Good to Great, or Just Good?

Niendorf (2008) · Academy of Management Perspectives · Read the paper

Bruce Niendorf and Kristine Beck take as their subject Jim Collins's Good to Great, in which eleven firms were identified as great and five management principles were derived from them. They contend that the book gives no evidence that applying the principles to other firms or periods will produce more than average results, because of two errors in the original research, and they test that contention empirically. They report an average rank for the eleven firms within the 2006 Fortune 500, and that their long-term stock returns do not differ significantly from those of the average S&P 500 company, and conclude that the firms may be good but are not great.

Bruce Niendorf and Kristine Beck take as their subject Jim Collins's Good to Great, in which eleven firms were identified as great and five management principles were derived from them. They contend that the book gives no evidence that applying the principles to other firms or periods will produce more than average results, because of two errors in the original research, and they test that contention empirically. They report an average rank for the eleven firms within the 2006 Fortune 500, and that their long-term stock returns do not differ significantly from those of the average S&P 500 company, and conclude that the firms may be good but are not great.

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Niendorf, B., & Beck, K. (2008). Good to great, or just good? Academy of Management Perspectives, 22(4), 13-20. doi:10.5465/amp.2008.35590350.