Jackson Library

Alumni Chapter Event: Additional Reading

 

In this interesting lecture, Dr.Pfeffer will discuss the main themes of his latest book: Hard Facts, Dangerous Half Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management.

Dr.Pfeffer has written several books in the area of organizational behavior and has vast experience consulting with companies in this area. In their new book, "Hard Facts, Dangerous Half Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management," Dr. Pfeffer and co-author Dr. Robert Sutton analyze how to arrive at managerial decisions based on hard evidence and not on myths or conventional wisdom such as "the best organizations have the best talent", "financial incentives drive company performance", or "firms must change or die".

Selected Articles

Additional reading material has been selected by Jackson Library Staff. Due to contractual arrangements, access to some articles may be restricted to the Stanford community, and subscribers of the "Library Databases" offered through the GSB Alumni's Lifelong Learning Program. Inclusion below does not imply University endorsement of the ideas expressed.

Untested Beliefs and Half Truths Pass as Management Gospel. GSB News, March 2006
If doctors practiced medicine the way many companies practice management, there would be far more sick and dead patients, and many more doctors would be in jail, argue Stanford Graduate School of Business faculty members Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton in their new book.
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Evidence Based Financial Management - What Are We Waiting For? Research in Healthcare Financial Management, 2004
The last decade has seen considerable growth in the field of evidence-based medicine (Ellrodt et al., 1997). The concept is simple. Physicians should base their decisions on the findings of scientific studies, rather than on anecdotal experience. This certainly makes good sense. It follows then, that the use of scientific evidence should make sense for managers as well (Walshe & Rundall, 2001).
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Towards evidence-based management and research-informed HRD practice: an empirical study. International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management, 2002
This paper describes a program of empirical HRD research conducted as part of an ''HRD Professional Partnership'' set within an NHS Trust Hospital in the UK. The research was concerned with identifying the criteria of managerial effectiveness applying at the middle and front line levels of management within the particular case study setting using Critical Incident Technique and Factor Analysis methods.
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Balance, Learning and the Human Equation. Line zine, Summer 2001
Pfeffer has challenged much of the current vogue for the "war for talent," with its implications that success necessarily depends on plugging the best people you can buy into a predetermined strategy and organizational structure. The Stanford professor instead highlights the "traditional paradigm upside down"- letting strategy and performance emerge from the development and alignment of people.
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The Knowing-Doing Gap. Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. 1999
Most business executives in the United States believe strongly in the virtues of competition, not only between organizations but within them as well. Competition fits the cultural emphasis on individualism in the United States, where a social Darwinist philosophy emphasizes the many benefits of the survival of the fittest.
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Selected Books

	Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management by Jeffrey Pfeffer, Robert I. Sutton. Harvard Business School Press, 2006 HD30.23 .P468 2006
	Business and the Spirit [ PDF 315KB] by Jeffrey Pfeffer. Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, 2001 Research Paper no.1713

Selected Websites

Jeffrey Pfeffer

 

 

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