Dive Brief:
- The Wall Street Journal teamed up with the Claremont Graduate University's Drucker Institute to develop a list of the 250 "most effectively managed" publicly traded companies. Each one was assessed on customer satisfaction, employee engagement and development, innovation, social responsibility, and financial strength.
- Waste Management ranked 189 with an effectiveness score of 54.4, based on a T-score methodology in which 50 is the mean value. Top-ranked Amazon received an 89. Among the categories, Waste Management's customer satisfaction and financial strength received the highest scores.
- On the broader list of 693 companies ranked by the Drucker Institute, Republic Services came in at 303, Waste Connections was 430 and Stericycle was 677.
Dive Insight:
Peter Drucker, a late Austrian-American consultant, is often hailed as one of the forefathers of modern business management. Quantifying how companies are living by his ideals was a complex process, including 37 data sources. Based on this system, the top-ranked companies were Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Johnson & Johnson and IBM. With the exception of Apple, none of this year's lead Fortune 500 companies were at the top of the Drucker list.
Based on the methodology, this doesn't necessarily mean each company received a superior ranking across the board. For example, Waste Management ranked better than Amazon on social responsibility. However, lower-ranked Republic and Waste Connections both outperformed Waste Management in the area of employee engagement and development.
This is the latest recognition for industry companies from sources such as Glassdoor, the Human Rights Campaign, Ethisphere, Dow Jones Sustainability Index and many others. Their inclusion on this first-time Drucker list, which takes into account such a broad range of factors, is yet another sign of the industry's ongoing adaptation. As the industry continues to grow in coming years, it will only become more important for top companies to keep up with modern corporate values.
