threats, entities in a hostile environment commonly utilize adaptations that
modify ERP factors to improve survivability. These adaptations may be static-long-term or
dynamic-short-term adaptations that modify one or more of the entity’s attributes, such as
size, form, color, or function. Thus, an entity might benefit from static adaptations, such as
being larger (or small) in size relative to other animals in its environment. An animal might
also benefit from dynamic adaptations, such as changing its size quickly, such as observed with
the porcupinefish, which can nearly double in size, extending spikes along its body when
threatened.
Such adaptation often has a natural bearing on one or more of the three ERP factors. Take the
case of static and dynamic adaptations of size in nature. Generally, larger animals are more
prominent than smaller ones. Such a difference in prominence can be advantageous or
detrimental to the animal’s survivability. Additionally, relative size differences play a role in
prominence. An entity that appears much smaller or much larger relative to its reference
group can attract increased attention from a predator. In some instances, unusual attributes
relative to peers can help animals avoid predation, a phenomenon referred to as apostatic
selection. Likewise, quick changes in attributes such as size can exaggerate its prominence and
frighten away potential predators. Analogically, a business might benefit from its absolute and
relative size, as well as its ability to embellish its size or success, in the eyes of a potential
competitor eyeing its market. Sometimes these embellishments can go so far that they build
momentum around an essentially non-existent value proposition. This level of size
embellishment can take it too far, as we have seen with regard to the Silicon Valley lab,
Theranos, or legal challenges around the majority sale of Twitter.
Static adaptations such as large or small size can also influence the efficiency and resilience of
the animal. For example, the phenomenon of deep-sea gigantism is associated with high
efficiency and large size (i.e., the giant squid). Depending on the environmental force in
question, size may be helpful or detrimental to an animal’s resilience. Larger animals may be
more resilient to extreme winds, whereas smaller animals may be in general more resilient to
extreme temperatures. Dynamic changes in size can also impact the efficiency and resilience
of an animal, such as by changing its surface area, which can affect energy dissipation and
resilience against environmental forces such as ocean currents. Correspondingly, in business
operations, a firm may establish robust and trusted sources of supply through strong supplier
development, relationship management, and colocation (i.e., the Honda model) that are
resilient to uncertainties arising from competition. Others may choose to establish multiple
sources of supply that are vetted but easily interchanged in cases of environmental
uncertainty. The tradeoff for multiple sources is that one risks losing in-process efficiencies
gained from institutional learning, co-creation, and trust. The same geopolitical actors can use
varied dynamic sizing for similar ends. For example, in early 2014, clandestine Russian troops
invaded and seized Crimea from Ukraine. Russia employed low prominence and high
efficiency to strategically overtake the capital and the peninsula without triggering a timely
counteroffensive from Ukraine and its allies. As of December 2021, Russia was employing a
completely different strategy with the remaining parts of Ukraine. They amassed large
numbers of troops on the Russia-Ukrainian border under the guise of seasonal exercises. This
activity is a high-prominence strategy with low resilience. Though the number of operational
troops was high, there was no significant build-up in logistic channels and material necessary

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to sustain an actual invasion. Many believed this action is simply posturing to get the US and
NATO allies to the negotiating table to discuss Russia’s concerns over Ukraine joining NATO.
What this strategy lacked in resilience by limiting available logistics, it gained in efficiency by
forcing a recently announced conference between the US, NATO, and Russia without having to
employ large amounts of resources for sustained resistance necessary for a full-scale invasion.
The risk they ran, as we now know, is that they were ill-prepared to maintain an invasion
without significant losses.
In each context, we observe all ERP factor trades at play. Furthermore, all must be considered
in these dynamic trade spaces with rich scenario analysis to prevent naïve and myopic
decisions that can lead to catastrophic failure in hostile environments. Squids want to avoid
being eaten, firms hate losing market share or failing, and countries do not want to be invaded
or go to war unless necessary. Managers who operate in hostile environments can learn from
studying analogical examples of strategic ERP decisions by all types of entities.
3. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ENTITIES IN HOSTILE
ENVIRONMENTS
Hostile environments are often fluid, with the nature of threats changing quickly. Thus,
dynamic adaptations are necessary beyond just static adaptations. An entity benefits from
possessing an ability to (1) sense changes and (2) take decisions/actions that maintain or
improve its ERP health factors. This ability entails developing sensory capabilities and
dynamic agility to respond quickly to perceived and realized threats. Sometimes, in the
presence of a threat, an entity finds itself having to modify one of the ERP factors to improve
survivability unilaterally. However, such modifications can undesirably impact the other two
factors. Our goal is to study the interrelationships between the ERP factors, primarily to guide
decision-making in organizations situated in hostile conditions.
We examine four cases: squids, ships, startups, and supply chains, focal entities operating in
seemingly different environments, yet with similar generalizable themes, to compare the
generality of the inter-relationships between the ERP factors. The first case (squid) is of an
individual decision-making marine animal. The other three entities are complex systems,
where the decisions/actions are taken by coordinated individuals distributed across the
system. We can arrange the four cases based on the degree of coordination required for
decision-making: squid < ship < startups < supply chains. Squids simply make individual
decisions, while supply chains require vast amounts of interconnected networks to make
informed decisions. Consequently, our cases should help us identify a wide range of situations
relating to different types of threats and their varied responses in hostile environments.
Our primary goal is to identify general principles that may apply to any organization operating
in hostile environments. For this purpose, we engage in a comparative case analysis of the four
entities to uncover similarities, differences, and unique features. For each of the cases, we
examine the following themes:
• What is the specific nature of threats and their distribution in the hostile
environment?
• What are the essential resources that impact survival? How can efficiency improve
survivability? What are some of the steps the entity takes to improve efficiency?

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• What are the environmental forces that threaten the existence of the entity? How can
the entity develop resilience against these forces?
• What are the antagonistic objects encountered by the focal entity? Are there
prominence adaptations used to counter rivals and predators? What is the role of high
vs. low prominence in survival?
• What is the relative importance of each type of threat? What is the relative importance
of the ERP factors?
• What is the nature of the inter-relationship between the three ERP factors?
• What are some of the distinctive features of the entity or its environments that impact
its survivability?
3.1. Case: Squids
Squids are a diverse species belonging to the family of cephalopods which also include
cuttlefish, octopus, and nautilus. The specific nature of the threat depends on the environment
the individual species resides in. While squids can sometimes be threatened by limited food
availability and environmental forces such as strong currents, predators are the most
significant common threat. Different species of squids make up an important food source for
birds, fish, and sharks. Some squids feed on other squids. Several species have developed
numerous prominence-related adaptations as a response to predation-related threats. The
number of prominence adaptation mechanisms in cephalopods is dependent on the
complexity of the environment (Hanlon and Messenger 2019). Certain squid species possess
a wealth of prominence adaptations that they can choose to deploy in the presence of
predators and rivals (DiMarco and Hanlon 1997). These strategies can be used to attract,
avoid, hypnotize, sneak up on, threaten, or alert other entities. Some of these strategies have
a social role. Sentinel squids often alert other squids about the approach of a predator. The
extensive array of prominence adaptations allows for flexible strategies based on situational
factors. The choice of prominence mechanism may hinge on the predator’s size. For a larger
predator like a shark, the squid might choose a strategy such as hiding or ink discharge for
distraction. For smaller predators, the squid might resort to startle behavior. Squids are
required to balance their use of prominence mechanism between antagonistic and friendly
organisms. Certain squid species use unilateral prominence displays to communicate different
messages to different entities (rivals vs. mates) at the same time—the size of the squid species
influences both its prominence and efficiency. For example, the giant squid is an exemplar of
deep-sea gigantism. These creatures inhabit deep waters to decrease prominence and
improve efficiency. Such an action helps to conserve energy as well as avoid attention. In all
cases, the relative hostility of the environment and the originating foci of that hostility dictate
the natural ERP trades taken.
3.2. Case: Military Ships
The type of threat ships face depends on their operational goals and operating environment.
