Hi Florian, this is very good and if you allow I will respond in detail to your “Specialisation” critique. There has been a discussion raging since about the 1950s (actually well before that in the field of general economics, but of your particular focus 1950 will do) on the benefits and evils of specialisation. The fields most often quoted as witnesses for the prosecution are medicine and academics for all the reasons you mention.
In business the “core competencw focus” or “diverisfied holding structure” debate goes in cycles. In the 50s & 60s conglomerates were the rage (think Teledyne, Ling Industries and Harold Geenan) only to see them crumble in the 1970s, re-emerge in the 1980s (think Daimler-Chrysler and itsGlobal Technology Holding strategy which ended in disaster). Currently conglomerates or diversified holdings are everywhere (PE companies are nothing but glorified conglomerates) and as usual for our fucked up time no odybcan quite seem to make up their mind conclusively about anything.
However imho there is a fundamental error being made around the subject of specialisation which my friend Kerstin Friedrich pointed out in her outstanding book “Spezialisierung” (only available in German unfortunately) which is that we tend to specialise in ways and on aspects that increase risk instead of mitigating them. I can elaboratebon this if you like, but it is a fascinating and very valuable issue you have highlighted. Nice work!
Hi Florian, this is very good and if you allow I will respond in detail to your “Specialisation” critique. There has been a discussion raging since about the 1950s (actually well before that in the field of general economics, but of your particular focus 1950 will do) on the benefits and evils of specialisation. The fields most often quoted as witnesses for the prosecution are medicine and academics for all the reasons you mention.
In business the “core competencw focus” or “diverisfied holding structure” debate goes in cycles. In the 50s & 60s conglomerates were the rage (think Teledyne, Ling Industries and Harold Geenan) only to see them crumble in the 1970s, re-emerge in the 1980s (think Daimler-Chrysler and itsGlobal Technology Holding strategy which ended in disaster). Currently conglomerates or diversified holdings are everywhere (PE companies are nothing but glorified conglomerates) and as usual for our fucked up time no odybcan quite seem to make up their mind conclusively about anything.
However imho there is a fundamental error being made around the subject of specialisation which my friend Kerstin Friedrich pointed out in her outstanding book “Spezialisierung” (only available in German unfortunately) which is that we tend to specialise in ways and on aspects that increase risk instead of mitigating them. I can elaboratebon this if you like, but it is a fascinating and very valuable issue you have highlighted. Nice work!