企業集團已死？管理大師都錯了
摘錄自：天下雜誌 經濟學人電子報 2013/1/17
2014-01-15 Web only 作者：經濟學人
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| 圖片來源：flickr.com/photos/dexxus/ |
管理學家數十年來一直都在預測企業集團之死，股市也為它們的股價加上了「集團折價」。不過，理論和實務的差距，已迫使管理大師重新思考此事。
哈佛商學院的加納（Tarun
Khanna）曾認為，新興世界的企業集團是短期現象，原因在於企業得補足缺乏發展的當地市場，一旦市場成熟，它們就得專注於核心業務。但現實似乎剛好相反，過去10年，新興世界的機構性缺口已快速填補，但企業集團的表現仍優於專注於少數業務的對手；新加坡和南韓雖然晉身已發展國家之林，但它們的企業集團依舊強盛。
印度班加羅爾管理學院的拉馬錢德蘭（J.
Ramachandran）認為，企業集團的存在除了反映出商業環境的不健全之外，它們其實擁有非集團企業所沒有的優勢：例如不同事業單位可以交換想法，同時還可以靠收入穩定的事業單位去支持高風險投資。
拉馬錢德蘭指出，新興世界的企業集團與典型的美國企業集團不同，它們的主要擁有者通常是一個人或一個家族。即使如此，它們的各個部門還是比典型的西方企業集團獨立；各集團的管理能力雖有所不同，但總體管理品質一直在提升。
從1960年代開始，富有世界的環境就對企業集團不利，只有最適者才能生存。關鍵在於適應力：奇異本周跨出持續變革的最新一步，收購了三間醫療公司。富有世界的企業集團在金融危機中的表現亦相對較佳，萊比錫管理研究所的魯道夫（Christin Rudolph）和施威茲勒（Bernhard Schwetzler）估算，西歐的企業集團折價在危機時從12.7％降至6％，美國則從10.8％降至7.2％。
但這並不代表每個企業集團都能飛上枝頭變鳳凰。部分集團極度倚賴經營者討好政治人物，因此一直處於政權轉移或市場改革的風險之中。許多集團仍舊犧牲利潤以換取市佔率，總有一天股東會失去耐心。
即使如此，修正企業集團理論仍舊相當有價值；修正者的看法並沒有錯，不是每個多元化集團都相似，管理亦極為重要。曾經，絕大多數管理學家認定，西式的專注型企業就是最終的企業模式，這個看法越來越站不住腳了。（黃維德譯）
©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2014
The Economist
Schumpeter
From dodo to
phoenix
By The Economist
From The Economist
Published: January 15, 2014
Jan 11th 2014 | From the print edition
Conglomerates, once seen as heading for extinction, are spreading their
wings.
ADAM SMITH once said that "there is a great deal of ruin in a
nation." There is also a great deal of ruin in some kinds of business
organisations. Management theorists have been predicting the death of
conglomerates for decades. Stockmarkets apply a "conglomerate
discount" to the price of their shares. Investors argue that it is better
to bet on several focused companies than a single diversified one. Business
writers routinely apply the adjectives "bloated" and
"unwieldy" when mentioning conglomerates. And yet, almost everywhere,
they continue to thrive.
The contrast between theory and practice is forcing management gurus to
reconsider. The academic literature is bristling with second thoughts on
conglomerates. Some articles are gung-ho: December's Harvard Business Review
explained "Why Conglomerates Thrive (Outside the US)". Some are
fence-sitting: September'sJournal of Corporate Finance asked,
"Conglomerates on the Rise Again?" The Journal of Financial Economics
and the Strategic Management Journal have also weighed in.
Conglomerates are at the heart of the Asian miracle: consultants at
McKinsey calculate that over the past decade conglomerates made up about 80% of
the largest 50 companies by revenue in South Korea; and their revenues grew on
average by 11% a year. In India conglomerates constituted 90% of the top 50
companies (excluding state firms), and had average revenue growth of 23% a
year. Tarun Khanna of Harvard Business School has argued that emerging-world
conglomerates are transient phenomena: they have thrived because businesses
need to compensate for the underdeveloped nature of the local market (or fill
in "institutional voids", as he puts it). They will have to focus as
those markets develop, he says. But the opposite seems to be happening. The past
decade has seen institutional voids being filled in rapidly across the emerging
world. But conglomerates have outperformed their more focused rivals. South
Korea and Singapore have joined the ranks of developed economies, yet their
conglomerates still thrive. Emerging-world conglomerates such as the Tata group
have also succeeded in the rich world.
J. Ramachandran of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore says
all this shows that conglomerates are not just a symptom of a difficult
business climate; they have advantages that more streamlined firms lack. They
can cross-pollinate ideas across different businesses: Tata's Swach, a cheap
water-purifier, incorporates expertise from both Tata Consulting Services and
Tata Chemicals. They can also cross-subsidise risky ventures: Mahindra Group,
another Indian giant, could rely on its solid tractor-making business as it
took a punt on time-share properties; now Mahindra Holidays & Resorts is
valued at more than $500m.
Mr Ramachandran says that, unlike the typical American conglomerate,
those in the emerging world often have one person or family as the dominant
owner. Despite this, their divisions have more independence than the typical
Western conglomerate's do: they often have separate boards and stockmarket
listings. These groups' parent companies vary enormously in their competence,
Mr Ramachandran notes. Some are "evangelical architects" that focus
on shaping the industries they enter. Others are "absentee landlords"
that just extract rent. That said, the overall quality is going up. Tata's
decision to create a group executive office in 1998 to explore synergies
between different businesses soon found imitators among other Indian
conglomerates.
The rich world's hostile climate for conglomerates since the 1960s has meant
that only the fittest survive. Adaptability is key: GE, the T. rex of the
clade, this week took the latest step in its continual reinvention by buying
three medical companies. Guided by Warren Buffett's management philosophy and
financed by its profits from insurance, Berkshire Hathaway, with its roots in
textiles, has moved into everything from railways to newspapers.
As in emerging economies, Western conglomerates enjoy advantages that
focused businesses lack: In "The Deep-Pocket Effect of Internal Capital
Markets", Xavier Boutin of the European Commission and his co-authors
demonstrate that diverse French business groups routinely use their deep
pockets to dissuade competitors from entering their markets or to force their
way into new markets themselves. Rich-world conglomerates did relatively well
in the financial crisis: Christin Rudolph and Bernhard Schwetzler of Leipzig
Graduate School of Management calculate that the conglomerate discount fell
during the crisis from 12.7% to 6% in western Europe and from 10.8% to 7.2% in
America. In the Asia-Pacific region conglomerates enjoy a stockmarket premium;
it rose in the crisis. A world of scarce capital and volatile economies is one
to which the conglomerate is well adapted.
Not all will fly
But this does not guarantee that every dodo will become a phoenix. Some
conglomerates, especially in places like South-East Asia, depend heavily on
their proprietors' courting of politicians, and are thus at constant risk from
regime change or pro-market reform. Many still sacrifice profits for market
share, and will surely one day exhaust shareholders' patience. A smaller
conglomerate discount is still a discount.
Even so, the revisionists of conglomerate theory are performing a
valuable public service. They are right to point out that not all diversified
business groups are alike: Tata has a very different internal organisation from
GE's, and both are run quite differently from Berkshire Hathaway. They are
right to point out that management matters enormously: most emerging-world
conglomerates are far better run today than they were a decade ago. There used
to be a near-consensus among management thinkers that Western-style focused
companies represented business's version of the end of history. That is becoming
ever harder to argue.
©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2014
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