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The Economist:
Measuring management

17 January 2014

For the past decade a group of economists, including Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and John Van Reenen of the London School of Economics, have been trying to bring some rigour to the argument. They have focused on three commonly accepted management techniques - setting targets, rewarding performance and measuring results - and studied the performance of more than 10,000 organisations in 20 countries in the light of how well they implement these techniques. They have employed about 150 researchers and rigorous econometric methods to guarantee the robustness of their results. Their study is still a work in progress. But it nevertheless promises to be nothing less than the Domesday Book of the management age.

This article was published in The Economist on January 17, 2014
Link to article here

Related publications
'Management Practices Across Firms and Countries', Nicholas Bloom, Christos Genakos, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen, Centre for Economic Performance Discussion Paper No.1109, December 2011
'Why Do Management Practices Differ Across Firms and Countries?', Nicholas Bloom and John Van Reenen, Centre for Economic Performance Occasional Paper No.26, August 2010

Related links
Nicholas Bloom webpage
John Van Reenen webpage
Productivity and Innovation Programme webpage
Management research webpage

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