Management as a Technology?
Harvard Business School Strategy Unit Working Paper No. 16-133
Stanford University Graduate School of Business Research Paper No. 16-27
81 Pages Posted: 3 Jun 2016 Last revised: 27 Oct 2017
There are 3 versions of this paper
Management as a Technology?
Management as a Technology?
Date Written: October 8, 2017
Abstract
Are some management practices akin to a technology that can explain firm and national productivity, or do they simply reflect contingent management styles? We collect data on core management practices from over 11,000 firms in 34 countries. We find large cross-country differences in the adoption of management practices, with the US having the highest size-weighted average management score. We present a formal model of “Management as a Technology", and structurally estimate it using panel data to recover parameters including the depreciation rate and adjustment costs of managerial capital (both found to be larger than for tangible non-managerial capital). Our model also predicts (i) a positive impact of management on firm performance; (ii) a positive relationship between product market competition and average management quality (part of which stems from the larger covariance between management with firm size as competition strengthens); and (iii) a rise in the level and a fall in the dispersion of management with firm age. We find strong empirical support for all of these predictions in our data. Finally, building on our model, we find that differences in management practices account for about 30% of total factor productivity differences both between countries and within countries across firms.
Keywords: Management Practices, Productivity, Competition
JEL Classification: L2, M2, O32, O33
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation