Biography

Donham, who was born in Rockland, Massachusetts, obtained three degrees from Harvard, and returned there in 1909 – having been called to the bar in the interim – as dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration.

It was Donham who made the "case study" a central part of management teaching when he introduced it into the curriculum at HBS. He said there was a need for a broad executive theory, and for a type of research in the development of theory. It would be answered by case studies, which in due time would provide businessmen with a variety of solutions.

It was interesting that Donham saw his duty as teaching his students to become better businessmen, while aiming to help existing businesses direct. 

There was a need for new standards of decisions made by executives who, because they did not know, could not take advantage of what the economists had to offer – see The Need of Endowment for Economic Research (1915). By 1926 Mayo had joined Donham at Harvard and they were later joined by Schumpeter.

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