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How long must a firm be great to rule out chance? Benchmarking sustained superior performance without being fooled by randomness

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  • Andrew D. Henderson
  • Michael E. Raynor
  • Mumtaz Ahmed

Abstract

Although sustained superior firm performance may arise from skillful management or other valuable, rare, and inimitable resources, it can also result from randomness. Studying U.S. companies from 1965–2008, we benchmark how long a firm must perform at a high level to be confident that it is something other than the outcome of a time‐homogeneous stationary Markov chain defined on the state space of percentiles. We find (a) the number of sustained superior performers in Compustat, measured by ROA and Tobin's q, exceeds the number of false positives we would expect to be generated by such a process; yet (b) the occurrence of false positives is often enough to fool many observers, so (c) the identification of sustained superior performers requires particularly stringent benchmarks to enable valid study. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew D. Henderson & Michael E. Raynor & Mumtaz Ahmed, 2012. "How long must a firm be great to rule out chance? Benchmarking sustained superior performance without being fooled by randomness," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(4), pages 387-406, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:stratm:v:33:y:2012:i:4:p:387-406
    DOI: 10.1002/smj.1943
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    Cited by:

    1. Ivan Savin & Maria Novitskaya, 2023. "Data-driven definitions of gazelle companies that rule out chance: application for Russia and Spain," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 13(3), pages 507-542, September.
    2. Marc Brechot & Raphael Flepp, 2020. "Dealing With Randomness in Match Outcomes: How to Rethink Performance Evaluation in European Club Football Using Expected Goals," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(4), pages 335-362, May.
    3. Alexandra Horobet & Lucian Belascu & Ștefania Cristina Curea & Alma Pentescu, 2019. "Ownership Concentration and Performance Recovery Patterns in the European Union," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-31, February.
    4. , Aisdl, 2020. "The Serendipity Mindset," OSF Preprints w52y9, Center for Open Science.
    5. Amrou Awaysheh & Randall A. Heron & Tod Perry & Jared I. Wilson, 2020. "On the relation between corporate social responsibility and financial performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(6), pages 965-987, June.
    6. Andrew D. Henderson & Melissa E. Graebner, 2020. "Entering a Golden Age of Sustained Superiority: Entrepreneurial Creation or Discovery?," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(6), pages 1432-1451, November.
    7. Giulio Bottazzi & Taewon Kang & Federico Tamagni, 2023. "Persistence in firm growth: inference from conditional quantile transition matrices," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 745-770, August.
    8. Robert Rieg, 2015. "Dynamics of value-based management: does shareholder value cause short-termism?," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 193-224, August.
    9. Alex Coad & Julian S. Frankish & Richard G. Roberts & David J. Storey, 2016. "Predicting new venture survival and growth: Does the fog lift?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 217-241, June.
    10. Kaiser, Ulrich & Kuhn, Johan M., 2020. "The value of publicly available, textual and non-textual information for startup performance prediction," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    11. Marc Brechot & Raphael Flepp, 2018. "Dealing with randomness in match outcomes: how to rethink performance evaluation and decision-making in European club football," Working Papers 374, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
    12. Viput Ongsakul & Anutchanat Jaroenjitrkam & Sirimon Treepongkaruna & Pornsit Jiraporn, 2022. "Does board gender diversity reduce ‘CEO luck’?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(1), pages 243-260, March.
    13. Ehsan Poursoleyman & Gholamreza Mansourfar & Mohammad Kabir Hassan & Saeid Homayoun, 2024. "Did Corporate Social Responsibility Vaccinate Corporations Against COVID-19?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 189(3), pages 525-551, January.
    14. Timothy J. Quigley & Adam J. Wowak & Craig Crossland, 2020. "Board Predictive Accuracy in Executive Selection Decisions: How Do Initial Board Perceptions of CEO Quality Correspond with Subsequent CEO Career Performance?," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(3), pages 720-741, May.
    15. Lv, David Diwei & Chen, Weihong & Zhu, Hang & Lan, Hailin, 2019. "How does inconsistent negative performance feedback affect the R&D investments of firms? A study of publicly listed firms," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 151-162.
    16. , Aisdl, 2020. "Becoming Attuned," OSF Preprints j7f8y, Center for Open Science.
    17. Jerker Denrell & Christina Fang & Chengwei Liu, 2015. "Perspective—Chance Explanations in the Management Sciences," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(3), pages 923-940, June.

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