Most types of ships face resource limitations in the form of energy and time. Such a threat is
generally minor for most watercraft. A rare example of a vessel that ran out of energy
resources is the submarine USS R-14 (SS-91) which ran out of fuel while searching for a
tugboat and had to rely on a makeshift sail made from hammocks and blankets. More

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significantly, large vessels also face threats from environmental forces such as extreme
weather, increasing their instability and placing them at risk of flooding. Military ships must
be attuned to antagonistic attention from enemy crafts and airborne threats. In order to
navigate the above threats, military ships are required to make tradeoffs involving all three
ERP factors. Higher efficiency translates to higher speeds (time) and lowers ships’ fuel
consumption (energy). The consequence of higher efficiency can include both higher and
lower levels of prominence. More efficient ships may be faster, making them more challenging
to detect, target, or intercept enemy crafts. However, fast-moving crafts may be more
conspicuous relative to their background, risking detection in some situations. Higher
efficiency can often result in lower resilience. Faster ships must sacrifice hull strength in favor
of speed to build and deploy, as in the Littoral combat ship (LCS; O’Rourke 2011), a class of
small combat ships designed for the US Navy, first commissioned in 2008. A similar tradeoff is
observed in the choice of aluminum alloys over steel as the material of choice for naval
structures. Aluminum alloy ships are generally less expensive, lighter, and faster. However,
vessels made of aluminum alloys may be more vulnerable to extreme loads such as
underwater explosions and high-velocity impacts from torpedoes (Galanis and Papazoglou
2007). Efforts to improve resilience by reducing vulnerability, such as introducing component
redundancy and shielding, can be detrimental to the ship’s efficiency (Ball and Calvano 1994).
Maintaining low prominence plays a crucial role in the survivability of military crafts,
including naval ships, when faced with the risk of being targeted by enemy observers. Low
prominence helps avoid detection and avoiding enemy attention. Naval ships in World War II
extensively used prominence strategies observed in nature, such as camouflage, mimicry, and
masquerades (Forbes 2011). Other prominence-reduction strategies used in military crafts
include decoys and signature reduction to reduce susceptibility (Ball and Calvano 1994).
However, low-prominence strategies pose a risk in the presence of friendly fire. The German
passenger ship MV Spreewald was sunk in 1942 by U-333 because it could not be identified,
due to disguise, by the German submarine. Thus, military ships benefit from developing
differential prominence, where they can increase attention from friendly entities and avoid
detection from antagonistic crafts.
3.3. Case: Defense Startups
Startups encounter threats on all three fronts – resources, forces, and rivals. Resource threats
manifest in the non-availability of capital and the absence of qualified personnel. Thus,
efficiency is often paramount to the survival of startups. Ventures that “burn cash” too quickly
often die a quick death. For years the Department of Defense has wrestled with the so-called
“valley of death” for these startups in defense R&D investments. These firms get initial support
and capital to explore their new ideas but very little available funding to scale and
commoditize their inventions. For human-resource-related efficiency improvements, startups
often turn to multifunctionality, where departments perform multiple roles, and the
employees resort to wearing “multiple hats.” Hostile environmental forces are related to
public policy, and difficulty navigating government markets also impacts their survival ability
(Josephson et al., 2019). External threats include larger competitors that may seek to steal
intellectual property or engage in predatory behavior. There are benefits and risks of stealth
for a startup. Stealth can keep a company away from prying eyes. The downside of stealth is
that it can reduce the likelihood of being noticed by friendly entities such as potential investors
and customers. It presents the “prominence dilemma” for startup firms, which is especially

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pronounced in defense markets. Firms need to adopt a ‘superb bird-of-paradise’ approach to
dealing with this dilemma. They need to be invisible to competition yet overly attractive to
potential mates. The superb bird-of-paradise (greater lophorina) is a species in New Guinea
that appears as an ordinary-looking bird until it is time to attract a mate. At that time, it
extends a bright electric blue feather band under its neck to create a fantastic display.
