This research tries to analyze the link between short term benefits for managers and an increasing short-term focus of businesses. Do western societies need to change their focus more on long term solutions?

Short term benefits for managers

In western societies short-term orientation dominates. Elections happen approx. every 4 years. During the period of 3 years politicians must present positive results to the public to ensure their (re-)election. Therefore, most programmed focus on short term impact, including support programmes for the economy. Many of our current global problems (environmental, economic dependencies, technological developments, etc.) cannot be solved in short term but require long term strategies. For the business world, product or business development regularly require long term planning and commitment. In a ever faster changing business environment the focus on short term reactive strategies seem to dominate.

Short term benefits for managers

This research tries to analyze the link between short term benefits for managers and an increasing short-term focus of businesses. Do western societies need to change their focus more on long term solutions? How can such a focus be achieved with the current extreme short-term system? Is the dominant western bonus system for managers supporting or even creating these problems? The research included 300 Companies: 100 Germany (30 small, 30 medium and 30 large sized companies) 100 UK (30 small, 30 medium and 30 large sized companies) 100 US (30 small, 30 medium and 30 large sized companies) 300 Managers of these companies were surveyed (questions in excel file) and an additional 10 managers from each country were interviewed.

Short term benefits for managers

The companies selected did not include businesses from the high-tech or bio-tech sector. The companies were randomly selected within their category (size). All the ethics requirements were fulfilled and approved by the ethics committee The analysis of the survey shows over all three countries and company sizes that: a) Very little long-term orientation exists b) The annual bonus system is the key reason why short-term goals are being prioritised There are differences in company sizes as well as countries. But the general tendencies are clear.

Short term benefits for managers

The interviews showed that most managers are aware that long term orientation is necessary but either their superiors/shareholders/supervisory board only rewards short term results or the managers themselves prefer short term goals for evaluations because transforming a long term strategy into multiple short term strategies and goals is difficult and the evaluation of an individual and their contribution seems impossible. The survey results should be further analyzed and presented in a manuscript.

Short term benefits for managers

The structure should be something like: Abstract (200 words) Introduction Methods/ethical consideration Contributions /limitations Literature review Presentation of research results (including 6-8 graphs) Discussion Conclusion/recommendation References Overall word count (without references) : 8000 Sources used: 30 Citations: HARVARD style Further information during the writing process will be needed and the writer should define which additional information is needed. https://youtu.be/evikflqArSU

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