---
id: "prereq-hub-and-spoke-model"
type: "prereq"
source_timestamps: ["¶2"]
tags: ["organizational-design"]
related: ["concept-hq-satellite-dynamic"]
reason: "Provides the baseline structural context for the power imbalances the author is critiquing."
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"
---
# Hub-and-Spoke Organizational Models

## Prerequisite — Hub-and-Spoke Organizational Models

**What to know:** Familiarity with traditional multinational corporate structures in which a **central headquarters (the hub)** dictates strategy, allocates resources, and manages risk for various **regional offices (the spokes)**.

**Why it's a prerequisite here:** It provides the baseline structural context for the power imbalances Livermore critiques. The [[concept-hq-satellite-dynamic]] is essentially the *dysfunction* of an unexamined hub-and-spoke model — the “satellite” framing is the spoke's-eye view.

**Enrichment:** A standard description of traditional MNC structures, widely documented in strategy and organization-design literature; the hub-and-spoke model explicitly casts HQ as the central node with higher authority and visibility. Related classical frameworks a specialist would reach for: Bartlett & Ghoshal's transnational model and Prahalad & Doz's integration–responsiveness framework.