FALL 1989 VOL. 31 · NO. 1 Global Strategy … In a World of Nations? Providing a detailed framework for evaluating whether — and how — to globalize an individual firm’s corporate strategy, the author outlines opportunities for gaining competitive advantage. He provides examples of companies that have exploited globalization drivers and strategy levers. He […]
SUMMER 1989 VOL. 30 · NO. 4 Beyond Service Fads — Meaningful Strategies for the Real World SUPERIOR SERVICE IS FASHIONABLE in the business press these days. From the American Banker to Fortune magazine, service cheer-leaders extol the virtues of investing to improve all types of customer service across industries ranging from financial services to […]
SPRING 1989 VOL. 30 · NO. 3 Organizational Learning — The Key to Management Innovation Analog Devices Chairman Ray Stata argues that U.S. industry’s most serious competitive problem lies in shrinking innovation, and sees organizational learning as the key to encouraging and sustaining future innovation. Through his work at the MIT’s Management Style Project, he […]
WINTER 1989 VOL. 30 · NO. 2 IT in the 1990s: Managing Organizational Interdependence FOR THE PAST TWO DECADES, the question of what impact information technology (IT) will have on business organizations has continued to puzzle academics and practitioners alike. Indeed, in an era when the business press has widely disseminated the idea that IT […]
FALL 1988 VOL. 30 · NO. 1 The Merit of Making Things Fast AN AUTO PARTS MANUFACTURER in Northern Europe started to slip in profitability. For historical reasons, manufacturing was organized in a very disjointed way with facilities scattered over the countryside, each managed independently and concentrating on only a part of the full production […]
SPRING 1988 VOL. 29 · NO. 3 Toward Middle-Up-Down Management: Accelerating Information Creation THE CONCEPTS of “top-down” and “bottom-up” management pervade management research and the popular business literature. Both center on information flow and information processing. Top-down management emphasizes the process of implementing and refining decisions made by top management as they are transmitted to […]
FALL 1987 VOL. 29 · NO. 1 Managing Across Borders: New Organizational Responses IN A COMPANION ARTICLE (Summer 1987), we described how recent changes in the international operating environment have forced companies to optimize efficiency, responsiveness, and learning simultaneously in their worldwide operations. To companies that previously concentrated on developing and managing one of these […]
SUMMER 1987 VOL. 28 · NO. 4 Managing Across Borders: New Strategic Requirements THE DEMANDS OF MANAGING in an international operating environment changed considerably over the past decade. In an increasing number of industries, the benefits of exploiting global economies of scale and scope enhanced the need for integration and coordination of activities. At the […]
WINTER 1987 VOL. 28 · NO. 2 Acquisitions — Myths and Reality THE RISKINESS OF acquisitions as a vehicle for corporate renewal is reflected in both empirical studies of acquisition results and managers’ comments about their experiences. Although many factors contribute to acquisition performance, a variety of recurring patterns in the acquisition process offers clues […]
FALL 1986 VOL. 28 · NO. 1 The Hidden Side of Organizational Leadership I’ll be damned if I understand how we make some of our most important decisions around here.–CEO of a Fortune 500 company”The (Mustang) model (of 1964) was totally completed by the time Lee (Iacocca) saw it,”; says (Gene) Bordinat, now retired. “We […]
SPRING 1986 VOL. 27 · NO. 3 How Can Service Businesses Survive and Prosper? Presently the service sector of our economy is characterized by both profusion and confusion. By profusion, I mean that it has done wonderfully well at generating jobs, for new kinds of services are sprouting continually. By confusion, I mean that service […]
FALL 1985 VOL. 27 · NO. 1 The One-Firm Firm: What Makes It Successful What do investment bankers Goldman Sachs, management consultants McKinsey, accountants Arthur Andersen, compensation and benefits consultants Hewitt Associates, and lawyers Latham & Watkins have in common? Besides being among the most profitable firms (if not the most profitable) in their respective […]
SUMMER 1985 VOL. 26 · NO. 4 Designing Global Strategies: Comparative and Competitive Value-Added Chains This article shows how the value-added chain can be used to analyze sources of international strategic advantages. The author argues that it is essential that a distinction be drawn between competitive and comparative advantage. He illustrates the importance of this […]
FALL 1984 VOL. 26 · NO. 1 What Does “Product Quality” Really Mean? Product quality is rapidly becoming an important competitive issue. The superior reliability of many Japanese products has sparked considerable soul-searching among American managers.1 In addition, several surveys have voiced consumers’ dissatisfaction with the existing levels of quality and service of the products […]
WINTER 1984 VOL. 25 · NO. 2 Coming to a New Awareness of Organizational Culture Schein claims that we must dig below the organization’s surface to uncover basic underlying assumptions in order to decipher an organization’s culture. The author defines organizational culture so that it emphasizes how culture works, and extrapolates that one can understand […]
SUMMER 1982 VOL. 23 · NO. 4 The Control Function of Management After strategies are set and plans are made, management’s primary task is to take steps to ensure that these plans are carried out, or, if conditions warrant, that the plans are modified. This is the critical control function of management. And since management […]
WINTER 1981 VOL. 22 · NO. 2 Improving Face-to-Face Relationships The challenges of management in the 1980s are enormous, but they are fairly easy to identify. The great difficulties that we face lie not in deciding what our goals should be, but in determining how to achieve them. Our problems in this area are problems […]
SUMMER 1980 VOL. 21 · NO. 4 Managing Strategic Change “Just as bad money has always driven out good, so the talented general manager — the person who makes a company go — is being overwhelmed by a flood of so-called professionals,’ textbook executives more interested in the form of management than the content, more […]