World Management Survey – Our mission is to build a high-quality, systematic dataset to be used by researchers worldwide in digging deeper into the black box of productivity across industries and countries.
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- __For managers
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- Benchmark your organization
- Data
- WMSDownload the original phone-based survey data
- __Download Public Data
- Request special access
- WMS Data Citation
- List of researchers/projects that obtained access to WMS data
- Methodology description
- __Manufacturing questionnaire
- __Retail questionnaire
- __Healthcare questionnaire
- __Education questionnaire
- Self-respondentMore info on the census style self-respondent surveys
- __MANUFACTURING
- US MOPS
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- MOPS Country Data information
- __EDUCATION
- PISA-based index
- Collect new dataNo WMS data in your country/sector? Learn how to run your own survey
- Run your survey
- Join a WMS large wave
- Conference
- 2026May 27-29, Stanford
- Call for papers
- Submit your paper
- 2024Dec 12-13, HBS
- Call for papers
- Conference website
- 2023Dec 13-15, Stanford
- Call for papers
- Conference website
- 2022Dec 14-15, IFC-World Bank (DC)
- Call for papers
- Conference website
- 2020Dec 9-10, Cornell Dyson (Virtual)
- Call for papers
- Conference program
- 2019Dec 13-14, World Bank
- Call for papers
- Conference program
- Conference website
- 2018Dec 13-14, HBS
- Call for papers
- Conference program
- Conference website
- 2017Dec 7-8, World Bank
- Call for papers
- Conference program
- Conference website
- 2016Dec 7-8, MIT
- Call for papers
- Conference program
- Conference website
- 2015Dec 9-11, Stanford
- Call for papers
- Conference program
- Conference website
- 2014May 15-16, HBS
- Call for papers
- Conference program
- __ Subscribe to the EMC mailing list
- Sister projects
- D-WMS Public SectorWMS applied to low capacity contexts
- D-WMS: About
- Methodology
- Questionnaires
- Management in Scientific LabsFind out more about the WMS applied to science labs
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- Teaching materialsLecture slides
- Stanford GSB MBA
- MIT Organizational Econ
- Individual Class Materials
- Book
- Data Analysis for Business, Economics, and Policy
- Media
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CALL FOR PAPERS for the 11th Empirical Management Conference
For the 11th year, we will be running a conference on empirical management, focused on recent empirical research on measuring and exploring management, organizational and leadership practices.
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Date: Wednesday May 27 (noon) to Friday May 29 (noon), 2026
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Place: Stanford University, California
Successful 10th Empirical Management Conference held at HBS
For the 10th year, we ran a conference on empirical management, focused on recent empirical research on measuring and exploring management, organizational and leadership practices. See the conference page here.
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Date: December 12 (8am) to December 13 (noon), 2024
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Place: Harvard Business School
WMS 2024 report: launch event
How much does management matter in an era of disruption?
A converstation with John Van Reenen (LSE), Tera Allas (McKinsey & Company), Daniela Scur (Cornell University)
Management Practices in Further Education
Researchers Sandra McNally, Luis Schmidt, and Anna Valero have just had their paper “Do Management Practices Matter in Further Education? ” accepted for publication at Economica.
Click here to access the ungated version of the manuscript.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS

The World Management Survey at 18: lessons and the way forward
Understanding how differences in management ‘best practices’ affect organizational outcomes has been a focus of both theoretical and empirical work in the fields of management, sociology, economics, and public policy. The World Management Survey (WMS) project was born almost two decades ago with the main goal of developing a new systematic measure of management practices being used in organizations. […]

Turbulence, Firm Decentralization, and Growth in Bad Times
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 13(1):133-69

Personnel Management and School Productivity: Evidence from India
This paper uses new data to study school management and productivity in India. We report four main results.
QUICK LINKS
WORLD MANAGEMENT SURVEY
The World Management Survey is the first cross-country, cross-industry dataset built to measure the quality of management practices in establishments. Our vision is to continue to expand the dataset using the rigour and care that goes into creating high-quality data. Most importantly, our vision is to have as many researchers as possible working with this data.
CONTACT US
For website inquiries: thomaz@worldmanagementsurvey.org
The WMS is run out of the CEP:
- About
- The project
- History
- The people
- Core Research team
- Past team members
- The funders
- Funders
- Be a Funder
- Academic
- __Manufacturing
- Published Papers
- Working Papers
- __Education
- Published Papers
- Working Papers
- __Healthcare
- Published Papers
- Working Papers
- __Other Work
- Other Researcher’s Work
- Policy & Business
- __For policy makers
- Policy Briefs: Private sector
- Policy Briefs: Public sector
- Policy Presentations
- __For managers
- Business Reports
- Public Sector Reports
- Benchmark your organization
- Data
- WMSDownload the original phone-based survey data
- __Download Public Data
- Request special access
- WMS Data Citation
- List of researchers/projects that obtained access to WMS data
- Methodology description
- __Manufacturing questionnaire
- __Retail questionnaire
- __Healthcare questionnaire
- __Education questionnaire
- Self-respondentMore info on the census style self-respondent surveys
- __MANUFACTURING
- US MOPS
- International MOPS
- MOPS Country Data information
- __EDUCATION
- PISA-based index
- Collect new dataNo WMS data in your country/sector? Learn how to run your own survey
- Run your survey
- Join a WMS large wave
- Conference
- 2026May 27-29, Stanford
- Call for papers
- Submit your paper
- 2024Dec 12-13, HBS
- Call for papers
- Conference website
- 2023Dec 13-15, Stanford
- Call for papers
- Conference website
- 2022Dec 14-15, IFC-World Bank (DC)
- Call for papers
- Conference website
- 2020Dec 9-10, Cornell Dyson (Virtual)
- Call for papers
- Conference program
- 2019Dec 13-14, World Bank
- Call for papers
- Conference program
- Conference website
- 2018Dec 13-14, HBS
- Call for papers
- Conference program
- Conference website
- 2017Dec 7-8, World Bank
- Call for papers
- Conference program
- Conference website
- 2016Dec 7-8, MIT
- Call for papers
- Conference program
- Conference website
- 2015Dec 9-11, Stanford
- Call for papers
- Conference program
- Conference website
- 2014May 15-16, HBS
- Call for papers
- Conference program
- __ Subscribe to the EMC mailing list
- Sister projects
- D-WMS Public SectorWMS applied to low capacity contexts
- D-WMS: About
- Methodology
- Questionnaires
- Management in Scientific LabsFind out more about the WMS applied to science labs
- About
- Teaching & media
- Teaching materialsLecture slides
- Stanford GSB MBA
- MIT Organizational Econ
- Individual Class Materials
- Book
- Data Analysis for Business, Economics, and Policy
- Media
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