Faculty & Research
D. Quinn Mills

D. Quinn Mills

Albert J. Weatherhead, Jr. Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus

Albert J. Weatherhead, Jr. Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus

+1 (617) 495-6206
Send Email
 
D. Quinn Mills
Contact Information
(617) 495-6206
Publications Research Summary

Books
Books

Journal Articles
Journal Articles

Book Chapters
Book Chapters

  • Mills, D. Quinn. "An Opportunity-Based Strategy Process for Innovation." In Strategic Management in the Innovation Economy, edited by Thomas H. Davenport, Marius Liebold, and Sven Voepoel. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2006. View Details
  • Mills, D. Quinn, and Franziska Zellweger. "Management in Perspective: Lessons Learned from Harvard Business School." In E-Learning an Hochschulen. An Beispielen lernen, edited by Dieter Euler and Karl Wilbers, 89–96. Switzerland: Institut für Wirtschaftspädagogik, 2003, German ed. View Details
  • Mills, D. Quinn, Stephan A. Friedrich, Hans H. Hinterhuber, and Dirk Seifert. "The Leader as Partner: A Contrast of European and American Leadership Styles." Chap. 17 in Partnering: The New Face of Leadership, edited by Larraine Segil, Marshall Goldsmith, and James Belasco, 177–186. New York: AMACOM, 2002. View Details
  • Mills, D. Quinn, and Dirk Seifert. "The Use of Virtual Classes at Harvard Business School: A Successful Model for Corporate e-Learning." Chap. 13 in Corporate e-Learning. Edited by Reiner Neumann, Ralf Nacke, and Alexander Ross, 171–180. Wiesbaden, Germany: Gabler Verlag, 2002. View Details
  • Mills, D. Q., and G. Bruce Friesen. "Empowerment." In Financial Times Handbook of Management, edited by S. Crainer and D. Dearlove. New York: Prentice Hall, 2000. View Details
  • Mills, D. Q., and J. Pumo. "Managing Change in Higher Education: A Leader's Guide." In Renewing Administration: Preparing Colleges and Universities for the 21st Century, edited by Diana G. Oblinger and Richard N. Katz. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, 1999. View Details

Cases and Teaching Materials
Cases and Teaching Materials

Other Publications and Materials
Other Publications and Materials

  • Mills, D. Quinn. "Next Generation Learning via Next Generation Content." MindEdge Press White Paper Series, MindEdge Press, Waltham, MA, December 2005. View Details
All Publications

Daniel Quinn Mills consults with major corporations and governments and lectures about management, leadership, strategy, economics and geopolitics.   He is an expert on the differences between Asian and Western leadership styles.  His most recent article is “Asian and American Leadership Styles:  How They Differ,” published in the Peking University Business Review, August, 2007.  An American, Mills is also a member of the Innovation Council of Malaysia, a ministry level council chaired by the Prime Minister.

During the Vietnam War (1967-1974), Mills was responsible within the federal government for wages, prices, and production in the capital goods industries constituting some 14% of America’s Gross Domestic Product. 

Mills arrived at the Harvard Business School in 1976 having taught at MIT's Sloan School of Management from 1968 to 1975.  He remained at Harvard until 2007.

Mills has been interested in early stage businesses and as a director and investor has helped develop several firms.   He has been a director of a publicly listed company, chairing its audit committee for several years.            

A thought leader, Mills has written books on leadership, geo-politics, investments, capital markets, business strategy, network organizations, demographics, marketing, empowerment, and union relations.  

His most recent book is Democracy and Its Elected Enemies, published in 2013 by Cambridge University Press also, Master of Illusions:  Presidential Leadership, Strategic Independence and America’s Public Culture, published in 2007 by Cambridge University Press.   The book explores America’s role in the world in the aftermath of the second Iraqi War.

Other recent books include three studies of executive leadership:  Principles of Management; Leadership:  How to Lead, How to Live; and Principles of Human Resource Management — each published in 2005 and 2006 by MindEdge Press.  

Another book, Having It All:  Six Steps for Putting Both Your Career and Your Family First, published in 2004 by Prentice-Hall, offers an effective approach for people to balancing their work and family lives.

