By Robert G. Fichman and Chris F. Kemerer
Organizations increasingly rely on information technology (IT) both to perform their day-today operations and as a source of new products and services. The popular focus has been on hardware components, and that story has been overwhelmingly positive: the new technologies that come to market are cheaper, more reliable, and more portable than previous ones.
However, much [...]
By Sumantra Ghoshal and Nitin Nohria
About two decades ago, business academics told managers that when it came to organization design, one size did not fit all. Different companies, facing different business demands, needed different kinds of organizations. More complex and turbulent environments called for more complex organizational approaches, and the nature and extent of organizational complexity had to match the [...]
By William G. Egelhoff
On 19 April 1775, British troops (Redcoats) marched toward Concord, Massachusetts, to destroy military stores that had been collected by the American revolutionaries (Minutemen). At Lexington Green, a large, flat, open area, the Redcoats met the Minutemen in the first battle of the day. Both sides employed a similar battle strategy, firing at each other [...]
By Pankaj Ghemawat
Two very different ways of thinking about investment and risk are headed for a showdown. One emphasizes the financial risk of investing; the other concerns the competitive risk of not investing. In normal times, the bearishness of the former tends to (or is supposed to) complement the bullishness of the latter. But the balance between [...]
By Arnaldo Camuffo and Giovanni Costa
Italian firms made massive organizational changes during the 1980s with great success. American business scholars have attributed these successes to the propitious conjunction of technological and market factors, the virtues of flexible specialization, and the peculiarities of Italian industrial organization.1 However, less attention has been paid to the role played by human resource management (HRM). [...]
By Anirudh Dhebar
A Fortune “500” company uses discounted cash flow analysis to evaluate investment proposals. The company used the same discount rate from 1973 to 1986. Why? The formula for calculating the discount rate was established in 1973, the underlying methodology was never documented, and the person who derived the formula had left the company. Meanwhile, the [...]
By Lotte Bailyn
Three professionals — an architect, an accountant, and a human resource professional —were contemplating a profound existential question. What, besides the obvious, was the oldest profession?
The architect spoke first: “God created the world in six days, and that took a master design. So, obviously, architecture is the oldest profession.”
“Not at all,” replied the accountant. “You [...]
By Edgar H. Schein
Only a few years ago we were saying that the “management of change” is the biggest challenge organizational leaders face. Today we hear that the problem is no longer the management of change but the management of “surprise,” and we academics are asked more and more frequently to explain not just how organizations can make [...]
By John L. Petersen
The American military stands at a watershed, facing massive, unfamiliar change — with tools designed for an earlier age.
In the past when society experienced turbulence of this magnitude, the resulting shifts affected all areas of life. So it will be again. Our armed forces, one of society’s most conservative institutions, must be transformed. Enormous changes [...]
