Publications
Publications
- 2011
- HBS Working Paper Series
Management Practices Across Firms and Countries
By: Nicholas Bloom, Christos Genakos, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
Abstract
For the last decade we have been using double-blind survey techniques and randomized sampling to construct management data on over 10,000 organizations across 20 countries. On average, we find that in manufacturing, American, Japanese, and German firms are the best managed. Firms in developing countries, such as Brazil, China, and India, tend to be poorly managed. American retail firms and hospitals are also well managed by international standards, although American schools are more poorly managed than those in several other developed countries. We also find substantial variation in management practices across organizations in every country and every sector, mirroring the heterogeneity in the spread of performance in these sectors. One factor linked to this variation is ownership. Government, family, and founder owned firms are usually poorly managed, while multinational, dispersed shareholder, and private-equity owned firms are typically well managed. Stronger product market competition and higher worker skills are associated with better management practices. Less regulated labor markets are associated with improvements in incentive management practices such as performance-based promotion.
Keywords
Management Practices and Processes; Business Ventures; Public Sector; Private Sector; Country; Performance; Motivation and Incentives
Citation
Bloom, Nicholas, Christos Genakos, Raffaella Sadun, and John Van Reenen. "Management Practices Across Firms and Countries." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12-052, December 2011.