The New St. Gallen Management Model
Book

The New St. Gallen Management Model

Basic Categories of an Integrated Management

Johannes Rüegg-Stürm
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005
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Editorial Rating

6

Qualities

  • Analytical
  • Innovative
  • Well Structured

Recommendation

Toward the end of this book, author Johannes Rüegg-Stürm reveals that the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland was once the site of a monastery. So perhaps it makes sense to wonder if a mood of monastic isolation explains the downside of the St. Gallen Management Model, which is that it sometimes seems cloistered safely away from the quotidian din of the business skirmishes outside its walls. Nevertheless, this well-written theoretical work presents a useful system of analyzing corporate structures, and Rüegg-Stürm illustrates his ideas with excellent and colorful charts. getAbstract.com believes that intellectually curious and imaginative CEOs may find concepts here that are relevant to their businesses, although since the book is highly theoretical, it may appeal primarily to those with a hearty appetite for the academic view.

Summary

Modeling Fundamentals

The most useful models of corporations are closely related to maps. Maps contain "signatures," that is, symbols that represent certain characteristics of a given terrain. The signatures help you "reconstruct" the terrain to accomplish certain tasks, such as finding your way from one point to the next. A map’s usefulness depends on how well its signatures enable you to reach your goal.

Before you can create a map or a model of a corporation, you must determine the model’s purpose. Models can help organizations:

  • Determine what concerns are or are not relevant to managerial tasks. The model should show which signatures, or elements, really matter.
  • Demonstrate cause-and-effect relationships between important factors.
  • Direct and focus communication by clarifying what its content should be.
  • Improve company responses by providing common terms for discourse.

For example, the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), evaluates nine elements to assess organizational performance:

  1. Leadership.
  2. People.
  3. Policy and strategy.
  4. Partnerships...

About the Author

As professor of organizational behavior and director of the Institute of Management at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, Johannes Rüegg-Stürm researches strategic change, organizational communication, leadership and systematic methods of management.

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