EXAMINING A MANAGERIAL CURIOSITY: THE ENDURING UTILITY OF THE C-ZONE

摘要

In the early 1980's, consultants and authors Robert and Marilyn Kriegel introduced a concept popularly referred to as "The C-Zone". The concept of the C-Zone is an extension of the well known Goldsmith Theory (popularly known as Type A and B personality theory). Although widely attributed to the field of psychology, Goldsmith Theory actually originated in the medical community as a risk factor for coronary disease. The medical community ultimately found Goldsmith theory to be flawed as a medical predictive measure. Similarly, management, psychology, and related fields generally turned instead to trait based personality theories, which offer increased flexibility to characterize human behavior. However, Goldsmith Theory did achieve popular use in society and remains a well known part of the general lexicon. The C-Zone concept presents management academicians and practitioners with a managerial curiosity. Despite the fact that the foundation for the C-Zone construct, Goldsmith Theory, is largely discredited as a reliable personality type construct and the author declines to present evidence beyond anecdotal data supporting the concept, the C-Zone holds sufficient intuitive appeal that it retains popular usage amongst pockets of management practitioners in the aerospace industry more than twenty-five years later. The purpose of this paper is three-fold: 1) introduce the C-Zone concept and supporting theories, 2) frame the C-Zone within engineering management theory by examining the relationship of the C-Zone with related concepts stemming from Goal Theory 3) discuss the strengths, weaknesses, and applications of C-Zone as a theoretical concept.