To contend with the prominence dilemma for nontraditional defense startups, the US Air
Force has created a similar strategy by bolstering efforts to decrease IP risks for startups
working on government contracts in the past five years. Using a novel approach to Small
Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technical Transfer (SBIR/STTR) funding,
the Air Force has started to increase the amount of money spent on contracts that do not
require overly burdensome cost accounting regulation or forfeiture of IP rights with dual-use
technology startups. The Air Force uses an open-topic strategy in this program to increase
dual-use technology small businesses to government customer matching (increasing
prominence) without forcing these firms to respond to full and open solicitations that either
reduce their prominence with the government or increase their prominence with competitors.
In a full and open solicitation, the government dictates a specific requirement, and firms that
do not align well with the requirement may not be evaluated or may be selected out of
competition. In the past, even having developed an idea under SBIR/STTR may have resulted
in the production contracts being solicited full and open to competitors. With the open-topic
model, firms can find grassroots users of their solutions and vie for direct federal funding to
conduct customer discovery across the department and potentially earn additional dollars to
scale their concepts into full-rate production. New organizations such as AFWERX and its
AFVentures arm increase these startups’ prominence amongst venture capitalists and
exponentially increase the private dollars invested in bringing the technology to market faster.
This strategy has increased startup prominence with (friendly) customers and investors while
decreasing it with (hostile) competitors. Essentially the Air Force has allowed these
nontraditional defense firms to overcome the prominence dilemma by becoming ‘superb
birds-of-paradise’ in government markets.
3.4. Case: Strategic Supply Chains
The role of prominence depends on internal and external threats and the need to attract
attention in the case of a defect or failure. An inherent tradeoff between efficiency and
resilience becomes apparent during disruptions (Ivanov et al. 2014). The supply-chain
challenges that merged post the COVID-19 pandemic have demonstrated how designing
supply chains for high efficiency and low waste can result in poor resilience in turbulent times.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were mixed approaches to supply chain resiliency.
Some entities built up large amounts of buffer stock while others developed lean
manufacturing processes that enabled just-in-time inventory management. The lesson
learned from the post-COVID supply chain experiences shows that one cannot simply stock up
for uncertainty, nor can an organization put cost ahead of the ability to operate during a mass
disruption. Firms had taken an approach to “lean” and “just-in-time” inventory that was more
about lowering carrying costs than it was about having transparent and frictionless access to
materials and components necessary for operations and production. Just-in-time only works
if it is ‘available-just-in-time’ not ‘ordered-just-in-time.’ They are drastically different
concepts, as evidenced by various levels of firm COVID response performance in the years
following the pandemic’s start.

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In contrast to just-in-time, government agencies such as the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS)
had built up stocks of items that were obsolete and expired and had no near-term source to
replenish them (Handfield et al. 2020). This approach to resilience came at a cost to efficiency
and effectiveness. Further, for touted security reasons, the location of the SNS stockpiles had
been kept secret. This action would seem to be a reasonable prominence strategy given that
the SNS was built initially to counter chemical, biological, or nuclear attacks. However, during
a mass pandemic, the process to access its stock also became opaque to the states that required
them during COVID-19, demonstrating an ineffective trade of higher resilience and
distribution efficiency for lower levels of public prominence in the name of national security.
The sad irony is that more lives were at risk due to a lack of clear SNS access versus any risk
ever imposed by an enemy actor. This incident demonstrates the risk of not understanding the
ERP trades when designing optimal survivability approaches in hostile environments. Higher
supply chain prominence has been seen as a threat to national security if bad actors trace and
act upon the networks.
However, it is also a threat to national security if the government or firm cannot trace the
network of suppliers and components. This outcome leaves unprotected cyber vulnerabilities,
opportunities for counterfeiting by profiteers, and access to tampering by saboteurs. It also
creates an inability to execute the agile, adaptive, and aligned distribution of shared resources
efficiently and equitably during mass contingencies (Finkenstadt and Handfield 2021). Firms
do not always want customers or the government to see deep into their supply chains. Such
visibility may uncover unwanted attention to things such as cost data that impacts negotiated
margins, supplies that derive from human exploitation, and the firm’s inability to manage a
transparent and traceable network of suppliers responsibly. Such instances are rife across
global markets and are coming to light daily due to COVID-19 disruptions. Finally, a real-time
case-in-point, what looked like a Russian strategy of low logistics prominence is shaping up to
be a major lesson in a poor E-R-P strategy of the highest order.
