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Heilbron, John

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Heilbron

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Heilbron, John

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Author's Publications: search.filters.isAuthorOfPublication.c2f93bbb-af0d-4a16-95c4-05f5ee6333f6

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    Decision-Making by Precedent and the Founding of American Honda (1948 - 1974)
    (2017-03-21) Casadesus-Masanell, Ramon; Heilbron, John
    American Honda was founded in 1959 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Honda Motor Company to facilitate sales and distribution in the United States. The details of American Honda’s early history have long served as evidence in debates among scholars and practitioners about the managerial determinants of the subsidiary’s success. In particular, it is debated whether American Honda operated according to a deliberate or emergent strategy, i.e. whether or not strategic decisions made in the States conformed to the intentions of upper management. This paper presents evidence that Kihachiro Kawashima, President of American Honda from 1959 to 1965, made important decisions according to precedent set by his boss and mentor, Honda’s chief strategist, Takeo Fujisawa. It presents further evidence that these decisions may have contributed to the recovery of American Honda from its sales crisis during the late 1960s and its continued success thereafter. Addressing ourselves to concepts in the management literature, we argue that strategy realized by the appeal of subordinates to the historical precedent of their superiors defies categorization as deliberate or emergent.
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    Business Models – Nature and Benefits
    (2015-05-20) Casadesus-Masanell, Ramon; Heilbron, John
    This paper considers the nature of the business model and its strategic relevance to negotiations. We elaborate a substantive definition of the business model as decisions enforced by the authority of the firm; this definition enables the analysis of business models through the analysis of individual firm choices. We situate negotiation outcomes within the strategy literature by considering ‘ambivalent value’ - value produced by the interaction of partner firms that does not necessarily accrue to any of them. The extent of ‘ambivalent value’ is unclear, but its persistence, despite changing structural market features, promises to help sustain superior profits in the long run. We conclude with an exploration of some ways in which firms’ business models may impact their negotiation outcomes. Several of the proposed pathways work intuitively through the intrinsic characteristics (motivation, personality, etc.) of agents negotiating on behalf of the firm; others operate independently of those characteristics.