The importance of management research
Research in the area of ​​management theory began with the first tentative attempts around 1960. A few university professors were concerned with the question of good and correct management at the time, and one of the best known was Peter Drucker, who described the importance and tools of management. There were only a few management consultants at the time, and large global management consulting companies only had approaches, concepts and tools at best. Research results such as the Eisenhower scheme, which was intended to allow managers to sort important and urgent matters in a 4-field matrix and thus optimize their own management and delegation behavior, were considered a notable innovation and a significant research result at the time.

Over time, management research became more professional. In addition to projects at universities, business schools and other knowledge centers, from 1980 onwards the large management consulting companies also became increasingly involved in deciphering the “secrets” of successful management of companies and organizations. The globalization of consulting firms has made it possible to survey 5 consultants per 5 clients in 50 locations worldwide, resulting in studies with 50 x 5 x 5 = 1250 CEOs of well-known companies surveyed. Thanks to online studies, it has become possible to invite 1000 managers to take part in a study by email, to make the questionnaire available on the Internet with a link and to use a standardized evaluation program to convert the answers into an attractive visual evaluation in just a few hours.

Is management research 100% correct?
Good research looks for a topic of interest, puts forward hypotheses and, depending on the research philosophy, tries to verify or reject them. In management theory today, Sir Karl Popper’s research principle is mostly applied, according to which a hypothesis is not necessarily correct if it cannot be rejected, but can only be considered provisionally correct and attempts must continue to be made to falsify it, i.e. to replace it with newer and better knowledge. As long as falsification is not successful, one then speaks of the provisionally best knowledge, which should be applied to one’s own considerations in company management. These “best practices” are then the best knowledge we have and will in many cases be correct, but can also be exactly wrong for the individual company. Conclusion: Research results from management research must always be critically questioned. In many cases they will provide valuable insights for the individual case, but can also be exactly wrong. Studies are no substitute for thinking!

Is management research value-neutral?
What drives those who conduct research? What should be the driving force is clear: gaining knowledge. However, reality shows that other motives are often at play. For example, one cannot assume that a management consultancy carries out studies to show existing and potential customers a problem for which it itself has a consulting product to offer as a solution. However, practice shows that in many cases studies are used as an effective tool for project acquisition. In this case, it can be assumed with a certain degree of probability that the studies are not value-neutral and that the gain in knowledge could therefore fall by the wayside in favor of material gain.

The lack of the law of large numbers
A problem in research always occurs when apples are compared with oranges, i.e. when the objects of investigation are compared even though they are hardly comparable. This problem is less prevalent in the field of scientific research. Example: pharmaceutical research: A new active ingredient is tested in clinical trials on 40,000 people who suffer from a certain disease. 20,000 receive the active ingredient, the other 20,000 receive a placebo, but without knowing it. After a defined period of time, the change in the clinical picture can be measured in both groups, and the result is ‘representative’ or ‘validated’ thanks to the large number and the comparability of the parameters.

Snapshots
Another weakness of many research projects is the time frame chosen: the researchers analyze individual cases of successful companies, look for the success factors and management principles of the decision-makers involved, find at most a few identical behavior patterns – and a new theory is born. The logic behind this: what was right for 10 or 20 successful companies must also be exactly the right recipe for all the others and especially for your company. Books and bestsellers are then written about this and brought to the manager. If you take the trouble to check 5 – 10 years later which of the once much-praised companies have survived or are still successful, you will in many cases be astonished that the supposed recipes for success have apparently only survived for a short time and that the recipes found through research have not had a lasting positive effect. It is simply not enough to work with snapshots; what is needed are long-term studies.

Long-term studies instead of fashion trends in research
The research projects of the St. Gallen Business School are without exception long-term studies. Every year we are in contact with hundreds of companies, speak to thousands of managers, and support renowned companies in different countries in our institutes and our consulting division. In this way, we collect a great deal of knowledge like mosaic pieces. We see which strategies and management concepts the companies pursue, what results from them and what does not, how old concepts are replaced by new ones and what the result is. From the multitude of sensors and 40 years of experience, we are able in most cases to distinguish correct and good management from fashion trends, guruism and charlatanism. In our research projects, we are committed to just one question: “What promotes the sustainable success of a company and how does good management work?” Since we do not accept any subsidies and finance our projects exclusively from our own resources, we literally have the “freedom of research”. As a private business school, we generate the necessary funds thanks to our activities in the field of management training and management consulting, and have been doing so for around 40 years.

We would like to thank our long-standing, loyal customers for their appreciation and great interest in our range of services.

Kind regards,
Dr. Günther Pipp
St. Gallen Business School
Research Network St. Gallen

Günther Pipp
President of the St. Gallen Research Association
CEO of St. Gallen
Business School

The logic of research and its findings for management