4. COMPARISON OF CASES
We find that the importance of different forms of threats may be different across the four
cases. This relative difference also highlights the differences in significance between the three
ERP factors (Table 2).
Table 2: Comparison of Cases
Threats/Case Squids Ships Startups Supply Chains
Significance of limited resources
as a threat to survival
Low Low to Moderate High High
Significance of uncertain
environmental forces as a threat
to survival
Low to Moderate Moderate to High High High
Significance of antagonistic
entities as a threat to survival
High High High Low to Moderate
Estimated importance of ERP
factors
P>R>E P>R>E E~R~P E~R>P
Comparing the cases yields general principles that potentially extend to other entities that
function in hostile environments. These principles primarily relate to the relative significance
of threats, the importance of ERP factors, the nature of interrelationships among the ERP
factors, and the tradeoffs involved while taking actions to improve survivability. We also
observe that what may seem like a higher threat condition for uncertain forces (ships) is less

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uncertain than others (startups and supply chains) based on ERP strategies from others in
their network. We can measure threats and risks on two axes, consequence and probability of
occurrence. For instance, a naval ship may be more likely to enter a hostile environment where
human lives are on the line. That may lead most observers to rate its threat level as higher.
However, we are speaking about the relative threat to the entity’s survivability. A naval ship
may carry high consequences of hostile actions from environmental forces and antagonistic
parties, but it also has means of increasing certainty of occurrence (the other axis of risk) and
building resilient systems. Startups exist, by design, in areas of high uncertainty and maximum
consequence. They are trying to establish themselves as new entrants to a market, or more
often of late, first entrants to emerging markets. Supply chains suffer from a consistent lack of
transparency and flexibility by suppliers, manufacturers, and customers both up and
downstream. They can be attacked by antagonistic entities such as the 2020 and 2021 REvil
ransomware attacks. Supply chains are also often impacted by the uncertainty of
environmental forces such as global pandemics or weather-related events.
We notice that the significance of the survivability factor is related to the distribution of the
threat. An important implication is that organizations that seek to improve their survivability
should carefully examine the relative significance of the three forms of threats. If the relative
significance varies over time, organizations should be able to modify their priorities regarding
the importance of ERP factors. It is incumbent on business entities operating in hostile
situations to carefully weigh their actions and consider their implications on all three ERP
factors. Businesses should be conscious of the indirect effects of their actions if they attempt
to modify one of the three ERP factors unilaterally. Firms profit from the capability to switch
between high efficiency and high resilience modes, mainly if situated in environments where
resources are limited and uncertainty is high. Businesses benefit from developing multiple
prominence strategies based on environmental, and situational factors. However, there are
tradeoffs involving different prominence strategies at the entity’s disposal. Interdependent
entities can co-create strategies to overcome dilemmas in ERP factors by observing analogical
cases, enabling concerted use of the ERP model by managers, policy-makers, activists, and
academics in analyzing and planning for hostile environments.
5. IMPLICATION FOR STRATEGIC DESIGN THEORY & PRACTICE
The ERP framework of survivability design can contribute to strategic design theory and
practice in the following ways:
• The proposed ERP framework of survivability design can facilitate the comparison of
systems that operate in vastly different, hostile environments that threaten their
survival.
• It provides a shared vocabulary for comparing challenges, priorities, and strategies
across diverse contexts.
• It can assist organizations in evaluating strategic design decisions in a more holistic
manner. Decisions & and actions will be evaluated not merely on their impact on one
of the ERP factors, but all three factors.
Moreover, the framework's common language can potentially aid in identifying design
heuristics (Yilmaz and Seifert 2011) and support the use of strategic design tools like scenario
planning (Hindrichson and Cattani 2022). It can also provide novel contexts for developing

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prompt engineering methods for strategic design using AI in a rapidly emerging and changing
strategic landscape.
ENDNOTES
The statements and positions of this paper are those of the authors and do not represent the
official position of the Department of Defense, Navy, or United States Air Force.
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