During his tenure, he supervised the company's transformation from focusing on the traditional commercial uses of the firm's products to target the nascent do it yourself home improvement market.
Davis was hired by Stanley Works in 1948 as its general manager of labor relations, beginning a career with that company that would last for almost four decades.
[4] Having been to England during the 1960s, where the do-it-yourself market was already in existence, Davis sought to bring that trend to the United States, arguing that homeowners doing construction projects on their own would want to use the same quality tools that professionals were using.
As recounted by Louis Uchitelle in his 2006 book The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences, after relocating to a summer house on Martha's Vineyard, Davis would frequently make the trip to New Britain by ferry and car but started cutting back his visits by the late 1990s as coming face-to-face with former Stanley employees became too painful and "much too personal".
[4] After retiring from Stanley in 1988, Davis taught for over 20 years at the MIT Sloan School of Management,[2] lecturing on the subjects of leadership and ethics.