MIT Sloan Management Review

Japan’s economy has been in the doldrums for so long that many Japanese seem to have adopted a resigned attitude ofSho ga nai (“That’s life”) toward it. But Japan, of course, can become competitive again, provided its political and corporate leaders take on four difficult but essential tasks.
The first task is to instill a commitment [...]

Europeans and Americans have traditionally viewed bankruptcy and financial recovery differently. There”s a commitment in the United States to explore options for a “second chance”

Few companies realize that a corporate global mind-set must be incorporated into an organization‘s processes so that everyone knows how to handle the tug-of-war between local responsiveness and corporate efficiency. IBM has embraced a more flexible approach, adopting global-policy-development teams, worldwide knowledge networks and appropriate performance measures. The authors show how managers can determine when an issue calls for a locally adaptive response, when it calls for a globally consistent response and when both elements are needed.

All organizations sense competitive pressure intuitively, but most, says the author, do not do a good job of managing it. That is, in part, because it is often difficult to see the overall pressure system — a complex, shifting pattern of overlapping contacts among rivals that continually alters the climate of an industry by changing the incentives for players to compete or even formally cooperate. This article illustrates how pressure systems can be mapped and controlled to a significant extent.

In this article, the authors make the case that corporate misdeeds are symptoms of a syndrome of selfishness that has taken hold of our business institutions, our societies and our minds. Drawing on history, literature, philosophy and management thinking, they argue that the syndrome is built on a series of half-truths — or fabrications — each of which has driven a debilitating wedge into society.

Globalization has quietly transformed the economic playing field. The traditional strategic paradigms (positioning, core competence and the like) are not dead, but they are less germane. The new global economy is more entrepreneurial and centers on disequilibrium, fleeting opportunities to capture competitive advantage, and the creation and destruction of wealth, Citing successes and failures at companies like Colgate, Ispat International, Intel and SAP, the author demonstrates how the best strategies in today‘s world are not complex and top-down, but are based on simple, flexible guidelines supported by organizational design.

During the 1980s, Benetton was known as the archetypal network organization. But it decided to take a new direction representing a major discontinuity with its past and a divergence from industry practices. Without giving up the strongest aspects of its networked model, it integrated and centralized, exerting greater control over its supply chain even as it diversified its operations and product lines. The authors offer a detailed case study of this dramatic transformation.

As adapting to globalization becomes increasingly necessary, business customers are pressuring suppliers to accept global-pricing contracts. By exploring why customers want GPCs, under what circumstances the contracts are likely to profit suppliers, and how to successfully implement contracts, the authors identify preparation as the key to success.

In an unprecedented study, the authors found that U.S. suppliers to the automotive industry performed at much higher levels when supplying Japanese automakers in North America than when supplying the Big Three U.S. automakers. Why? The Japanese companies worked with the suppliers in a give-and-take partnership, leveling their own production schedules to avoid big spikes in demand, creating a disciplined system of delivery “time windows,” and developing lean transportation systems to handle mixed-load, small-lot, just-in time deliveries.

The emerging competitive landscape poses a challenge to the internal-governance capacity of large, established firms. Internal governance refers to the wealth-creation processes inside diversified multinational corporations (DMNCs). Three main processes constitute internal governance: cultivating strong corporate–business-unit relationships, fostering inter-unit linkages, and pursuing growth and innovation. First, it is easier to create wealth when frictions in [...]