More from the Author

• Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2013

  The Entrepreneurial Gap: How Managers Adjust Span of Accountability and Span of Control to Implement Business Strategy

  Robert Simons

  This study focuses on the relationship between business strategy, organization structure, and diagnostic control systems. The project analyzes data from 75 field studies to illustrate how managers adjust span of accountability and span of control to motivate different levels of innovation and entrepreneurial behavior. Six propositions are derived inductively about when, why, and how managers make these choices.

  Citation:

  Simons, Robert. "The Entrepreneurial Gap: How Managers Adjust Span of Accountability and Span of Control to Implement Business Strategy." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 13–100, June 2013.

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | 2013 (Revised from original 2013 version)

  Agero: Enhancing Capabilities for Customers

  Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred

  This case illustrates the importance of choosing a primary customer as the basis for organization design. Cross Country Group managers adjusted resource allocation, organization design and performance measures over time to transform Cross Country Group from an opportunistic family business into a sophisticated industry leader. Cross Country (renamed Agero in 2011) operated call centers that coordinated with thousands of small, independent towing companies—Cross Country's "service provider network"—to deliver roadside assistance services, such as vehicle towing and tire changes, to motorists covered by automakers' warranties and insurers' policies.

  The case describes Cross Country's evolution from 1972 to 2012 in three phases. This allows students to, at various stages, grapple with defining Cross Country's business (what business is it, and should it be, in?) and its primary customer (vehicle makers and insurers? motorists? service providers?). The answers to these questions have important implications for organization design.

  From 1972 to 1998, founder Sidney Wolk built the business through personal relationships with clients. A passionate entrepreneur, his approach to growth—secure customers first, figure out how to make money later—was remarkably successful, if sometimes chaotic. Facing an increasingly commoditized marketplace, in 1998 Wolk hired professional managers who implemented formal performance management systems and invested in sophisticated data analytics. From 1998 to 2007 (phase two), these investments allowed Cross Country to quantify service providers' impact on motorist satisfaction, monitor service providers' performance, and introduce programs to strengthen top-performing service providers' loyalty to Cross Country. Concurrently, the company undertook a two-step organization redesign to focus more resources on service providers (the new primary customer?), improve market-focused innovation and increase client satisfaction. In phase three, from 2008 to 2012, Cross Country entered the high-tech telematics/connected-vehicle business, invested in additional innovations to strengthen its service provider network, and rebranded itself as "Agero." Wolk and his team believed Cross Country had "more driver information than any other company." The case ends with key decisions for the future.

  Citation:

  Simons, Robert, and Natalie Kindred. "Agero: Enhancing Capabilities for Customers." Harvard Business School Case 113-001, March 2013. (Revised from original February 2013 version.)

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• Article | Capitalism and Society | 2013

  The Business of Business Schools: Restoring a Focus on Competing to Win

  Robert Simons

  As business leaders worry about the decline of American competitiveness, business schools are responding by changing their curriculums. But are the topics and approaches taught in today's business schools part of the solution or part of the problem? In this paper, I explore the possibility that four trends in current MBA curriculums—theory creep, mission creep, doing well by doing good, and the quest for enlightenment—are teaching students to be uncompetitive in today's global markets. If this hypothesis is true, I argue that business school curriculums should be re-centered around the tough choices needed to compete—and to win.

  Keywords: business schools, purpose of business schools, management education, business school curriculum, strategy execution, U.S. competitiveness, capitalism, management profession, innovation, competing to win; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Trends; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Making; Design; Business Education; Curriculum and Courses; Innovation and Management;

  Citation:

  Simons, Robert. "The Business of Business Schools: Restoring a Focus on Competing to Win." Art. 2. Capitalism and Society 8, no. 1 (2013).

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