Welcome to the new Global Peter Drucker Forum Blog.
As President of the Peter Drucker Society Europe I would like to introduce myself with this short bio. While I will be the main author I will also invite distinguished guest authors to contribute. The blog will cover key management subjects mainly related to the Drucker Forum.
When we discuss management as a key issue for society these days the word has a mostly negative connotation – we tend to talk about management in terms of the damages that short-termism, off-shoring, greed and bad management (in particular in the financial services sector) are inflicting on society.
A round table last week at the European Business Summit (EBS) organised by the EFMD took a different approach.
The theme “Management Skills for Growth” pointed to a great opportunity. Opening statements came from Adrian Wooldridge (Management Editor, The Economist), Alexander von Gabain (Chair of the European Institute for Innovation and Technology – EIT) and Santiago Iniguez (President of IE Business School and President of IE University). You can access the Live Tweets from the session via the Drucker Forum Twitter @GDruckerForum and via the hashtag #ebs2012.
The discussion focused on how to increase innovation as an aid to moving Europe back to growth. Alexander von Gabain made the point that most Europeans seem to believe that top-class research will per se lead to innovation. Rather, he emphasised the managerial and entrepreneurial capacity that is essential to transform research results into value.
There was a strong feeling in the meeting that European policy makers had a blind spot in this field. While it may be right to pump billions into R&D, they do not seem to realise that without a proper focus on building management and entrepreneurial capacity in our societies we will not get the best return from these huge investments.
Management capacity is the “missing link” in policy makers’ perception of how to achieve innovation and growth. According to Adrian Wooldridge, management sciences must be recognised as an essential field of research while Santiago Iniguez showed how business schools are in the process of reinventing themselves to become key players in the “knowledge triangle” (business, education and research).
A Call to Action resulting from the EBS round table addresses key issues such as the inclusions of management education in scientific and engineering studies, supporting entrepreneurial mindsets and values from school-level onwards, and providing community research funding for important fields such as design thinking, open innovation and organisational sociology.
With Capitalism 2.0 we have chosen a theme essential to the future of our society. A changing capitalism must be powered by evolving management practices – let us call those Management 2.0. An increased recognition of the importance of good and effective management practice, not just within a single organisation but for all society, will lead to a new synergy between public, semi-public and the private sectors in the field of management, innovation and entrepreneurship.
I will keep you posted in future blog entries about the next developments in the European level discussion.
Your comments will be highly appreciated.
Richard Straub
President Peter Drucker Society Europe
9 thoughts on “Management must be a public concern – putting Europe back on a growth path”
Ein super Blog danke! Gibt es einen Link, wo man über die
Neuigkeiten in diesem Blog benachrichtigt wird?
danke
Hektor Dimansik
Dear Mr Dimansik,
thanks for your comment. Sorry for the delayed answer, but your comment was in the spam folder.
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With kind regards
Drucker Society Europe
As much as we hope to have a more vibrant entrepreneurial community contributing to job creation and economic growth, there appear to be many institutional factors that impede this from occurring.
1) Educational institutions are not adept at cross-fertilization between academic disciplines such as engineering and business. Faculty are incentivized to “stay disciplined” in both the literal and figurative senses. If the goal is to bring management and entrepreneurship education to the sciences and social science, universities must change. This is a very slow process in a place where its key organizational members are taken to periodically wearing medieval garb for their most important events. (For more see “Handbook of University-Wide Entrepreneurship Education”, 2009, Edward Elgar Publishing – http://www.e-elgar.co.uk/bookentry_main.lasso?id=12826).
2) Country culture dramatically impacts innovation. Hofstede and others have measured dimensions of country culture – such as individualism versus collectivism and uncertainty avoidance. In study after study it is clear that countries whose cultures embrace individualism experience higher rates of entrepreneurship and more robust achievements in scientific publications and patent development. Culture is notoriously slow to change. But as in organizations, culture can change with consistent effort over time by those “at the top.” For countries, this would mean not only changes in articulated vision (“memorable speeches”), but also changes in policies and programs.
3) Government involvement reduces levels of entrepreneurship. Another robust finding from study after study is that entrepreneurial attitudes, aspirations, and activity are lower when government is more involved in an economy. As one of my colleagues expressed it, governments “crowd out” the smaller players.
Given the challenges faced today by governments on both sides of the Atlantic – and the easier short term solution to increase government spending – this third point is perhaps the greatest challenge in stimulating real long term economic growth through entrepreneurship and innovation.
I fully agree – management practices and the views of Peter Drucker on how these were essential in driving innovation are exactly correct. Think of companies like Toyota, IKEA, GE and Walmart, who by incredible management, are continuously innovating both their product and their processes. In these companies innovation happens not be accident, but by the deliberate process of excellent management. We have recently also been looking into this in terms of collecting cross country data posted on http://www.worldmanagementsurvey.com and fully agree.
Fantastic post,
Nicholas Bloom
Professor of Economics
Stanford University
http://www.stanford.edu/~nbloom/
Great blog
As CEO & Co founder of an innovative company that has grown at 40% + per annum since our incorporation 10 years ago I often ask myself what we are doing that others aren’t.
Management practices and my business degree may have had something to do with it but my sense it is more about Management beliefs and values which ultimately shape the innovation and culture of any succesful organisation.
In my view too many Managers (with or without business degrees) still think being an Entrepreneur is about making money for themselves or for shareholders and fail to embrace and internalise the interests of all stakeholders in their thinking
Maybe basic Ethics lessons on being a good citizen from kindergarten upwards may produce more results than Management training alone.
As Chairman of the Advisory Board Peter Drucker Society Europe I am delighted to see this blog thrive with highly appreciable comments and contributions. These insights should have an impact on the various foundations of society: academia, corporations, SMEs, science, government, social entrepreneurship and others – not last by supporting a much stronger integration among them.
Here, the importance of Management as key for success and further growth has to be acknowledged and knowledge about it, further developed.
To Whom it may Concern
Shareholder value is already out again. My friend from Stanford, Dr. Lubar Karlik: The economy is there to produce solcail values. The products we need for our living – or less so – profit is, as the mathematician says, a boundary condition. As for people management I quote Clive Warrilow, CEO Volkswagen Amerika, more than a decade ago: It has taken me almost my entirecareer to understand what forces are set free when people are treated with honesty, dignity, and respect (From Monty Roberts, the horse man).
ivo.steinacker@boukephalas.com (Boukephalas was the battle horse of Alexander the Great.)
Given the challenges faced today by governments on both sides of the Atlantic – and the easier short term solution to increase government spending – this third point is perhaps the greatest challenge in stimulating real long term economic growth through entrepreneurship and innovation.
While it may be right to pump billions into R&D, they do not seem to realise that without a proper focus on building management and entrepreneurial capacity in our societies we will not get the best return from these huge investments.