Articles

The drive for short-term profits need not derail a firm's research and development programs, say the authors. By managing technology effectively, executives can ensure that their company's R&;D program focuses on developing technologies that support its product and marketing strategy. While radically new products may seize the public's imagination, making incremental improvements in existing product lines and adapting old products for new markets are always less risky and often more profitable.

Given the increasing complexity of the technological infrastructure, there is a critical need to build effective working relationships between line managers and information systems managers. This paper explores the concept of building partnerships as a management strategy. Using interviews with executives, the author focuses both on external partnerships (relationships between managers in separate organizations) and on internal partnerships (relationships between line managers and information systems managers in the same organization) to create a descriptive model.

Investments in service-sector technology have perhaps been less carefully monitored than have those in manufacturing sector technology. This paper analyzes the reasons for service-sector technology's sometime disappointing performance and proposes a systematic approach to technology investment planning and implementation.

The difficulty of managing environmental issues tempts many corporations to undermanage and neglect necessary pollution control and environmental protection programs. This oversight puts those firms -- not to mention the environment -- at serious risk. The authors describe five stages of environmental management program development. They highlight each stage's characteristics, including its potential shortcoming, and offer practical guidelines for program development. This article also includes an SMR interview with C.C. Smith, Jr., Union Carbide's vice president of community and employee health, safety, and environmental protection.

Some authors, and even some popular journals, have noted examples of the radical new organizational forms now emerging. This article illuminates the technological and services bases of these changes -- and examines how to manage them successfully. (Its companion article is "Technology in Services: Rethinking Strategic Focus" by J. B. Quinn, T.L. Doorley and P.C. Paquette; Sloan Management Review 31, no. 2 [1990]: 79-87.) Both articles build on the authors' earlier works published by Sloan Management Review, Scientific American, and the National Academy Press.

Besides the changes in organizational strategy described in the companion article, new service technologies also dictate substantive changes in strategic structures and strategic thinking. These include defining each value-creation activity as a service, asking in each case whether the company can perform that service better than anyone else in the world, and outsourcing or eliminating the activity if the answer to the question is "no." This article discusses how firms can best perform that analysis and implement the strategy that emerges from their analysis. (Its companion article is "Technology in Services: Rethinking Strategic Focus" by J. B. Quinn, T. L. Doorley and P. C. Paquette; Sloan Management Review 31, no. 2 [1990]: 67-78.)

This article gives a detailed framework for evaluating whether -- and how -- to globalize an individual firm's corporate strategy. The author stresses the opportunities for gaining competitive advantage and provides examples of companies that have exploited globalization drivers and strategy levers. He also discusses the relative merits of global and multidomestic strategies in various strategic situations.

Analog Devices is a case study in how management innovation is a key to competitiveness.

Accounting is an integral part of the planning and control system of any manufacturing operation. Yet in many companies the accounting function has failed to adapt to a new competitive environment that requires continuous improvement in the design, manufacturing, and marketing of a product. As a result, corporate strategies that depend on success in manufacturing are endangered by obsolete and restrictive accounting systems. This article describes how one division brought its accounting systems into line with the rest of the operation.