Two books published early in this decade tell the story of equity market manipulations:  Wheel, Deal and Steal:  Deceptive Accounting, Deceitful CEOs, and Ineffective Reforms (published by The Financial Times/Prentice Hall, April 2003) and Buy, Lie and Sell High:  How Investors Lost out on Enron and the Internet Bubble (published in 2002).

A 1996 book, Broken Promises, sets forth the strategy that IBM adopted in the 1990s to turn itself around, while another 1996 work, Staying Afloat, proposes business strategies for the world’s construction companies.

In the early eighties, Mills was one of the first to examine the impact of demographics on management and consumption.  He studied the baby boomers in his book Not Like Our Parents (1987).  Also, he helped start interest in moving from management to leadership in business with his Rebirth of the Corporation (1991), and helped define and establish the new management approach of empowerment through The GEM Principle (1994).

Mills’ earliest books dealt with economics and employee relations.  As a government official he helped bring to a close the cycle of wage-push inflation which damaged the economy in the 1960s and ‘70s, and described these efforts in Government, Labor and Inflation (1975), Industrial Relations in Transition (1984), and his university-level textbook Labor-Management Relations (in five editions).

Widely and often quoted as well as seen in the national media, Mills has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, and been quoted in articles in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and Business Week.  He is a fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources.

His MA and Ph.D., both in economics, are from Harvard.   Mills received his undergraduate degree from Ohio Wesleyan University.

Books
Journal Articles
Book Chapters
  • Mills, D. Quinn. "An Opportunity-Based Strategy Process for Innovation." In Strategic Management in the Innovation Economy, edited by Thomas H. Davenport, Marius Liebold, and Sven Voepoel. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2006. View Details
  • Mills, D. Quinn, and Franziska Zellweger. "Management in Perspective: Lessons Learned from Harvard Business School." In E-Learning an Hochschulen. An Beispielen lernen, edited by Dieter Euler and Karl Wilbers, 89–96. Switzerland: Institut für Wirtschaftspädagogik, 2003, German ed. View Details
  • Mills, D. Quinn, Stephan A. Friedrich, Hans H. Hinterhuber, and Dirk Seifert. "The Leader as Partner: A Contrast of European and American Leadership Styles." Chap. 17 in Partnering: The New Face of Leadership, edited by Larraine Segil, Marshall Goldsmith, and James Belasco, 177–186. New York: AMACOM, 2002. View Details
  • Mills, D. Quinn, and Dirk Seifert. "The Use of Virtual Classes at Harvard Business School: A Successful Model for Corporate e-Learning." Chap. 13 in Corporate e-Learning. Edited by Reiner Neumann, Ralf Nacke, and Alexander Ross, 171–180. Wiesbaden, Germany: Gabler Verlag, 2002. View Details
  • Mills, D. Q., and G. Bruce Friesen. "Empowerment." In Financial Times Handbook of Management, edited by S. Crainer and D. Dearlove. New York: Prentice Hall, 2000. View Details
  • Mills, D. Q., and J. Pumo. "Managing Change in Higher Education: A Leader's Guide." In Renewing Administration: Preparing Colleges and Universities for the 21st Century, edited by Diana G. Oblinger and Richard N. Katz. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, 1999. View Details
Cases and Teaching Materials
Other Publications and Materials
  • Mills, D. Quinn. "Next Generation Learning via Next Generation Content." MindEdge Press White Paper Series, MindEdge Press, Waltham, MA, December 2005. View Details
Research Summary
Securities Industry
I have recently published two books about the bull market of the 1990s. The first deals with the internet bubble; the second deals with the large company financial reporting scandals. Both books consider the events, causes (including matters of ethics) , and what might be done about the situation.
Work/family
I have just published, in 2004, a book on how professionals might manage the challenge of balancing work and family demands. The book is oriented not at the problem, which is often dealt with in publications by others, but with six steps for dealing with it.
Areas of Interest

Areas of Interest

 More

Additional Topics

Industries

Geographies

 Less