Is Fortune magazine right: an investigation into the application of Deutschman's 16 high-tech management practices

Abstract

<p>An article by Alan Deutschman in Fortune (October 17, 1994) presents a list of management techniques which he claims distinguish the innovative high technology companies of Silicon Valley from all other types of organizations. What makes the article so interesting is that Deutschman claims these techniques represent "lessons for any manager struggling to thrive in today's fast-changing, info-driven economy". We decided to test his claim directly. We developed a questionnaire and sent it to 695 Canadian companies from the Financial Post 500 list and the Canadian Advanced Technology Association. Our study results showed that high technology companies were found to use over 60% of Deutschman's management techniques to a significant degree more than low technology companies. However, not all of Deutschman's techniques consist ently indicated higher financial performance with higher usage.</p>