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2024-10-17 21:45:07
2024-10-17
2003-Why Hard-Nosed Executives Should Care About Management Theory为什么精明的管理者应该关心管理理论
Imagine going to your doctor because you're not feeling well. Before you've had a chance to describe your symptoms, the doctor writes out a prescription and says, “Take two of these three times a day, and call me next week.
”想象一下，你去看医生，因为你感觉不舒服。在你有机会描述你的症状之前，医生开了一张处方并说：“每天服用三次，每次两片，下周给我打电话。”
“But—I haven't told you what's wrong,” you say. “How do I know this will help me?”
“但是--我还没告诉你出了什么事呢，”你说。“我怎么知道这对我有帮助？”
“Why wouldn't it?” says the doctor. “It worked for my last two patients.”
“为什么不呢？”医生说。”它为我的两个病人工作。
No competent doctors would ever practice medicine like this, nor would any sane patient accept it if they did. Yet professors and consultants routinely prescribe such generic advice, and managers routinely accept such therapy, in the naive belief that if a particular course of action helped other companies to succeed, it ought to help theirs, too.
没有一个称职的医生会这样行医，也没有一个理智的病人会接受这样的做法。然而，教授和咨询师们经常开出这样的一般性建议，管理者们也经常接受这样的治疗，他们天真地认为，如果一个特定的行动方针帮助了其他公司的成功，那么它也应该帮助他们的公司。
Consider telecommunications equipment provider Lucent Technologies. In the late 1990s, the company's three operating divisions were reorganized into 11 “hot businesses.” The idea was that each business would be run largely independently, as if it were an internal entrepreneurial start-up. Senior executives proclaimed that this approach would vault the company to the next level of growth and profitability by pushing decision making down the hierarchy and closer to the marketplace, thereby enabling faster, better-focused innovation. Their belief was very much in fashion; decentralization and autonomy appeared to have helped other large companies. And the start-ups that seemed to be doing so well at the time were all small, autonomous, and close to their markets. Surely what was good for them would be good for Lucent.
以电信设备供应商朗讯科技为例。在20世纪90年代末，该公司的三个运营部门被重组为11个“热门业务”。当时的想法是，每个企业都将在很大程度上独立运营，就好像它是一个内部创业公司。高级管理人员声称，这种方法将通过推动决策层向下并更接近市场，从而实现更快，更集中的创新，从而使公司的增长和盈利能力提高到一个新的水平。他们的信念非常流行;分权和自治似乎帮助了其他大公司。当时似乎做得很好的初创公司都是小型的，自主的，靠近他们的市场。当然，对他们有好处的，对朗讯也有好处。
It turned out that it wasn't. If anything, the reorganization seemed to make Lucent slower and less flexible in responding to its customers'needs. Rather than saving costs, it added a whole new layer of costs.
事实证明并非如此。如果说有什么不同的话，那就是重组似乎使朗讯在响应客户需求方面变得更慢、更不灵活。它不仅没有节省成本，反而增加了一层全新的成本。
How could this happen? How could a formula that helped other companies become leaner, faster, and more responsive have caused the opposite at Lucent?
怎么会这样？一个帮助其他公司变得更精简、更快、更灵敏的公式，怎么会在朗讯造成相反的结果呢？
It happened because the management team of the day and those who advised it acted like the patient and the physician in our opening vignette. The remedy they used—forming small, product-focused, close-to-the-customer business units to make their company more innovative and flexible—actually does work, when business units are selling modular, self-contained products. Lucent's leading customers operated massive telephone networks. They were buying not plug-and-play products but, rather, complicated system solutions whose components had to be knit together in an intricate way to ensure that they worked correctly and reliably. Such systems are best designed, sold, and serviced by employees who are not hindered from coordinating their interdependent interactions by being separated into unconnected units. Lucent's managers used a theory that wasn't appropriate to their circumstance—with disastrous results.
这是因为当时的管理团队和那些提出建议的人就像我们开场白中的病人和医生一样。当业务部门销售模块化的、独立的产品时，他们使用的补救措施--组建小型的、以产品为中心的、贴近客户的业务部门，以使公司更具创新性和灵活性--实际上是有效的。朗讯的主要客户运营着庞大的电话网络。他们购买的不是即插即用的产品，而是复杂的系统解决方案，这些解决方案的组件必须以复杂的方式组合在一起，以确保它们正确可靠地工作。这样的系统最好由员工来设计、销售和维护，这些员工不会因为被分成不相连的单元而妨碍协调他们相互依赖的交互。朗讯的经理们使用了一种不适合他们的理论，结果是灾难性的。
Theory , you say? Theory often gets a bum rap among managers because it's associated with the word “theoretical,” which connotes “impractical.” But it shouldn't. A theory is a statement predicting which actions will lead to what results and why. Every action that managers take, and every plan they formulate, is based on some theory in the back of their minds that makes them expect the actions they contemplate will lead to the results they envision. But just like Monsieur Jourdain in Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme , who didn't realize he had been speaking prose all his life, most managers don't realize that they are voracious users of theory.
你说，理论？理论在管理者中经常受到不公正的批评，因为它与“理论”这个词联系在一起，而这个词意味着“不切实际”。但不应该。一个理论是一个陈述，预测哪些行为会导致什么结果以及为什么。管理者采取的每一个行动，以及他们制定的每一个计划，都是基于他们脑海中的某种理论，这些理论使他们期望他们考虑的行动将带来他们设想的结果。但是，就像莫里哀的《资产阶级的绅士》中没有意识到自己一辈子都在说散文的莫尔登先生一样，大多数管理者也没有意识到他们是理论的贪婪使用者。
Good theories are valuable in at least two ways. First, they help us make predictions. Gravity, for example, is a theory. As a statement of cause and effect, it allows us to predict that if we step off a cliff we will fall, without requiring that we actually try it to see what happens. Indeed, because reliable data are available solely about the past, using solid theories of causality is the only way managers can look into the future with any degree of confidence. Second, sound theories help us interpret the present, to understand what is happening and why. Theories help us sort the signals that portend important changes in the future from the noise that has no strategic meaning.
