Robert Simons
Baker Foundation Professor Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
Robert Simons is a Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School. For over 35 years, Simons has taught accounting, management control, and strategy execution courses in both the Harvard MBA and Executive Education Programs. For 2023/24, he is teaching a second-year MBA course titled “Changing the World” which analyzes the life choices of influential leaders. He also co-chairs (with Professor Robert Kaplan) "Driving Corporate Performance," an executive education program for general managers and financial executives.
For anyone interested in learning more about his work on strategy execution, Simons has developed a multimedia course on Strategy Execution for Harvard Business School Online. This course—open to the general public—consists of 40 hours of material delivered over an eight-week period. Participants can complete the coursework on their own time.
Simons has also published a 15-module series for classroom teaching on Strategy Execution available through Harvard Business School Publishing. In addition, an online app, Job Design Optimization Tool, is available free-of-charge from Harvard Business School Publishing. This tool can be used to design, or test the design of, any job in any organization.
In 2021, The Case Centre (U.K.) named Simons the number two best-selling business case author in the world.
Simons’ books include Seven Strategy Questions: A Simple Approach for Better Execution (2010) and Levers of Organization Design: How Managers Use Accountability Systems for Greater Performance and Commitment (2005). In addition, he has written Levers of Control (1995) that describes how effective top managers balance innovation and control. This book won the Notable Contribution to Management Accounting Literature award.
In addition to his books, Simons' ongoing research into the relationship between business strategy, organization design, and management control systems has been published in journals such as Harvard Business Review, Capitalism and Society, Sloan Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Contemporary Accounting Research, and Journal of Accounting Literature.
His most recent academic paper co-authored with Professor Antonio Dávila, “How Top Managers Use the Entrepreneurial Gap to Drive Strategic Change,” was published in the European Accounting Review in 2021.
A Canadian CPA, Simons earned his Ph.D. from McGill University. Simons has served as a consultant to many companies on topics related to strategy execution, organization design, performance measurement, and strategic control. He has testified as an expert witness in U.S. Federal Court and before State Public Utility Commissions.