Still Searching for Excellence: Using Past Performance to Predict Future Success

摘要

This paper examines the 17 most closely scrutinized firms identified as excellentby Peters and Waterman in their book, In Search of Excellence. This research first justifies using stock market quotations as an alternative for measuring performance. It then compares the firms' stock market performance for the past 10 years with the behavior of a number of stock market indexes. From the comparisons, annual performance measures are assigned: poor, neutral, and excellent. A series of tables are used to display comparison data. Summary data shows firms performed consistently throughout the evaluation period with only one firm, Marriott, meeting the excellent criteria. Results indicate past performance cannot be used to predict future excellence.