Diversifiction and Diversifact

Diversification and the management of diversity has been one of the most popular and durable research topic in the field of strategic management. Readers interested in a broad review of this literature can find one in Hill C.W.L. Hoskisson R.E. , “Strategy and Structure in the Multiproduct Firm”, Academy of Management Review, 2 (1987): 331–341. While much of the empirical work has used products or businesses as the key dimension of diversity, Rumelt's R.R. , Strategy, Structure and Economic Performance (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1974) remains as the seminal work in that line of inquiry. Geographic diversity has been a relatively recent interest in the field and readers interested in this aspect of management of diversity are recommended to read Prahalad C.K. Doz Y.L. , The Multinational Mission (New York, NY: Free Press. 1987). For analyses of the types of controls appropriate for managing diversity, please refer to Govindarajan V. , “A Contingency Approach to Strategy Implementation at the Business-Unit Level: Integrating Administrative Mechanisms with Strategy,” Academy of Management Journal, 31 (1988): 828–853, for a rigorous academic treatment and to Goold M. Campbell A. , Strategies and Styles (London: Basil Blackwell, 1987) for a more managerial exposition.

The tradeoffs between autonomy and synergy are richly described in Lorsch J. Allen S. , Managing Diversity and Interdependence, Division of Research, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, 1973. For a nuanced analysis of this tradeoff in the context of multinational companies, see Prahalad Doz , op. cit.

Peters Waterman R. , In Search of Excellence (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1982).

For a comprehensive review of this tension between planning and adaptation and on its implications for organizational structure, see Mintzberg H. , Mintzberg on Management (New York, NY: Free Press, 1989).

The model of GE's transformation is drawn from Jack Welch's presentation at the Harvard Business School in 1987. Readers can find greater details of the four-step process in Tichy N.M. Sherman S. , Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1993).