Jackson Library

Alumni Chapter Event: Additional Reading

 

Many organizations decide what to do based on the past experience of senior leaders, ideology and belief, and by looking at what other companies are doing. None of these represent effective ways of making decisions. Meanwhile, companies have ignored massive amounts of evidence that speak to questions such as the effectiveness of stock options and incentive compensation, whether "winning the war for talent" is possible or even desirable, the effects of setting up internal competitive dynamics, and many other questions that are relevant to understanding management strategies and their effects.

The fact that knowledge of "what works" is so infrequently used provides an opportunity for information arbitrage in the management of companies that is similar to arbitrage opportunities in the financial markets, except the returns are both larger and less likely to be immediately imitated away. Companies need to use more "evidence-based management" and a thought process that uncovers hidden assumptions and confronts them with what leaders know to be true.

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.

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

	Business and the Spirit [ PDF 315KB] by Jeffrey Pfeffer. Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, 2001 Research Paper no.1713
	Evidence-Based Management: A Practical Guide for Health Professionals by Rosemary Stewart. Oxford: Radcliffe Medical Press, 2002

Selected Websites

Jeffrey Pfeffer

TargetLearn

 

 

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