William J. Abernathy

William J. Abernathy (21 November 1933 – 29 December 1983) was an US-American professor at the Harvard University Business School. With his empirical studies of the automobile industry Abernathy contributed to explaining the industrial decline of the US automobile industry and influenced management thinking to pay more attention to innovation and long-term strategic decision making.^[1][2][3]

Biography

Majoring in electrical engineering at the University of Tennessee, he started working as a project engineer. Later he enrolled at Harvard University and earned a master's degree in business in 1964, followed by a doctorate degree in 1967.^[2] He was named the first William Barclay Harding Professor of Management and Technology at the Graduate School of Business Administration.^[1]

Academic contribution

Bill Abernathy, and other colleagues he worked with, were among the first who pointed out that the management of the US industry was to blame for industrial decline instead of emerging Japanese competition or increasing labor struggles.^[2] In his works Abernathy studied the automobile industry and emphasised the intermingled relation between product and production. Introducing the notion of the 'productivity dilemma' he criticised the focus of US managers on short term profits at the expense of innovation and technological competitiveness.^[2][4] As an expert of the automotive industry, Bill was an early key contributor to the influential International Motor Vehicle Program.^[5] His influence on European researchers, among others, is noticeable in that his critique of the dominating mass production was readily picked up and extended to inform theories on innovation and integrated product design.^[6]

References