To find the secrets of business success, what could be more natural than studying successful businesses? In fact, nothing could be more dangerous, warns this Stanford professor. To generalize from the examples of successful companies is to reach conclusions from an unrepresentative data sample, falling into the classic statistical trap of selection bias. Drawing on a wealth of case studies, for instance, one researcher concluded that great leaders share two key traits: They persist, often despite initial failures, and they are able to persuade others to join them. But those traits are also the hallmarks of spectacularly unsuccessful entrepreneurs. To discover what makes a business successful, then, managers should look at both successes and failures. Otherwise, they will overvalue risky business practices, seeing only those companies that won big and not the ones that lost dismally. They will not be able to tell whether their current good fortune stems from smart business practices or from coasting on past accomplishments or good luck. Fortunately, economists have developed relatively simple tools that can correct for selection bias even when data about failed companies are hard to come by.

【書誌情報】

ページ数：12ページ

サイズ：A4

商品番号：HBSP-R0504H

発行日：2005/4/1

登録日：2012/3/28