How Much of America's 20th-century Edge Came From Management?

Ethan Mollick says 40 percent of the advantage of American companies in the 20th century came from better management, according to a paper by Raffaella Sadun and other Harvard researchers. Companies used to experiment with how to organize themselves and get work done. American manufacturing and firm organization transformed. That exploration has not happened as much in the last 30 years.

Firms now let SaaS vendors dictate how to run part of the business, hire consultants, and point R&D at customers. A lot of organizations have very little muscle memory left for organizational change. It is rare to see a company fundamentally redivide how work operates, how roles operate, and what mandate people have.