好的理论至少在两个方面是有价值的。首先，它们帮助我们做出预测。例如，引力是一种理论。作为因果关系的陈述，它让我们预测，如果我们走下悬崖，我们会掉下去，而不需要我们实际尝试看看会发生什么。事实上，由于可靠的数据只涉及过去，因此使用可靠的因果关系理论是管理者能够以任何程度的信心展望未来的唯一方法。其次，合理的理论帮助我们解释现在，理解正在发生的事情及其原因。理论帮助我们从没有战略意义的噪音中分辨出预示未来重要变化的信号。
Establishing the central role that theory plays in managerial decision making is the first of three related objectives we hope to accomplish in this article. We will also describe how good theories are developed and give an idea of how a theory can improve over time. And, finally, we'd like to help managers develop a sense, when they read an article or a book, for what theories they can and cannot trust. Our overarching goal is to help managers become intelligent consumers of managerial theory so that the best work coming out of universities and consulting firms is put to good use—and the less thoughtful, less rigorous work doesn't do too much harm.
确立理论在管理决策中的核心作用，是我们希望在本文中实现的三个相关目标中的第一个。我们还将描述好的理论是如何发展的，并给出一个理论如何随着时间的推移而改进的想法。最后，我们希望帮助管理者在阅读文章或书籍时，对哪些理论可以信任，哪些理论不可以信任，有一种感觉。我们的首要目标是帮助管理者成为管理理论的聪明消费者，这样来自大学和咨询公司的最好的工作就能得到很好的利用，而那些不那么深思熟虑、不那么严格的工作也不会造成太大的伤害。
Where Theory Comes From
理论从何而来
The construction of a solid theory proceeds in three stages. It begins with a description of some phenomenon we wish to understand. In physics, the phenomenon might be the behavior of high-energy particles; in business, it might be innovations that succeed or fail in the marketplace. In the exhibit at right, this stage is depicted as a broad foundation. That's because unless the phenomenon is carefully observed and described in its breadth and complexity, good theory cannot be built. Researchers surely head down the road to bad theory when they impatiently observe a few successful companies, identify some practices or characteristics that these companies seem to have in common, and then conclude that they have seen enough to write an article or book about how all companies can succeed. Such articles might suggest the following arguments, for example:
一个坚实的理论的构建分三个阶段进行。它开始于对我们希望理解的一些现象的描述。在物理学中，这种现象可能是高能粒子的行为;在商业中，它可能是在市场上成功或失败的创新。在右边的展示中，这个阶段被描绘成一个广泛的基础。这是因为，除非仔细观察并描述这种现象的广度和复杂性，否则就无法建立好的理论。当研究人员不耐烦地观察一些成功的公司，找出这些公司似乎共有的一些做法或特征，然后得出结论，他们已经看到了足够的东西来写一篇文章或一本书，讲述所有公司如何成功时，他们肯定会走向糟糕的理论。例如，这些条款可能提出以下论点：
• Because Europe's wireless telephone industry was so successful after it organized around a single GSM standard, the wireless industry in the United States would have seen higher usage rates sooner if it, too, had agreed on a standard before it got going.
由于欧洲的无线电话行业在围绕单一的GSM标准组织起来之后非常成功，如果美国的无线电话行业在开始之前也同意一个标准，那么它的使用率会更快。
• If you adopt this set of best practices for partnering with best-of-breed suppliers, your company will succeed as these companies did.
·如果你采用这套最佳实践与最佳供应商合作，你的公司将像这些公司一样成功。
Such studies are dangerous exactly because they would have us believe that because a certain medicine has helped some companies, it will help all companies. To improve understanding beyond this stage, researchers need to move to the second step: classifying aspects of the phenomenon into categories. Medical researchers sort diabetes into adult onset versus juvenile onset, for example. And management researchers sort diversification strategies into vertical versus horizontal types. This sorting allows researchers to organize complex and confusing phenomena in ways that highlight their most meaningful differences. It is then possibleto tackle stage three, which is to formulate a hypothesis of what causes the phenomenon to happen and why. And that's a theory.
这些研究之所以危险，正是因为它们会让我们相信，某种药物帮助了一些公司，就会帮助所有公司。为了提高对这一阶段的理解，研究人员需要进入第二步：将现象的各个方面分类。例如，医学研究人员将糖尿病分为成人发病和青少年发病。管理研究人员将多元化战略分为纵向和横向两种类型。这种分类使研究人员能够以突出其最有意义的差异的方式组织复杂和令人困惑的现象。然后可以来解决第三个阶段，即提出一个假设，解释是什么导致了这种现象的发生，以及为什么会发生。这只是个理论。
How do researchers improve this preliminary theory, or hypothesis? As the downward loop in the diagram below suggests, the process is iterative. Researchers use their theory to predict what they will see when they observe further examples of the phenomenon in the various categories they had defined in the second step. If the theory accurately predicts what they are observing, they can use it with increasing confidence to make predictions in similar circumstances.
研究人员如何改进这个初步的理论或假设？正如下图中的向下循环所示，这个过程是迭代的。研究人员使用他们的理论来预测当他们观察到他们在第二步中定义的各种类别中的现象的进一步例子时，他们会看到什么。如果理论准确地预测了他们所观察到的，他们就可以越来越有信心地在类似的情况下使用它来做出预测。
In their further observations, however, researchers often see something the theory cannot explain or predict, an anomaly that suggests something else is going on. They must then cycle back to the categorization stage and add or eliminate categories—or, sometimes, rethink them entirely. The researchers then build an improved theory upon the new categorization scheme. This new theory still explains the previous observations, but it also explains those that had seemed anomalous. In other words, the theory can now predict more accurately how the phenomenon should work in a wider range of circumstances.
然而，在进一步的观察中，研究人员经常会发现一些理论无法解释或预测的现象，这种异常现象表明还有其他的事情在发生，于是他们必须回到分类阶段，增加或删除类别，有时候，甚至完全重新考虑这些类别。然后，研究人员在新的分类方案上建立了一个改进的理论。这个新理论仍然解释了以前的观察结果，但它也解释了那些似乎反常的现象。换句话说，该理论现在可以更准确地预测这种现象在更广泛的情况下应该如何工作。
To see how a theory has improved, let's look at the way our understanding of international trade has evolved. It was long thought that countries with cheap, abundant resources would have an advantage competing in industries in which such resources are used as important inputs of production. Nations with inexpensive electric power, for example, would have a comparative advantage in making products that require energy-intensive production methods. Those with cheap labor would excel in labor-intensive products, and so on. This theory prevailed until Michael Porter saw anomalies the theory could not account for. Japan, with no iron ore and little coal, became a successful steel producer. Italy became the world's dominant producer of ceramic tile, even though its electricity costs were high and it had to import much of the clay.
