Stanford Graduate School of Business
The question at the center of the work
O’Reilly connects culture, senior leadership, ambidexterity and people systems to explain why some organizations adapt while others remain constrained by prior success.
Organizational culture
How shared expectations become visible in selection, promotion, recognition and the behavior leaders tolerate.
Leadership and senior teams
How leaders build alignment, exercise influence and create the conditions for coordinated action.
Organizational ambidexterity
How firms explore new businesses while exploiting the capabilities and position of the core.
People systems and adaptation
How talent, incentives and organizational design strengthen—or limit—a company’s capacity to change.
Culture is an organizational control system.
People learn what matters from the behavior that succeeds, receives recognition and advances careers.
Adaptation requires organizational choices.
A call for innovation has little force when structure, measures and resources continue to favor the established business.
Separation and integration must be designed together.
A new business needs room to develop and selected connections to assets that give it an advantage.
Senior leaders must make the tension discussable.
They hold the shared ambition, allocate resources and resolve conflicts the units cannot settle themselves.
HBR article
Harvard Business Review · 2004
Why breakthrough work needs a distinct organization and active integration by senior leadership.
HBR article
Harvard Business Review · 2011
The leadership practices required to manage contradictions across mature and emerging businesses.
Book
Charles O’Reilly and Michael Tushman · 2021
A practical account of building organizations able to exploit current strengths and explore the new.
Book
Andrew Binns, Charles O’Reilly and Michael Tushman · 2022
How people inside established companies develop and scale new businesses.
Book
Charles O’Reilly and Jeffrey Pfeffer · 2000
How companies achieve exceptional performance by aligning people practices with the way value is created.
Culture
Stanford research and ideas
A direct account of how senior leaders shape culture through systems, signals and their own conduct.
Stanford case
Stanford GSB case · 2020
A case for examining how an incumbent protects, governs and connects internal ventures.
Stanford case
Stanford GSB case · 2021
A case about renewing an established technology company and organizing for future growth.
Complete books and HBR articles
The guided selections above are a place to begin. The complete verified record below brings together Charles O’Reilly’s books and Harvard Business Review articles.
BOOKS
Andrew Binns, Charles A. O’Reilly and Michael L. Tushman
Wiley
Charles A. O’Reilly and Michael L. Tushman
Stanford Business Books
Michael L. Tushman and Charles A. O’Reilly
Harvard Business School Press
Charles A. O’Reilly and Jeffrey Pfeffer
Harvard Business Review Press
Michael L. Tushman, Charles A. O’Reilly and David A. Nadler, editors
Ballinger
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
Charles A. O’Reilly and Michael L. Tushman
Which behaviors does the strategy require, and which behaviors currently lead to success?
Where does a new business need different people, measures, processes or culture?
Which connections to the core create advantage, and which create constraint?
How will the senior team resolve conflicts over resources, customers and attention?
What must leaders change in their own conduct for the organization to believe the shift?