America’s middle managers are better than the rest of the world's, or so this research would indicate
Why are some countries generally more productive than others? A team of researchers from Stanford university have been trying to find the answer to that very question for more than a decade, and what they’ve come up with makes the USA seem like a pretty good place to do business.
They questioned thousands of senior-level middle managers about management techniques such as how performance was monitored and rewarded and how targets were set and met: measurable, scalable factors that were less subjective than soft techniques like culture.
Results were graded and compiled according to manufacturing, healthcare, retail and education sectors. In all sectors but education, US middle management came out on top.
Of course, it must be noted that the researchers themselves were American, and may not have factored cultural differences into the equation.
However, it’s interesting to note that in all countries, middle managers at large multinational organizations rated highly.