为了了解理论是如何改进的，让我们来看看我们对国际贸易的理解是如何演变的。长期以来，人们一直认为，拥有廉价、丰富资源的国家在将此类资源用作重要生产投入的行业中具有竞争优势。例如，拥有廉价电力的国家在制造需要能源密集型生产方法的产品方面将具有比较优势。拥有廉价劳动力的人将在劳动密集型产品方面表现出色，等等。这一理论一直盛行，直到迈克尔·波特看到了该理论无法解释的异常现象。没有铁矿石和煤的日本成为了一个成功的钢铁生产国。意大利成为世界上最大的瓷砖生产国，尽管它的电费很高，而且它不得不进口大量的粘土。
Porter's theory of competitive clusters grew out of his efforts to account for these anomalies. Clusters, he postulated, lead to intense competition, which leads companies to optimize R&D, production, training, and logistics processes. His insights did not mean that prior notions of advantages based on low-cost resources were wrong, merely that they didn't adequately predict the outcome in every situation. So, for example, Canada's large pulp and paper industry can be explained in terms of relatively plentiful trees, and Bangalore's success in computer programming can be explained in terms of plentiful, low-cost, educated labor. But the competitive advantage that certain industries in Japan, Italy, and similar places have achieved can be explained only in terms of industry clusters. Porter's refined theory suggests that in one set of circumstances, where some otherwise scarce and valuable resource is relatively abundant, a country can and should exploit this advantage and so prosper. In another set of circumstances, where such resources are not available, policy makers can encourage the development of clusters to build process-based competitive advantages. Governments of nations like Singapore and Ireland have used Porter's theory to devise cluster-building policies that have led to prosperity in just the way his refined theory predicts.
波特的竞争性集群理论就是在他努力解释这些反常现象的基础上发展起来的。他假设，集群会导致激烈的竞争，从而导致公司优化研发、生产、培训和物流流程。他的见解并不意味着先前基于低成本资源的优势概念是错误的，只是他们没有充分预测在每一种情况下的结果。因此，例如，加拿大的大型纸浆和造纸工业可以用相对丰富的树木来解释，而班加罗尔在计算机编程方面的成功可以用丰富的、低成本的、受过教育的劳动力来解释。但是，日本、意大利等地的某些产业所取得的竞争优势，只能用产业集群来解释。波特的精炼理论表明，在一组情况下，一些原本稀缺而有价值的资源相对丰富，一个国家可以而且应该利用这一优势，从而繁荣起来。在另一种情况下，如果没有这种资源，决策者可以鼓励发展集群，以建立基于过程的竞争优势。像新加坡和爱尔兰这样的国家的政府已经运用波特的理论来设计集群建设政策，这些政策以他的精炼理论所预测的方式带来了繁荣。
We'll now take a closer look at three aspects of the theory-building process: the importance of explaining what causes an outcome (instead of just describing attributes empirically associated with that outcome); the process of categorization that enables theorists to move from tentative understanding to reliable predictions; and the importance of studying failures to building good theory.
现在，我们将更仔细地研究理论构建过程的三个方面：解释导致结果的原因的重要性（而不仅仅是描述与该结果相关的经验属性）;分类过程，使理论家能够从初步理解转向可靠的预测;以及研究失败对构建良好理论的重要性。
Pinpointing Causation
查明原因
In the early stages of theory building, people typically identify the most visible attributes of the phenomenon in question that appear to be correlated with a particular outcome and use those attributes as the basis for categorization. This is necessarily the starting point of theory building, but it is rarely ever more than an important first step. It takes a while to develop categories that capture a deep understanding of what causes the outcome..
在理论构建的早期阶段，人们通常会识别出与特定结果相关的现象中最明显的属性，并将这些属性作为分类的基础。这必然是理论构建的起点，但它很少比重要的第一步更重要。需要一段时间来开发类别，以深入了解导致结果的原因。
Consider the history of people's attempts to fly. Early researchers observed strong correlations between being able to fly and having feathers and wings. But when humans attempted to follow the “best practices” of the most successful flyers by strapping feathered wings onto their arms, jumping off cliffs, and flapping hard, they were not successful because, as strong as the correlations were, the would-be aviators had not understood the fundamental causal mechanism of flight. When these researchers categorized the world in terms of the most obvious visible attributes of the phenomenon (wings versus no wings, feathers versus no feathers, for example), the best they could do was a statement of correlation —that the possession of those attributes is associated with the ability to fly.
想想人们尝试飞的历史早期的研究人员观察到会飞和有羽毛和翅膀之间有很强的相关性。但是，当人类试图遵循最成功的飞行员的“最佳做法”，将有羽毛的翅膀绑在手臂上，从悬崖上跳下来，用力拍打时，他们并没有成功，因为，尽管相关性很强，这些未来的飞行员还没有理解战斗的基本因果机制。当这些研究人员根据现象的最明显的可见属性(例如，有翅膀与没有翅膀，有羽毛与没有羽毛)对世界进行分类时，他们能做的最好的事情就是对相关性的陈述——拥有这些属性与飞行能力有关。
Researchers at this stage can at best express their findings in terms of degrees of uncertainty: “Because such a large percentage of those with wings and feathers can fly when they flap (although ostriches, emus, chickens, and kiwis cannot), in all probability I will be able to fly if I fabricate wings with feathers glued on them, strap them to my arms, and flap hard as I jump off this cliff.” Those who use research still in this stage as a guide to action often get into trouble because they confuse the correlation between attributes and outcomes with the underlying causal mechanism. Hence, they do what they think is necessary to succeed, but they fail.
在这个阶段，研究人员最多只能用不确定程度来表达他们的发现:“因为有翅膀和羽毛的动物中有很大一部分在拍动的时候能飞(尽管鸵鸟、鸸鹋、鸡和几维鸟不能)，所以如果我制造出粘有羽毛的翅膀，把它们绑在我的手臂上，在我跳下这个生命的时候用力拍动，我很可能就能飞了。那些用仍处于这一阶段的研究作为行动指南的人，往往会陷入麻烦，因为他们混淆了属性和结果之间的相关性与潜在的因果机制。因此，他们做了他们认为成功所必需的事情，但他们失败了。
A stunning number of articles and books about management similarly confuse the correlation of attributes and outcomes with causality. Ask yourself, for example, if you've ever seen studies that:
大量关于管理的文章和书籍同样混淆了属性和结果的相关性与因果关系。例如，问问你自己，你是否看过这样的研究：
• contrast the success of companies funded by venture capital with those funded by corporate capital (implying that the source of capital funding is a cause of success rather than merely an attribute that can be associated with a company that happens to be successful for some currently unknown reason).
·将风险资本资助的公司的成功与公司资本资助的公司的成功进行对比（这意味着资本资金的来源是成功的原因，而不仅仅是与公司因某种目前未知的原因而成功有关的属性）。
• contend that companies run by CEOs who are plain, ordinary people earn returns to shareholders that are superior to those of companies run by flashy CEOs (implying that certain CEO personality attributes cause company performance to improve).
·主张由平凡的普通人经营的公司，其股东回报率要比由浮华的CEO经营的公司高上级（这意味着CEO的某些个性特征会导致公司业绩的改善）。
• assert that companies that have diversified beyond those SIC codes that define their core businesses return less to their shareholders than firms that kept close to their core (thus leaping to the conclusion that the attributes of diversification or centralization cause shareholder value creation).
·断言，那些在定义其核心业务的SIC代码之外进行多元化的公司比那些保持核心业务的公司对股东的回报更少（因此，从而得出多元化或集中化的属性导致股东价值创造的结论）。
• conclude that 78% of female home owners between the ages of 25 and 35 prefer this product over that one (thus implying that the attributes of home ownership, age, and gender somehow cause people to prefer a specific product)
.·得出结论，在25岁至35岁的女性房主中，78%的人更喜欢这种产品而不是那种产品（这意味着房屋所有权，年龄和性别的属性在某种程度上导致人们更喜欢特定的产品）。
None of these studies articulates a theory of causation. All of them express a correlation between attributes and outcomes, and that's generally the best you can do when you don't understand what causes a given outcome. In the first case, for example, studies have shown that 20% of start-ups funded by venture capitalists succeed, another 50% end up among the walking wounded, and the rest fail altogether. Other studies have shown that the success rate of start-ups funded by corporate capital is much, much lower. But from such studies you can't conclude that your start-up will succeed if it is funded by venture capital. You must first know what it is about venture capital—the mechanism—that contributes to a start-up's success.
这些研究都没有阐明因果关系的理论。所有这些都表达了属性和结果之间的相关性，当你不理解是什么导致了给定的结果时，这通常是你能做的最好的事情。例如，在第一种情况下，研究表明，由风险投资家资助的初创企业中有20%成功，另外50%最终成为走路的伤员，其余的则完全失败。其他研究表明，由公司资本资助的初创企业的成功率要低得多。但从这些研究中，你不能得出结论，如果你的初创企业得到风险投资的资助，它就会成功。你首先必须知道风险投资的机制是什么，它有助于初创企业的成功。
In management research, unfortunately, many academics and consultants intentionally remain at this correlation-based stage of theory building in the mistaken belief that they can increase the predictive power of their “theories” by crunching huge databases on powerful computers, producing regression analyses that measure the correlations of attributes and outcomes with ever higher degrees of statistical significance. Managers who attempt to be guided by such research can only hope that they'll be lucky—that if they acquire the recommended attributes (which on average are associated with success), somehow they too will find themselves similarly blessed with success.
不幸的是，在管理研究中，许多学者和顾问故意停留在建立理论的这个基于相关性的阶段，错误地认为他们可以通过在强大的计算机上处理庞大的数据库来提高他们的“理论”的预测能力，产生回归分析，以更高的统计显著性来衡量属性和结果的相关性。那些试图以这种研究为指导的管理者只能希望他们是幸运的，如果他们获得了推荐的属性（平均来说，这些属性与成功有关），不知何故，他们也会发现自己同样幸运地获得成功。
The breakthroughs that lead from categorization to an understanding of fundamental causality generally come not from crunching
ever more data but from highly detailed field research, when researchers crawl inside companies to observe carefully the causal processes at work. Consider the progress of our understanding of Toyota's production methods. Initially, observers noticed that the strides Japanese companies were making in manufacturing outpaced those of their counterparts in the United States. The first categorization efforts were directed vaguely toward the most obvious attribute—that perhaps there was something in Japanese culture that made the difference.
从分类到理解基本因果关系的突破通常不是来自于处理越来越多的数据，而是来自于非常详细的实地研究，研究人员在公司内部爬行，仔细观察工作中的因果过程。想想我们对丰田生产方式的理解的进步。最初，观察家们注意到，日本公司在制造业方面取得的进步超过了美国的同行。第一次分类工作是在他含糊地提到了一个最明显的特点--也许是日本文化中的某些东西造成了这种差异。
When early researchers visited Toyota plants in Japan to see its production methods (often called “lean manufacturing”), though, they observed more significant attributes of the system—inventories that were kept to a minimum, a plant-scheduling system driven by kanban cards instead of computers, and so on. But unfortunately, they leaped quickly from attributes to conclusions, writing books assuring managers that if they, too, built manufacturing systems with these attributes, they would achieve improvements in cost, quality, and speed comparable to those Toyota enjoys. Many manufacturers tried to make their plants conform to these lean attributes—and while many reaped some improvements, none came close to replicating what Toyota had done.
当早期的研究人员参观丰田在日本的工厂，（通常被称为“精益制造”），但是，他们观察到了系统的更重要的属性-库存保持在最低限度，工厂调度系统由看板卡而不是计算机驱动，等等。但不幸的是，他们很快就从属性跳到结论，写书向管理者保证，如果他们也这样做，如果建立了具有这些属性的制造系统，它们将在成本、质量和速度方面取得与丰田汽车相当的改进。许多制造商试图使他们的工厂符合这些精益属性-虽然许多收获了一些改进，但没有一个接近复制丰田所做的。
The research of Steven Spear and Kent Bowen has advanced theory in this field from such correlations by suggesting fundamental causes of Toyota's ability to continually improve quality, speed, and cost. Spear went to work on several Toyota assembly lines for some time. He began to see a pattern in the way people thought when they designed any process—those for training workers, for instance, or installing car seats, or maintaining equipment. From this careful and extensive observation, Spear and Bowen concluded that all processes at Toyota are designed according to four specific rules that create automatic feedback loops, which repeatedly test the effectiveness of each new activity, pointing the way toward continual improvements. (For a detailed account of Spear and Bowen's theory, see “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System,” HBR September–October 1999.) Using this mechanism, organizations as diverse as hospitals, aluminum smelters, and semicon ductor fabricators have begun achieving improvements on a scale similar to Toyota's, even though their processes often share few visible attributes with Toyota's system.
