In 1984, Gert Wijnen, a management consultant at the Dutch consultancy firm Twynstra Gudde, wrote together with Peter Storm and Willem Renes 'Projectmatig werken' which dealt with management of unique assignments. The publication quickly became an accepted handbook for project management in the Netherlands. Wijnen regarded projects as...

Michael Porter's innovative research in the 1980's changed managers' perceptions of their own industry's importance as a factor for their company's strategy. Business unit managers would now have to study their industry's characteristics since an industry's structure determines its relative economic attractiveness and hence, the profit potential of all companies...

The Canadian academic, Henry Mintzberg, synthesised organisational design literature into five ideal organisational forms or configurations that do not exist in the real world, but provide consultants and managers a framework to understand and design organisational structures. Mintzberg defined organisational structure as "the sum...

In 1967, the Canadian, American and Israeli marketing researchers, Robinson, Faris and Wind, introduced the buygrid framework as a generic conceptual model for buying processes of organisations. They saw industrial buying not as single events, but as organisational decision-making processes where multiple individuals decide on a purchase. Their framework...