5 Years of Must Reads from HBR: 2021 Edition (5 Books)

Why Do We Undervalue Competent Management?

by Raffaella Sadun, Nicholas Bloom, and John Van Reenen

IN MBA PROGRAMS, students are taught that companies can’t expect to compete on the basis of internal managerial competencies because they’re just too easy to copy. Operational effectiveness—doing the same thing as other companies but doing it exceptionally well—is not a path to sustainable advantage in the competitive universe. To stay ahead, the thinking goes, a company must stake out a distinctive strategic position—doing something different than its rivals. This is what the C-suite should focus on, leaving middle and lower-level managers to handle the nuts and bolts of managing the organization and executing plans.

Michael Porter articulated ...