史蒂文·斯皮尔和肯特·鲍恩的研究通过提出丰田能够持续改进质量、速度和成本的根本原因，从这种相关性中提出了这一领域的先进理论。斯皮尔在几条丰田装配线上工作了一段时间。他开始看到人们在设计任何流程时的思维模式-例如，培训工人，安装汽车座椅或维护设备。通过仔细而广泛的观察，斯皮尔和鲍恩得出结论，丰田的所有流程都是根据四个特定的规则设计的，这些规则创造了自动反馈回路，反复测试每一项新活动的有效性，为持续改进指明了方向。(For关于斯皮尔和鲍文理论的详细介绍，见《哈佛商业评论》1999年9 - 10月号的“解码丰田生产系统的DNA”。)利用这种机制，医院、铝冶炼厂和半导体制造商等不同组织已经开始实现与丰田类似规模的改进，尽管它们的流程通常与丰田的系统几乎没有共同的可见属性。
Moving Toward Predictability
走向可预测性
Manned flight began to be possible when Daniel Bernoulli's study of fluid mechanics helped him understand the mechanism that creates lift. Even then, though, understanding the mechanism itself wasn't enough to make manned flight perfectly predictable . Further research was needed to identify the circumstances under which that mechanism did and did not work.
当丹尼尔伯努利对流体力学的研究帮助他理解了产生升力的机制时，载人飞行开始成为可能。然而，即使在那时，理解机制本身也不足以使载人飞行完全可预测。进一步需要进行研究，以确定该机制在何种情况下能够发挥作用，在何种情况下不能发挥作用。
When aviators used Bernoulli's understanding to build aircraft with airfoil wings, some of them still crashed. They then had to figure out what it was about those circumstances that led to failure. They, in essence, stopped asking the question, “What attributes are associated with success?” and focused on the question, “Under what circumstances will the use of this theory lead to failure?” They learned, for example, that if they climbed too steeply, insufficient lift was created. Also, in certain types of turbulence, pockets of relatively lower-density air forming under a wing could cause a sudden down spin. As aviators came to recognize those circumstances that required different technologies and piloting techniques and others that made attempting flight too dangerous, manned flight became not just possible but predictable.
当飞行员使用伯努利的理解来建造带有翼型机翼的飞机时，其中一些仍然坠毁。然后，他们必须弄清楚是什么导致了这些情况的失败。从本质上说，他们不再问这样一个问题：“什么样的品质与成功有关？”并聚焦于“在什么情况下使用这一理论会导致失败？”例如，他们了解到，如果他们爬得太陡，就不会产生足够的升力。此外，在某些类型的湍流中，机翼下方形成的相对较低密度的空气袋可能会导致突然的下旋。随着飞行员逐渐认识到这些情况需要不同的技术和驾驶技术，以及其他使尝试飞行过于危险的情况，载人飞行不仅成为可能，而且是可预测的。
In management research, similar breakthroughs in predictability occur when researchers not only identify the causal mechanism that ties actions to results but go on to describe the circumstances in which that mechanism does and does not result in success. This enables them to discover whether and how managers should adjust the way they manage their organizations in these different circumstances. Good theories, in other words, are circumstance contingent : They define not just what causes what and why, but also how the causal mechanism will produce different outcomes in different situations.
在管理研究中，当研究人员不仅确定了将行动与结果联系起来的因果机制，而且继续描述该机制导致成功和不导致成功的情况时，可预测性也会出现类似的突破。这使他们能够发现管理者是否应该以及如何在这些不同的情况下调整他们管理组织的方式。换句话说，好的理论是随环境而定的：它们不仅定义了什么导致什么和为什么，而且还定义了因果机制如何在不同的情况下产生不同的结果。
For example, two pairs of researchers have independently been studying why it is so difficult for companies to deliver superior returns to shareholders over a sustained period. They have recently published carefully researched books on the question that reach opposing conclusions. Profit from the Core observes that the firms whose performance is best and lasts longest are, on average, those that have sought growth in areas close to the skills they'd honed in their core businesses. It recommends that other managers follow suit. Creative Destruction , in contrast, concludes that because most attractive businesses ultimately lose their luster, managers need to bring the dynamic workings of entrepreneurial capitalism inside their companies and be willing to create new core businesses.
例如，两组研究人员一直在独立研究为什么公司很难在一段时间内为股东提供上级回报。他们最近出版了关于这个问题的经过仔细研究的书籍，得出了相反的结论。《核心利润》观察到，平均而言，业绩最好、持续时间最长的公司是那些在核心业务中磨练出来的技能附近寻求增长的公司。它建议其他管理人员效仿。相反，《创造性毁灭》的结论是，由于大多数有吸引力的企业最终都会失去光彩，管理者需要将企业家资本主义的动态运作带入公司，并愿意创建新的核心业务。
Because they've juxtaposed their work in such a helpful way, we can see that what the researchers actually have done is define the critical question that will lead to the predictability stage of the theory-building cycle: “Under what circumstances will staying close to the core help me sustain superior returns, and when will it be critical to set the forces of creative destruction to work?” When the researchers have defined the set of different situations in which managers might find themselves relative to this question and then articulated a circumstance-contingent theory, individuals can begin following their recommendations with greater confidence that they will be on the right path for their situation.
因为他们以如此有帮助的方式并列了他们的工作，我们可以看到研究人员实际上所做的是定义了将导致理论构建周期的可预测性阶段的关键问题：“在什么情况下，保持接近核心可以帮助我维持上级回报，什么时候让创造性破坏的力量发挥作用至关重要？”当研究人员定义了管理者可能会发现自己与这个问题相关的一组不同情况，然后阐述了一个环境相关理论时，个人可以开始遵循他们的建议，更有信心他们将走上正确的道路。
Circumstance-contingent theories enable managers to understand what it is about their present situation that has enabled their strategies and tactics to succeed. And they help managers recognize when important circumstances in their competitive environment are shifting so they can begin “piloting their plane” differently to sustain their success in the new circumstance. Theories that have advanced to this stage can help make success not only possible and predictable but sustainable. The work of building ever-better theory is never finished. As valuable as Porter's theory of clusters has proven, for example, there is a great opportunity for a researcher now to step in and find out when and why clusters that seem robust can disintegrate. That will lead to an even more robust theory of international competitive advantage.
