The Intellectual Venture Capitalist(Harvard Business School Press)

In the ninety-year history of Harvard Business School, John McArthur's fifteen-year tenure as Dean is exceeded only by Wallace B. Donham's 23 years at the HBS helm. When McArthur stepped down in 1995, he left a thriving community of faculty, staff, students, and alumni; a top-notch research institution; a vital physical plant; and an impressive publishing operation.

McArthur's trademark, his commitment to creating a collaborative community, can most strongly be seen in the accomplishments of the faculty he oversaw. So when his successor, Dean Kim B. Clark, set out to honor McArthur's contributions to the School, the natural forum for doing so was a research symposium. In a new book that pays tribute to McArthur and the research that he both inspired and facilitated, editors Thomas K. McCraw and Jeffrey L. Cruikshank present readers with a personal portrait of McArthur as well as an in-depth look at several of the research projects and initiatives that flourished under his leadership.

The Intellectual Venture Capitalist: John H. McArthur and the Work of the Harvard Business School, 1980-1995 grew out of an October 1996 faculty symposium titled "Breaking New Ground: Initiatives in Management Education, 1980-1995." Organized by Clark, the three-day event gave faculty an opportunity to take a step back from their ongoing research and talk about the larger meaning and impact of their work. The eight presentations that formed the symposium make up the bulk of The Intellectual Venture Capitalist. Coauthored by members of the HBS faculty, one chapter is devoted to each presentation. As an introduction to the writings of these eighteen faculty members, the opening chapter gives readers an overview of McArthur's background, personality, and management style.

McCraw, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and the Isidor Straus Professor of Business History at HBS, and Cruikshank (51st PMD), a former Bulletin editor and the author of a 1908-45 history of HBS (A Delicate Experiment), have assembled a fascinating, readable account of some of the landmarks of McArthur's tenure. "This is a pocket history of HBS that gives insight into how the School operates," McCraw recently told the Bulletin. "It also provides a personal account of John's strong, emotional commitment to his faculty and his 'hidden-hand' style of leadership."

In their introduction, coauthored with Linda S. Doyle, who worked closely with McArthur as associate dean and who is now CEO of the School's publishing operation, the editors describe McArthur as someone who excelled at "identifying promising generators of ideas and placing large institutional bets on them. He was an investor in other people's ideas, and the support he gave was often indispensable." Thus, they have dubbed him an "intellectual venture capitalist."

The editors point out that it is no coincidence that each chapter is coauthored, since one of McArthur's strengths was getting people to work together. McArthur "constantly emphasized the need for teamwork," they note. "He was convinced that if the whole of the School were to exceed the sum of its parts, then its members - faculty, staff, students, and alumni - would have to work together more closely than is usual in academic settings."

Each chapter starts with a short anecdote that captures McArthur's unique style as well as his impact on the academic area covered. The chapter titled "Entrepreneurial Management: In Pursuit of Opportunity," for example, begins with the story of how McArthur convinced a former HBS faculty member, Howard H. Stevenson, to return to the School in 1981 and head the emerging area of entrepreneurship. The chapter continues with Stevenson, now the Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration, and coauthor Teresa M. Amabile, the MBA Class of 1954 Professor of Business Administration, outlining the evolution of the field of entrepreneurship at HBS and crediting McArthur's support for many of the recent accomplishments in this area. "The School [is now] in an excellent position to lead the field into what many expect to be the 'entrepreneur's century,' " write the authors.

The chapter on Technology and Operations Management (TOM) opens with a vignette that illustrates McArthur's ability to "think big." After a meeting in 1984 with Kim Clark, his future successor, McArthur asked the young professor to "come back with your big dreams." Clark proceeded to do just that, and over the next several years conducted pathbreaking work on the international automobile industry and other complex topics. Written by Robert H. Hayes, the Philip Caldwell Professor of Business Administration, and Professor Marco Iansiti, this chapter takes an honest look at the stormy evolution of the TOM unit, acknowledging that the strong reputation it holds - both inside and outside the School- must be constantly monitored due to the rapidly changing nature of the discipline. In what they call a "paradox of inclusiveness," the authors explain that the TOM group must continue to "welcome members of new subdisciplines" without losing its focus. They credit McArthur with facilitating many of the important changes within the unit during the 1980s and 1990s.

The chapter on Organizations and Markets (O&M) opens with an example of McArthur's ability to find innovative solutions to knotty problems. In the mid-1980s, the Dean was able to lure O&M expert Michael C. Jensen, then a nationally known professor at the University of Rochester's business school, to HBS. Jensen, now the School's Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, was reluctant to leave Rochester, so McArthur devised the unusual step of offering him a half-time tenured position at the School. Realizing that McArthur was indeed committed to forming a strong team of interdisciplinary scholars interested in organizations and markets, Jensen soon became a full-time member of the faculty. In this chapter, Jensen and his HBS faculty coauthors, George P. Baker, Carliss Y. Baldwin, and Karen H. Wruck, document the evolution of the Coordination, Control, and the Management of Organizations (CCMO) course at HBS. They also highlight the interdisciplinary nature of O&M, covering its four interrelated areas: the nature of human beings and their behavior; compensation, career systems, and performance measurement; task structure, organizational boundaries, and technology; and governance, corporate finance, and organizational performance.

The remaining chapters in the book give in-depth histories of and updates on some of the other efforts that bore considerable fruit under McArthur: Competition and Strategy; the Service Profit Chain; Ethics, Organizations, and Business Schools; Business History; and the Global Financial System Project.

In surveying McArthur's accomplishments at HBS, readers are reminded that the former Dean's HBS experience began back in 1957, when he arrived from Canada at Soldiers Field as a student. A former star football player and athlete who was one of the first in his family and community to attend college, McArthur channeled his athletic drive into academics at HBS, earning an MBA in 1959 and a DBA in 1963. He then joined the faculty and gradually worked his way up through the ranks. His legacy as Dean, in fact, began before he was appointed to the position in 1980. As a member of then Dean Lawrence E. Fouraker's inner circle, McArthur sent a fourteen-page memo to Harvard President Derek Bok in 1979 outlining his major concerns for the School. It's hard not to be impressed when reviewing that memo today: the plans that Associate Dean McArthur enumerated indeed foreshadow the accomplishments of Dean McArthur and his faculty colleagues.

Just as Kim Clark knew that it would be impossible to represent in one symposium the full scope of happenings during the fifteen years in which McArthur led the School, so too are the editors of The Intellectual Venture Capitalist aware that their work represents only a small portion of the success stories the Dean inspired. In his foreword, Clark notes that space limitations prevented the inclusion of some other extremely important initiatives such as those in organizational behavior, managerial accounting, and social enterprise. But each chapter of this book gives readers insight into the tremendous leadership of John H. McArthur and the immense accomplishments of the School during the years 1980-95. In large part, the projects that flourished with his intellectual venture capitalism helped to define the School today.

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