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by Joshua Greenbaum, Contributing Editor   | Abstract: | Doing IT the American way — that is, with a decentralized management structure — adds considerable value, according to a recent study. |
A recent study by economists at Stanford University and the London School of Economics has an interesting premise: The rise in U.S. productivity in recent years — attributed to the increased use of IT — extends to the foreign subsidiaries of those companies. And, most important, those subsidiaries are more efficient and productive than comparable non-U.S. companies in their markets. The title of the study is "Americans Do IT Better," but what the authors are really saying is American management culture, based on a largely decentralized structure, increases IT's net effect on productivity. This premise begs a much larger set of questions as business process management (BPM) and the process-driven enterprise become essential to the intersection of business and IT: If American-run companies are better at using IT, will they also be better at using BPM? And will the BPM movement further the productivity gap between U.S. and non-U.S. companies? [Click to continue] |