环境相依理论使管理者能够理解，是什么样的环境使他们的战略和战术得以成功。它们还能帮助管理者认识到竞争环境中的重要环境何时发生了变化，以便他们开始以不同的方式“驾驶飞机”，在新环境中保持成功。已经发展到这个阶段的理论可以帮助成功不仅是可能的和可预测的，而且是可持续的。建立更好的理论的工作永远不会结束。正如波特的集群理论所证明的那样，现在有一个很好的机会让研究人员介入并找出看似强大的集群何时以及为什么会解体。这将导致一个更强大的国际竞争优势理论。
The Importance of Failures
失败的重要性
Note how critical it is for researchers, once they have hypothesized a causal mechanism, to identify circumstances in which companies did exactly what was prescribed but failed. Unfortunately, many management researchers are so focused on how companies succeed that they don't study failure. The obsession with studying successful companies and their “best practices” is a major reason why platitudes and fads in management come and go with such alarming regularity and why much earlystage management thinking doesn't evolve to the next stage. Managers try advice out because it sounds good and then discard it when they encounter circumstances in which the recommended actions do not yield the predicted results. Their conclusion most often is,“It doesn't work.”
请注意，一旦研究人员假设了一种因果机制，他们就必须确定公司完全按照规定行事但失败的情况。不幸的是，许多管理学研究人员太关注公司如何成功，而不研究失败。对研究成功公司及其“最佳实践”的痴迷，是管理学中的陈词滥调和时尚以如此惊人的规律性来来去去的主要原因，也是许多早期管理思想无法发展到下一阶段的主要原因。管理者尝试建议，因为它听起来不错，然后当他们遇到建议的行动不能产生预期结果的情况时，就放弃它。他们的结论通常是，“不行。”
The question, “When doesn't it work?” is a magical key that enables statements of causality to be expressed in circumstance-contingent ways. For reasons we don't fully understand, many management researchers and writers are afraid to turn that key. As a consequence, many a promising stream of research has fallen into disuse and disrepute because its proponents carelessly claimed it would work in every instance instead of seeking to learn when it would work, when it wouldn't, and why.
问题是，“什么时候它不起作用？”是一把神奇的钥匙，它使因果关系的陈述能够以视情况而定的方式表达。由于我们不完全理解的原因，许多管理研究人员和作家都不敢打开这把钥匙。因此，许多有前途的研究流已经被废弃和名誉扫地，因为它的支持者漫不经心地声称它在任何情况下都有效，而不是寻求了解它何时有效，何时无效以及为什么。
In a good doctor-patient relationship, doctors usually can analyze and diagnose what is wrong with a specific patient and prescribe an appropriate therapy. By contrast, the relationship between managers, on the one hand, and those who research and write about management, on the other, is a distant one. If it is going to be useful, research must be conducted and written in ways that make it possible for readers to diagnose their situation themselves. When managers ask questions like, “Does this apply to my industry?” or “Does it apply to service businesses as well as product businesses?” they really are probing to understand the circumstances under which a theory does and does not work. Most of them have been burned by misapplied theory before. To know unambiguously what circumstance they are in, managers need also to know what circumstances they are not in. That is why getting the circumstance-defined categories right is so important in the process of building useful theory.
在良好的医患关系中，医生通常可以分析和诊断特定患者的问题，并提供适当的治疗。相比之下，管理者与研究和撰写管理学文章的人之间的关系是遥远的。如果研究是有用的，那么研究的进行和写作方式必须使读者能够自己诊断他们的情况。当经理们问这样的问题时，“这适用于我的行业吗？”或者“它是否适用于服务企业以及产品企业？”他们实际上是在探索理解一种理论在什么情况下行得通，在什么情况下行不通。他们中的大多数人以前都被错误应用的理论所烧毁。为了明确地知道他们处于什么样的环境中，管理者还需要知道他们不处于什么样的环境中。这就是为什么在建立有用的理论的过程中，正确地确定环境定义的范畴是如此重要。
In our studies, we have observed that industry-based or product-versus-service-based categorization schemes almost never constitute a useful foundation for reliable theory because the circumstances that make a theory fail or succeed rarely coincide with industry boundaries. The Innovator's Dilemma, for example, described how precisely the same mechanism that enabled upstart companies to upend the leading, established firms in disk drives and computers also toppled the leading companies in mechanical excavators, steel, retailing, motorcycles, and accounting software. The circumstances that matter to this theory have nothing to do with what industry a company is in. They have to do with whether an innovation is or is not financially attractive to a company's business model. The mechanism—the resource allocation process—causes the established leaders to win the competitive fights when an innovation is financially attractive to their business model. And the same mechanism disables them when they are attacked by disruptive innovators whose products, profit models, and customers are not attractive to their model.
在我们的研究中，我们观察到，基于行业或基于产品与服务的分类方案几乎从未构成可靠理论的有用基础，因为使理论失败或成功的环境很少与行业边界相吻合。例如，《创新者的困境》（Innovator's Dilemma）描述了一种机制，正是这种机制使新兴公司能够颠覆磁盘驱动器和计算机领域的领先企业，也颠覆了机械挖掘机、钢铁、零售、摩托车和会计软件领域的领先企业。对这一理论来说重要的情况与公司所处的行业无关。它们与创新是否对公司的商业模式具有财务吸引力有关。这种机制--资源分配过程--使已确立的领导者在竞争中获胜，创新对他们的商业模式具有经济吸引力。当他们受到破坏性创新者的攻击时，同样的机制也会使他们失去能力，因为这些创新者的产品、盈利模式和客户对他们的模式没有吸引力。
We can trust a theory only when, as in this example, its statement describing the actions that must lead to success explains how they will vary as a company's circumstances change. This is a major reason why the world of innovating managers has seemed quite random—because shoddy categorization by researchers has led to one-size-fits-all recommendations that have led to poor results in many circumstances. Not until we begin developing theories that managers can use in a circumstance-contingent way will we bring predictable success to the world of management.
只有当一个理论描述了必须导致成功的行动的陈述解释了它们将如何随着公司环境的变化而变化时，我们才能相信它，就像这个例子一样。这就是为什么创新管理者的世界看起来相当随机的一个主要原因--因为研究人员的劣质分类导致了一刀切的建议，在许多情况下导致了糟糕的结果。只有当我们开始发展管理者可以根据具体情况运用的理论时，我们才能给管理界带来可预测的成功。
Let's return to the Lucent example. The company is now in recovery: Market share in key product groups has stabilized, customers report increased satisfaction, and the stock price is recovering. Much of the turnaround seems to have been the result, in a tragic irony, not just of undoing the reorganization of the 1990s but of moving to a still more centralized structure. The current management team explicitly recognized the damage the earlier decentralization initiatives created and, guided by a theory that is appropriate to the complexity of Lucent's products and markets, has been working hard to put back in place an efficient structure that is aligned with the needs of Lucent's underlying technologies and products.
