商业案例研究滥用成灾

    但流行的商业管理分析很少有这样周全的解释。出色的企业会立即被奉为伟大的公司，原因则众说纷纭。商业书刊出版商也总是有它们的最爱：大概有十多年是西南航空（Southwest Airlines），今天则轮到了苹果公司（Apple）。人们各持己见，将这些公司的成功归结于于战略、文化、管理能力和其他因素。

    所有这些解释都言之有理，但正确的解释必须要弄懂所有的相关事实，弄懂为什么它们比其他解释更好。这就是钱德勒的研究成果曾经达到过得标准。不幸的是，当今的商业案例研究往往要靠读者自己去决定什么是合理的解释，让读者权衡证据是否可靠。

预测：接下来会发生什么

    谈到预测，情况就更糟糕了。大多数商业管理书籍从夸大其辞的解释更进一步，跳到了毫无根据的预测。他们的观点是既然它在他们那里适用，那么在你们这里也同样适用。这种观点的基础是：“这种做法过去有效，因此有望帮助你按照自己愿望来决定未来”，但这种假设显然存在缺陷。

    做出合理预测的唯一方法是给出预测，然后看看它是否经得起反复的验证。我不知道如今的商业管理书籍有哪本曾经对它给出的建议进行过哪怕能跟科学方法沾得上一点边的预测准确性验证。（对了，我知道有这样的一本数。但它是我自己写的，因此我本人不方便评价它的优劣。）

    现实世界非常复杂，要进行控制性的实验几乎不可能。但无法提供预测准确性的证据，并不是说我们就能改变证据规则。而且，把虚构的事情当做事实只会具有危险的误导性。只有当案例研究包含了可靠的因果关联，它们才能有助于我们准确地预测结果。

    有了描述、解释或预测的支持，案例研究能为我们提供帮助，但方式可能不尽相同，可靠性也各异。因此，下次再有人开口说“比如”时，你可得好好想想。

    Michael Raynor是《创新者宣言：自我颠覆，脱胎换骨》（The Innovator's Manifesto: Deliberate Disruption for Transformational Growth）一书的作者，也是咨询公司Deloitte Consulting LLP的董事。他住在多伦多近郊。

    When it comes to the explanations offered by popular business analysis, however, there is rarely such care. Companies with great track records are immediately lionized as great companies for all sorts of reasons, and the business press always has a favorite. For a decade or more, it was Southwest Airlines; today it's Apple's (AAPL) turn: there are any number of competing arguments that can attribute success to varying combinations and types of strategy, culture, leadership, and other elements.

    All of these explanations make sense, but the right explanation needs to make sense of all the pertinent facts, and it needs to make sense of them better than the alternatives. This is a standard that Chandler's work rose to. But when it comes to today's business case studies, unfortunately, it is often left to the reader to determine what the competing explanations might be and to weigh the evidence.

Prediction: What happens next

    When it comes to prediction, it gets worse. Most business books move from overstated claims of explanation to entirely unjustified predictions based on the notion that because something seems to have worked for them over there it will work for you over here. This belief is based on a flawed assumption that using ideas that worked out in the past will somehow allow you to shape the future in a desired way.

    The only way to justify a prediction is to make one and see if it holds up under repeated tests. I don't know of any business book that has subjected its prescriptions to tests of predictive accuracy that bear even a distant relationship to the scientific method. (Well, I know of one. But I wrote it, so I'm not in a position to offer an opinion on its merits.)

    The real world is a messy place, which can make controlled experiments impossible. But the inability to generate evidence of predictive accuracy does not allow us to change the rules of evidence. And it is dangerously misleading to treat fables as fact. Only when case studies are elaborations of a validated connection between cause and effect can they contribute to our ability to predict outcomes accurately.

    Case studies can be useful in support of description, explanation or prediction, but in different ways and with different degrees of confidence. So the next time someone begins a sentence with "for example," think twice.

    Michael Raynor is the author of The Innovator's Manifesto: Deliberate Disruption for Transformational Growth and is a director at Deloitte Consulting LLP. He lives just outside of Toronto.