The whole movement, read and linked.

Harvard Business Review · Gary Hamel

The canonical HBR piece on Morning Star: no bosses, titles or promotions; peer-negotiated CLOUs; elected compensation committees.

Harvard Business Review · Gary Hamel

Purchasable reprint of the Morning Star article for site licensing.

Harvard Business Review · Gary Hamel & Michele Zanini

HBR Nov–Dec 2018 article on Haier's 4,000 micro-enterprises, user-facing 'MEs' and 'nodes' — full-text PDF mirror.

Harvard Business Review · Gary Hamel & Michele Zanini

Data-driven HBR piece on the growth of bureaucracy (cited by Columbia Business School).

Harvard Business Review · Ricardo Semler

Semler's third HBR article; the page also references 'Managing Without Managers' (1989) and 'Why My Former Employees Still Work for Me' (1994).

Harvard Business Review · HBR

Counter-argument piece — useful to present both sides on removing management layers.

New Books Network (podcast) · Gary Hamel & Michele Zanini

Author interview on the HBR Press book: dismantling power structures, micro-preneurs, compensation tied to contribution.

Insight Books · Summary

Structured summary of Hamel & Zanini's book with the four flagship cases.

Articles of Interest (blog) · Blog

Readable digest of the HBR Haier article with key quotes and figures.

Wikipedia / HBR Press · Vineet Nayar

Overview of the HCL Technologies book: management accountable to employees, 'value zone', reverse accountability; endorsed by Tom Peters and Gary Hamel.

Hartford Business Journal · Columnist

Column on Nayar's HCL: posting 360 evaluations on the intranet, service-desk tickets employees open against management.

MIT Sloan Management Review · MIT SMR

How Haier's self-managing micro-enterprises restarted production faster than rivals in early 2020.

MIT Sloan · Dean Rick Locke

Official notice: final issue September 2026; MIT will retain and continue sharing the SMR catalogue — the archive remains a source.

Poets & Quants · Marc Ethier

Report on the shutdown and restructuring around newsletters/podcasts.

Research in Organizational Behavior (Elsevier) · Michael Y. Lee & Amy C. Edmondson

The foundational academic review defining self-managing organizations and setting a research agenda (Semantic Scholar record).

Research in Organizational Behavior · Lee & Edmondson

ResearchGate full-text of Lee & Edmondson including the Valve handbook discussion.

Journal of Organization Design · Frank Martela

Open-access paper comparing how Weberian bureaucracy, adhocracy and SMOs solve six fundamental organising problems.

Journal of Organization Design · Martela & Nandram (Organization Zoo)

How 900+ teams and 14,000 employees run without middle management: supportive IT and internal coaches.

Journal of Organization Design · JOD authors

Empirical study of a flat rehab organisation across seven decision domains; reviews the leaderless-vs-CEO debate.

Journal of Organization Design · JOD authors

Longitudinal email-network study (2016–2019) of a company moving to self-management.

BRQ Business Research Quarterly (SAGE) · Morikawa, Martela & Hakanen

Two studies on whether SMOs deliver engagement without burnout.

Human Resource Management Review (ScienceDirect) · HRMR authors

How SMOs (Buurtzorg, Morning Star, Valve, Haier, Alqvimia, Boldare) run HR functions without HR departments.

PMC / Journal of Nursing Management · Scoping review authors

Evidence review of SMTs in care, including Buurtzorg's 30% cut in admin time.

Harvard Business Review (via ResearchGate) · Bernstein, Bunch, Canner & Lee

HBR's balanced assessment of self-managed teams (title notwithstanding, it evaluates the broader movement).

Columbia Business School Insights · CBS faculty

Five forces that keep bureaucracy alive and actions drawn from Haier, Buurtzorg, ING and Spotify.

arXiv · Working paper

Formal model of self-managing vs bossless organisations and incentive design.

Strategic Management Journal (Wharton) · Saerom (Ronnie) Lee

Finds flatter start-ups gain creativity but risk haphazard execution — a rigorous counterpoint.

Wharton Mack Institute (working paper) · Shapira, Zur, Seshadri, Sridhar, Tucci

Patent-based study on hierarchy depth and idea importance.

Aalto University · Frank Martela et al.

Course slides summarising SMO definitions, Buurtzorg and the Finnish MODE research project.

Issues in Accounting Education (AAA) · Lindsay & Libby

Teaching case on the Swedish bank that abandoned budgets.

ResearchGate · Lindsay & Libby

Open copy of the Handelsbanken decentralisation case.

Substack (D. Ledingham) · Substack author

Essay on Wallander's reversal of head-office power and branch-level entrepreneurship.

Aneo (blog) · Aneo

French consultancy's account of Wallander's 1970s turnaround and decentralised decision-making.

INSEAD Knowledge · INSEAD

Author hub for INSEAD's leading researcher on radically decentralised systems.

INSEAD · INSEAD News

Zhang Ruimin explains three ways businesses can disrupt with Rendanheyi to 400 MBAs at Fontainebleau.

Wiley · Charles Manz & Henry Sims

1990s classic on self-managing teams at Gore, TI and IDS — evidence the movement predates the current wave.

McKinsey & Company · McKinsey Agile Tribe (Aghina, Ahlbäck, De Smet et al.)

McKinsey's reference framework: performance cells with greater autonomy, network of teams, open environments.

McKinsey & Company · McKinsey

Downloadable version of the framework.

McKinsey & Company · McKinsey

On 'managing by agreement', freedom, trust and accountability in networks of autonomous teams.

McKinsey & Company · McKinsey

Why managing performance individually makes little sense with empowered teams; transparency of objectives.