让我们回到Lucent的例子。该公司目前正在复苏：主要产品组的市场份额已经稳定，客户报告满意度提高，股票价格正在恢复。具有悲剧性讽刺意味的是，大部分的转变似乎不仅是取消20世纪90年代重组的结果，而且是转向更集中的结构的结果。目前的管理团队明确认识到早期的权力下放计划造成的损害，并在适合朗讯产品和市场复杂性的理论指导下，一直在努力恢复与朗讯基础技术和产品需求相一致的有效结构。
The moral of this story is that in business, as in medicine, no single prescription cures all ills. Lucent's managers felt pressured to grow in the 1990s. Lucent had a relatively centralized decision-making structure and its fair share of bureaucracy. Because most of the fast-growing technology companies of the day were comparatively unencumbered with such structures, management concluded that it should mimic them—a belief not only endorsed but promulgated by a number of management researchers. What got overlooked, with disastrous consequences, was that Lucent was emulating the attributes of small, fast-growing companies when its circumstances were fundamentally different. The management needed a theory to guide it to the organizational structure that was optimal for the circumstances the company was actually in.
这个故事的寓意是，在商业中，就像在医学中一样，没有一个单一的处方可以治愈所有的疾病。朗讯的经理们在90年代感到了增长的压力。朗讯有一个相对集中的决策结构和它的公平份额的官僚机构。由于当时大多数快速发展的科技公司相对来说不受这种结构的束缚，管理层得出结论，应该模仿它们这一信念不仅得到了许多管理研究人员的认可，而且得到了他们的宣传。朗讯被忽视了一点，那就是朗讯在模仿那些快速增长的小公司的特点，而它所处的环境却与这些公司有着根本的不同，这导致了灾难性的后果。管理层需要一种理论来指导它，使其找到适合公司实际情况的最佳组织结构。
Becoming a Discerning Consumer of Theory
成为一个有洞察力的理论消费者
Managers with a problem to solve will want to cut to the chase: Which theory will help them? How can they tell a good theory from a bad one? That is, when is a theory sufficiently well developed that its categorization scheme is indeed based not on coincidences but on causal links between circumstances, action, and results? Here are some ideas to help you judge how appropriate any theory or set of recommendations will be for your company's situation.
有问题需要解决的经理人会想开门见山：哪种理论会对他们有帮助？他们怎么能区分理论的好坏呢？也就是说，什么时候一个理论发展得足够完善，以至于它的分类方案确实不是基于巧合，而是基于环境、行动和结果之间的因果联系？这里有一些想法，可以帮助你判断任何理论或一套建议是否适合你公司的情况。
• When researchers are just beginning to study a problem or business issue, articles that simply describe the phenomenon can become an extremely valuable foundation for subsequent researchers' attempts to define categories and then to explain what causes the phenomenon to occur. For example, early work by Ananth Raman and his colleagues shook the world of supply chain studies simply by showing that companies with even the most sophisticated bar code–scanning systems had notoriously inaccurate inventory records. These observations led them to the next stage, in which they classified the types of errors the scanning systems produced and the sorts of stores in which those kinds of errors most often occurred. Raman and his colleagues then began carefully observing stocking processes to see exactly what kinds of behaviors could cause these errors. From this foundation, then, a theory explaining what systems work under what circumstances can emerge.
当研究人员刚刚开始研究一个问题或商业问题时，简单描述现象的文章可以成为后续研究人员试图定义类别并解释导致现象发生的原因的非常有价值的基础。例如，阿南斯拉曼和他的同事们的早期工作仅仅是表明，即使是拥有最先进的条形码扫描系统的公司，库存记录也是出了名的不准确。这些观察将他们带到了下一个阶段，在这个阶段，他们对扫描系统产生的错误类型进行了分类，并对这些错误最常发生的商店类型进行了分类。然后，拉曼和他的同事们开始仔细观察放养过程，看看到底是什么样的行为会导致这些错误。从这个基础上，一个解释什么系统在什么环境下工作的理论就可以出现。
• Beware of work urging that revolutionary change of everything is needed. This is the fallacy of jumping directly from description to theory. If the authors imply that their findings apply to all companies in all situations, don't trust them. Usually things are the way they are for pretty good reasons. We need to know not only where, when, and why things must change but also what should stay the same. Most of the time, new categorization schemes don't completely overturn established thinking. Rather, they bring new insight into how to think and act in circumstance-contingent ways. Porter's work on international competitiveness, for example, did not overthrow preexisting trade theory but rather identified a circumstance in which a different mechanism of action led to competitive advantage.
·小心那些要求一切都需要革命性变革的工作。这就是从描述直接跳到理论的谬误。如果作者暗示他们的发现适用于所有情况下的所有公司，不要相信他们。通常情况下，事情是他们的方式有很好的理由。我们不仅需要知道在哪里、何时以及为什么事情必须改变，而且还需要知道什么应该保持不变。大多数时候，新的分类方案并不会完全推翻既定的思维。相反，他们带来了新的见解，如何思考和行动的情况下，视情况而定的方式。例如，波特关于国际竞争力的著作并没有推翻先前存在的贸易理论，而是确定了一种不同的行动机制导致竞争优势的情况。
• If the authors classify the phenomenon they're describing into categories based upon its attributes, simply accept that the study represents only a preliminary step toward a reliable theory. The most you can know at this stage is that there is some relationship between the characteristics of the companies being studied and the outcomes they experience. These can be described in terms of a general tendency of a population (20% of all companies funded by venture capital become successful; fewer of those funded by corporate capital do). But, if used to guide the actions of your individual company, they can easily send you on a wingflapping expedition.
