Performance Implications of Management Ideas

Abstract

Consultants and business gurus have stressed the positive implications of management ideas for performance. However, the evidence on whether management ideas lead to superior performance remains ambiguous. This chapter scrutinizes the link between management ideas and performance. It begins by reviewing research on technological resources-focused ideas, human resources-focused ideas, relational resources-focused ideas, and knowledge resources-focused ideas and shows that there is empirical support for a positive relationship between management ideas and organizational performance. However, this positive link only materializes and holds under certain conditions, which complicate the efforts of managers and organizations to reap the benefits of management ideas. The authors discuss two of these complications: the ‘performance dilemmas of management ideas’ and the ‘sustainability paradox of management ideas’. The chapter ends with a discussion of avenues for future research.