C. Wickham Skinner (February 20, 1924 – January 28, 2019) was an American business theorist. He was the Emeritus James E. Robison Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and has been called "the father of manufacturing strategy".[3]
Wickham Skinner | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 20, 1924[1] |
| Died | January 28, 2019 (aged 94) |
| Education | Yale University Harvard Business School |
| Occupation | Academic |
Early life
editWickham Skinner graduated from Yale University, with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering.[4][5] After serving with the Engineering Corps for duty on the Manhattan Project, Skinner earned a masters degree in business administration from Harvard Business School in 1948.[5]
Career
editSkinner worked for Honeywell for a decade.[5]
Skinner became a professor at his alma mater, the Harvard Business School.[4] He served as its Director of International Activities from 1967 to 1970.[5] In 1974, he was appointed to the James E. Robinson chair in Business Administration.[4] He was Associate Dean from 1974 to 1977.[5] One of the students he mentored was William J. Abernathy.[6]
Skinner was a director and the vice president of the Ocean Energy Institute.[5] He was the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Ghent in 2002.[5] He was a Fellow of Academy of Management.[5]
Selected writings
editBooks
edit- Impact of New Technology: People and Organizations in Manufacturing and Allied Industries (with Arup K. Chakraborty, Elsevier Science, 1982).
- Manufacturing: The Formidable Competitive Weapon (New York City: John Wiley & Sons, 1985).
Articles
edit- Manufacturing—Missing Link in Corporate Strategy (Harvard Business Review, May 1969): in this article he addresses a concern that companies' senior executives are out of touch with manufacturing as an activity and value earner, while industrial and computing engineers lack knowledge of corporate strategy.[7]
- The Productivity Paradox (Harvard Business Review, July 1986).
References
edit- ^ Charles W. Skinner Jr.
- ^ Harvard Business School Professor Emeritus C. Wickham Skinner Dies at 94
- ^ R. Sarmiento, G. Whelan, M. Thürer and F. A. Bribiescas-Silva, "Fifty Years of the Strategic Trade-Offs Model: In Memory and Honor of Wickham Skinner", in IEEE Engineering Management Review, vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 92-96, 1 Second Quarter, June 2019, doi: 10.1109/EMR.2019.2915978, accessed 22 August 2023
- ^ a b c Harvard Business School: Wickham Skinner
- ^ a b c d e f g h Wickham Skinner, Bloomberg Business
- ^ William Abernathy, 50, Dies; Harvard Business Professor, The New York Times, December 30, 1993
- ^ Foreword to Manufacturing—Missing Link in Corporate Strategy, version hosted at https://pessoas.feb.unesp.br/, accessed 16 August 2023