·如果作者对现象进行分类，他们根据其属性进行分类，简单地接受这项研究只是迈向可靠理论的初步步骤。在这个阶段，你所能知道的最多的是，所研究的公司的特征与他们所经历的结果之间存在某种关系。这些可以用人口的一般趋势来描述（所有由风险资本资助的公司中有20%成功;由公司资本资助的公司中很少成功）。但是，如果用来指导你的个人公司的行动，他们可以很容易地送你一个翅膀扇动远征。
• Correlations that masquerade as causation often take the form of adjectives— humble CEOs create shareholder value, for instance, or venture-capital funding helps start-ups succeed. But a real theory should include a mechanism—a description of how something works. So a theory of how funding helps start-ups succeed might suggest that what venture capitalists do that makes the difference is meter out small amounts of funds to help the companies feel their way, step by step, toward a viable strategy. Funding in this way encourages start-ups to abandon unsuccessful initiatives right away and try new approaches. What corporate capitalists often do that's less effective is to flood a new business with a lot of money initially, allowing it to pursue the wrong strategy far longer. Then they pull the plug, thus preventing it from trying different approaches to find out what will work. During the dot-com boom, when venture capitalists flooded start-ups with money, the fact that it was venture money per se didn't help avert the predictable disaster.
·伪装成因果关系的相关性通常以形容词的形式出现--例如，谦逊的CEO创造了股东价值，或者风险投资基金帮助初创企业取得成功。但是一个真实的理论应该包括一个机制一个关于事物如何运作的描述。因此，一个关于资金如何帮助初创企业成功的理论可能会表明，风险投资家所做的事情就是计量出少量资金，帮助公司一步一步地找到可行的战略。以这种方式资助鼓励初创公司立即放弃不成功的举措，并尝试新的方法。公司资本家经常做的不太有效的事情是，在一开始就向一家新企业注入大量资金，让它在更长的时间里奉行错误的战略。然后他们拔掉插头，从而阻止它尝试不同的方法来找出什么是有效的。在互联网繁荣时期，风险投资家向初创企业注入了大量资金，但风险投资本身并没有帮助避免可预见的灾难。
• Remember that a researcher's findings can almost never be considered the final word. The discovery of a circumstance in which a theory did not accurately predict an outcome is a triumph, not a failure. Progress comes from refining theories to explain situations in which they previously failed, so without continuing our examination of failure, management theory cannot advance.
·记住，研究人员的发现几乎永远不能被认为是最后的结论。发现一种理论不能准确预测结果的情况是一种胜利，而不是失败。进步来自于对理论的提炼，以解释它们以前失败的情况，所以如果不继续研究失败，管理理论就无法进步。
When Caveat Emptor Is Not Enough
当买者自负还不够时
In shopping for ideas, there is no Better Business Bureau managers can turn to for an assessment of how useful a given theory will be
to them. Editors of management journals publish a range of different views on important issues—leaving it to the readers to decide which theories they should use to guide their actions.
在寻找想法时，没有更好的商业局管理人员可以求助于评估一个给定的理论对他们有多有用。管理学期刊的编辑们在重要问题上发表了一系列不同的观点，让读者来决定他们应该用哪些理论来指导他们的行动。
But in the marketplace of ideas, caveat emptor—letting the reader beware—shirks the duty of research. For most managers, trying out a new idea to see if it works is simply not an option: There is too much at stake. Our hope is that an understanding of what constitutes good theory will help researchers do a better job of discovering the mechanisms that cause the outcomes managers care about, and that researchers will not be satisfied with measuring the statistical significance of correlations between attributes and outcomes. We hope they will see the value in asking, “When doesn't this work?” Researching that question will help them decipher the set of circumstances in which managers might find themselves and then frame contingent statements of cause and effect that take those circumstances into account.
但在思想市场上，“买者自负”--让读者当心--逃避了研究的责任。对于大多数管理者来说，尝试一个新想法看看它是否有效根本不是一个选择：风险太大了。我们的希望是，理解什么是好的理论将有助于研究人员更好地发现导致管理者关心的结果的机制，研究人员不会满足于测量属性和结果之间相关性的统计显著性。我们希望他们能看到这样问的价值：“这什么时候不起作用？”对这个问题的研究将有助于他们解读管理者可能会发现自己所处的一系列环境，然后在考虑这些环境的情况下构建因果关系的或有陈述。
We hope that a deeper understanding of what makes theory useful will enable editors to choose which pieces of research they will publish—and managers to choose which articles they will read and believe—on the basis of something other than authors' credentials or past successes. We hope that managers will exploit the fact that good theories can be judged on a more objective basis to make their “purchases” far more confidently.
我们希望，更深入地理解是什么使理论有用，将使编辑能够选择他们将推荐哪些研究，管理者能够选择他们将阅读和相信哪些文章，而不是基于作者的资历或过去的成功。我们希望，管理者们能够利用好的理论可以在更客观的基础上进行判断这一事实，从而更加自信地进行“购买”。
个人思考：
通过阅读这篇文章，我深刻认识到了理论在管理决策中的核心作用。理论不仅仅是学术界的产物，更是企业管理和实践中的重要工具。它可以帮助管理者预测未来的趋势，解释当前的现象，以及从大量的信息中筛选出真正有价值的内容。这让我意识到，在日常工作中，不应仅仅依赖直觉或经验，而应更多地借助理论的支持来做出更为科学和理性的决策。
文章详细介绍了理论发展的三个阶段，即现象描述、分类与解释、以及理论的不断修正和完善。这一过程强调了理论并不是一成不变的，而是随着研究的深入和实践经验的积累而逐步发展和完善的。这启示我们在面对新的管理挑战时，不应盲目追求所谓的“万能理论”，而是要结合实际情况，灵活应用现有的理论框架，并勇于探索和创新。
文中提到，一个好的理论应当能够清晰地指出其适用的边界条件，即在何种情况下该理论可能不成立。这一点对于避免将理论生搬硬套到不合适的场景中至关重要。它提醒我们在应用任何理论时，都需要谨慎考虑其适用范围，同时也要敢于质疑和验证理论的有效性。
文章中多次提到，在管理理论的选择和应用过程中，管理者不应仅凭作者的资历或过往的成功案例来决定是否采纳某一理论，而应基于理论本身的质量和适用性做出判断。这强调了培养批判性思维的重要性。在未来的学习和工作中，我将更加注重培养自己的批判性思维能力，学会独立分析和评价各种理论观点。
最后，这篇文章还强调了理论研究的持续性和重要性。即使是在已经取得一定成果的领域，也不应停止探索的脚步。对于我个人而言，这意味着需要保持对新知识的好奇心和求知欲，不断学习最新的研究成果，以便更好地应对不断变化的管理环境。
综上所述，这篇文章不仅提供了丰富的理论知识，更重要的是激发了我对管理理论的深入思考和探索欲望。在未来，我希望能够将这些理论应用于实际工作中，同时也积极参与到相关的研究中去。
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