The Content in this website is backed by what we think is a unique aspect and asset that has proven very valuable to us over the last 30 years:
Our “Secret Sauce” allows our content to have academic validity and practical usefulness at the same time.
I know this is a little long, but hopefully worth your time to read and ponder.
Underpinning the Knowledge Taxonomy is a statistical analysis first done for my doctoral dissertation Environment, Strategy and Performance in Two Service Industries, in 1982 and updated continuously since then:
25 “Factors” form 8 themes that nest 267 strategy, operations, innovation, people and financial variables that explain increases in firm valuation in the established for-profit firm. These appear to be most of the factors and themes that drive increases in valuation for the Major New Venture Startup as well.
14 of the Factors and 4 of the Themes are the very usual technical, financial, risk management, acquisitions and control/governance in nature.
The other 11 Factors and the other 4 Themes are very soft in nature. And an unusual, at the time, insight I had in 1984 when I replicated my dissertation in the Texas banking industry was that these soft Factors and Themes formed the “foundation” for strategic management and sustainable wealth creation. Very Balanced Scorecard like.
All 25 Factors emerged through a statistical technique called Factor Analysis. This statistical technique groups similar variables that relate to each other into a unifying concept. Our Secret Sauce thus provides 25 factors and 8 Themes that reside in 267 strategy, operations, innovation, people and financial variables that explain increases or decreases in firm valuation. Each factor has from 8 to 12 separate variables nested within them*.