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Harvard Business Review:
Proof that good managers really do make a difference

11 April 2016

If you're reading this you probably don't need convincing, but one of the most significant milestones in economic research over the last several years was documenting empirically that it really is true. A new paper builds on this work and takes it one step further. Its main finding is that the difference between well-managed and poorly managed firms depends in large part on the quality of the people they hire as managers. In 2012, Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun, and John Van Reenen wrote about their landmark work on management in these pages. In a survey, they asked businesses whether they employed management essentials such as targets, incentives, and monitoring. Firms that did do these things, they found, were more productive and more likely to endure.

This article was published by the Harvard Business Review on April 11, 2016
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Related articles
Does management really work?, Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen, Harvard Business Review, November 2012 Related publications
'Measuring and Explaining Management Practices Across Firms and Countries', Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Centre for Economic Performance Discussion Paper No.716, March 2006

Related links
Nicholas Bloom webpage
Raffaella Sadun webpage
John Van Reenen webpage
World Management Survey (WMS) webpage
Growth Programme webpage

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