A Model for Research in Comparative Management

Koontz Harold O'Donnell Cyril , Principles of Management (3rd ed.; New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1964), p. 1.

The various modern management schools are examined in Koontz Harold , ed., Toward a Unified Theory of Management (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1964), 273 pp.

The problems of defining enterprise efficiency are great, given the difficulty of measuring variegated inputs and outputs. See Simon Herbert A. , Administrative Behavior (2nd ed.; New York: The Macmillan Co., 1961), pp. 172–197, for a detailed discussion of this crucial point. It is important to point out that the concept of productive efficiency warrants an entire chapter in our book. In this chapter models of both firm and economic system efficiency having universal application will be presented.

For a discussion of the concept of gross national product, see Samuelson Paul A. , Economics (5th ed.; New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1961), pp. 212–237. As with many other aggregate concepts dealt with here, measurement of this item is much more difficult than the basic concept.

The authors have worked, lived, and studied in Canada, the United States, Mexico, the U.S.S.R., Poland, Czechoslovakia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Kingdom. Experiences in these and other countries studied have served as a basis for much of the analysis presented.

See Heilbroner Robert L. , The Great Ascent (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), pp. 75–88, for a further discussion of this point.

See Davidson Ralph K. Smith Vernon L. Wiley J. W. , Economics: An Analytic Approach (Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1958), pp. 115–226, for one of many studies of macroeconomics. See Alpert Paul , Economic Development (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1963), 308 pp., for one of many examples of modern economic work in the study of income growth.

Dalkey Norman Helmer Olaf , “An Experimental Application of the Delphi Method to the Use of Experts,” Management Science, IX, 3 (April 1963), 458–467.

The use of rank order correlation techniques would be more meaningful statistically. See Rosander A. C. , Elementary Principles of Statistics (New York: D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., 1951), pp. 618–629. However, the authors have found the use of numerical evaluations useful as a first approximation, since the analysis to date has been used for subjective evaluation of strong and weak points in a country's external managerial constraints. It is useful to say that the central banking system of the United States is better than that of Saudi Arabia, but it is much more useful to say that the American system is ten times better, even though this latter judgment is quite intuitive and subjective. Where large numbers of countries are ranked, such wide discrepancies probably would not appear, and rank order analysis would be more useful. It should also be noted that the various constraints could conceivably be quantified, although the amount of work involved would be enormous for most constraints.