AbstractOne of the requirements for a strategy to be successful is the use of the proper management system to implement it.The purpose of this paper is to report on an empirical investigation dealing with this issue. Specifically the research attempts to answer the following general questions:Do successful firms use a different type of match between their strategy and their management system than unsuccessful ones (description)?If so, for a given strategy, what are the best ‘organizational arrangements’ (management system) which are likely to lead to a firm's success? Do firms using the prescribed fit or match between strategy and management system get better overall results (prediction)?Management system or design is here defined as the processes of organizing, planning and controlling, staffing and directing in a comp