Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(382)
- Faculty Publications (113)
- 2010
- Working Paper
Does Product Market Competition Lead Firms To Decentralize?
By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
There is a widespread sense that over the last two decades firms have been decentralizing decisions to employees further down the managerial hierarchy. Economists have developed a range of theories to account for delegation, but there is less empirical evidence,... View Details
- Article
Recent Advances in the Empirics of Organizational Economics
By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
We present a survey of recent contributions in empirical organizational economics, focusing on management practices and decentralization. Productivity dispersion between firms and countries has motivated the improved measurement of firm organization across industries... View Details
Keywords: Economics; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Productivity; Geographic Location; Motivation and Incentives; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Competition; Human Capital; Markets; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Multinational Firms and Management; India; Brazil; United States
- December 2009 (Revised January 2010)
- Case
Managing Talent at Bertelsmann AG (A)
By: Boris Groysberg, Nitin Nohria, Mark Maletz and Kerry Herman
Bertelsmann's EVP HR Immanuel Hermreck and his team were focused on four key HR issues. Three of these were somewhat discreet: improving Bertelsmann's employer brand; managing Bertelsmann talent across the firm's decentralized businesses; and ensuring early... View Details
- November 2009
- Article
Organizational Design and Control across Multiple Markets: The Case of Franchising in the Convenience Store Industry
Many companies operate units that are dispersed across different types of markets, and thus serve significantly diverging customer bases. Such market-type dispersion is likely to compromise the headquarter's ability to control its local managers' behavior and satisfy... View Details
- 2009
- Chapter
Leading and Creating Collaboration in Decentralized Organizations
By: Heather M. Caruso, Todd Rogers and Max Bazerman
- 2009
- Chapter
Organizational Design: Balancing Search and Stability in Strategic Decision Making
By: Jan Rivkin and Nicolaj Siggelkow
Managers often must make decisions that depend on decisions in other parts of the organization. These interactions create a network of interdependent choices and make strategizing difficult. In this chapter, the authors explore the intersection between organizing and... View Details
- January 2009 (Revised June 2010)
- Case
Cisco Business Councils (2007): Unifying a Functional Enterprise with an Internal Governance System
By: Ranjay Gulati
In response to the 2001 market downturn, Cisco Systems implemented a major restructuring that transformed the company from a decentralized to centralized organization. While recognizing that a centralized, functional structure was necessary to avoid product and... View Details
- January 2009 (Revised June 2010)
- Case
Cisco Systems (2001): Building and Sustaining a Customer-Centric Culture
By: Ranjay Gulati
Customer centricity has been an important part of the culture at Cisco Systems since its inception. While part of this is attributable to values put in place by the founders and retained by subsequent management, it is also closely interwoven with its organizational... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
A Darker Side to Decentralized Banks: Market Power and Credit Rationing in SME Lending
By: Rodrigo Canales and Ramana Nanda
We use loan-level data to study how the organizational structure of banks impacts small business lending. We find that decentralized banks—where branch managers have greater autonomy over lending decisions—give larger loans to small firms and those with "soft... View Details
- June 2008
- Article
Current State of Fellowship Hiring: Is a Universal Match Necessary? Is It Possible?
By: Christopher D. Harner, Anil S. Ranawat, Muriel Niederle, Alvin E. Roth, Peter J. Stern, Shepard R. Hurwitz, William Levine, G. Paul DeRosa and Serena S. Hu
Currently, approximately ninety percent of the six hundred twenty graduating orthopaedic residents are planning on entering a post-graduate fellowship. Since January of 2005, two of the largest fellowship match programs, Sports Medicine and Spine Surgery, were... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Organizational Design and Control across Multiple Markets: The Case of Franchising in the Convenience Store Industry
By: Dennis Campbell
Many companies operate units which are dispersed across different types of markets, and thus serve significantly diverging customer bases. Such market-type dispersion is likely to compromise the headquarters' ability to control its local managers' behavior and... View Details
- January 2008
- Case
The Deutsche Bank (A)
By: David A. Moss
Founded in 1870 to help finance surging German exports and imports, the Deutsche Bank soon moved into domestic banking. In fact, its founders aimed to create both a commercial bank and an investment bank under one roof—that is, a "universal bank." By the end of the... View Details
- December 2007 (Revised September 2011)
- Case
Global Knowledge Management at Danone (A)
By: Amy C. Edmondson, Bertrand Moingeon, Vincent Marie Dessain and Ane Damgaard Jensen
This case explores French consumer goods company Danone's novel approach to knowledge management. In 2007, Human Resource Chief (Executive Vice President) Franck Mougin assesses the company's knowledge-sharing tools and considers his options going forward. Through... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
Boundaries Need Not Be Barriers: Leading Collaboration among Groups in Decentralized Organizations
By: Heather M. Caruso, Todd Rogers and Max H. Bazerman
- April 2007
- Case
ABN AMRO Bank N.V.: Global Change Agents
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Lance P. Pierce and Ryan Leo Raffaelli
ABN AMRO Global Banking Group developed its risk management function in response to expansion, and increasingly focused on environmental and social risks. The head of the function needed to influence policies and business decisions in a highly decentralized context in... View Details
- January 2007 (Revised August 2007)
- Case
Fulton County School System: Implementing the Balanced Scorecard
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Monica Nah Lee
Illustrates the adaptation and implementation of a private sector management tool, the Balanced Scorecard, to a public school district. As part of a continuous improvement initiative, the Director of Planning and Policy facilitates the development of a strategy map and... View Details
- 2006
- Conference Presentation
Coordinating Centralized Information and Decentralized Decision Making
By: Ranjay Gulati
- December 2005 (Revised July 2006)
- Case
Bunge: Poised for Growth
By: David E. Bell and Mary L. Shelman
As CEO of the world's largest oilseed processor, Alberto Weisser of Bunge must not only decide how quickly to expand in fast-growing markets of Eastern Europe and Asia, but also how best to leverage the firm's global footprint and leadership position. The firm is... View Details
- May 2005 (Revised April 2010)
- Case
GlaxoSmithKline: Reorganizing Drug Discovery (A)
By: Robert S. Huckman and Eli Strick
Describes the reorganization of drug discovery at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) following the formation of GSK from the merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham. This reorganization placed nearly 2,000 research scientists into six centers of excellence in drug discovery... View Details
- February 2005
- Article
European Integration and Corporate Restructuring: The Strategy of Unilever c1957-c1990
By: Geoffrey Jones and Peter Miskell
This article examines the role of the large Anglo-Dutch consumer products company in promoting European integration. It shows that Unilever contributed financially to campaigns to support the creation of the European Union, and its subsequent expansion, despite a... View Details