| There�s no reason to compare anything in modern-day America to slavery Assistant Professor, CUNY Even if Peters and Waterman had compared their �excellent� companies to similar ones that performed less well, we still might not be able to conclude much, because of some serious issues with the data itself. Earlier today, Chinese health authorities announced that a South Korean man hospitalized in mainland China tested positive for MERS, reports the South China Morning Post (paywall). Meanwhile, a woman who had traveled on the same May 26 flight as the man was rushed to another Hong Kong hospital with MERS-like symptoms. Despite all that, oil prices are rising anyway because hopeful traders latched onto other details in the report�namely that crude oil inventories dropped by an unexpectedly high amount (by 2.8 barrels rather than the 857,000 barrels forecast by analysts). Traders apparently clung onto this supply draw as a signal of higher oil demand and a tightening market. This is all terribly disconcerting given the 2.5 trillion the United States has spent in Iraq as well as the political pressure to deploy more American forces�on top of the three already there�to rescue Baghdad. It is unlikely that the American people will support such a move, but what about an additional five advisors, and then in another six to eight months three more, and when the Iraqis are still having a hard time perhaps another five will be the �game changer�? The story begins last June, when a surge of US shale oil production began to overshadow various geopolitical crises (in Iraq, Libya, and Nigeria, among others) that conspired to push prices above 115 a barrel. The shale produced a global oil glut, and prices began to plunge. Jerker Denrell, professor of behavioral science at Warwick Business School, UK, suggests that this assumption is actually much less reasonable than it might seem. In fact, Denrell provides several reasons to think that firms with exceptionally high performance may be less capable than the average company. |
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