---
id: "framework-centralized-control-evaluation"
type: "framework"
source_timestamps: ["¶11"]
tags: ["governance", "decision-rights"]
related: ["claim-centralized-control-still-necessary"]
steps: ["Is delivering a consistent customer experience across markets more important than adapting to local variation?", "\\\"Would different markets executing this decision in different ways create legal liability", "safety risk", "or brand erosion?\\\"", "Does this decision commit capital that competes with other enterprise-wide priorities?", "Is the core expertise required to make this judgment concentrated at the center or in local markets?"]
sources: ["tail1"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-tail1"
originDay: 1
articleStem: "hbr-tail-108-decision-revolves-around-hq"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/05/what-global-companies-lose-when-decision-making-revolves-around-headquarters"
sourceTitle: "What Global Companies Lose When Decision-Making Revolves Around Headquarters"
---
# Centralized Control Evaluation Framework

## Centralized Control Evaluation Framework

A set of **four diagnostic questions** organizations should ask to determine the appropriate level of authority headquarters should wield over a specific decision. Answering them clarifies *when centralized control works best*, producing a rationale that should be **transparently shared across the enterprise** to ensure alignment.

### The four questions
1. **Consistency vs. adaptation** — Is delivering a consistent customer experience across markets more important than adapting to local variation?
2. **Divergence risk** — Would different markets executing this decision in different ways create legal liability, safety risk, or brand erosion?
3. **Capital competition** — Does this decision commit capital that competes with other enterprise-wide priorities?
4. **Locus of expertise** — Is the core expertise required to make this judgment concentrated at the center or in local markets?

### How to read the answers
- “Yes” to questions 1–3 or “center” on question 4 → stronger case for **HQ-centric** authority on that decision.
- “Local markets” on question 4, with low divergence risk → stronger case for **periphery-first** origination via [[action-require-regional-briefs]].

This framework is the practical embodiment of [[claim-centralized-control-still-necessary]] and the guardrail that keeps the [[concept-hq-satellite-dynamic]] remedy from over-correcting into fragmentation.

**Enrichment / related tooling:** Maps naturally onto formal **decision-rights frameworks (RACI / RAPID)** — which separate who *initiates, recommends, decides,* and *executes* — and onto Galbraith's Star Model, which links structure/processes/rewards to strategy. These give firms a way to shift decision *origin* while preserving HQ *authority*.