Drucker Institute

The 2023 Data Sources for the Drucker Institute’s Company Rankings

The Drucker Institute’s holistic company ranking is based on the principles of our founder, Peter F. Drucker, using data from the following providers, combined using this methodology.

Data Source What’s Measured How It’s Measured
Customer Satisfaction
 American Customer Satisfaction Index Customer satisfaction for household products and services available to U.S. consumers. >Surveys customers of companies randomly via email.
>Respondents are asked questions about their purchase and use of specific products and services bought within specified, recent time periods.
>Proprietary formula applied.
CSRHub: Product Rating* The integrity of a company’s products and sales practices, including its labeling and marketing, social impacts and end-of-life disposition. Combines data from four socially responsible investment analysis (ESG) firms and hundreds of nongovernmental organizations, government agencies, news feeds, social networking groups and publishers.
J.D. Power: Net Promoter Score The willingness of a customer to recommend a company’s products or services to others, which is seen as a proxy for gauging the customer’s overall satisfaction. Customers are asked about their experience based on one key loyalty question: How likely is it that you would recommend [Company X or Brand X] to a friend or colleague?
J.D. Power: Customer Satisfaction Index How satisfied a customer is with a company or one of its brands. Determines the individual attributes that contribute to customer satisfaction (such as convenience, clarity of product information provided, etc.) and then computes “predicted overall satisfaction” based on a weighted sum of the attributes.
wRatings: Quality Score How well a company meets customer expectations. Analyzes the gap between expected quality and perceived quality through surveys of customer and executive panels.
Employee Engagement and Development
 Burning Glass Institute, Harvard Business School and Schultz Family Foundation: American Opportunity Index >Hiring: How open are firms to candidates without Bachelor’s degree or with little prior experience?

>Promotion: Are workers moving up within the firm, and do they move to better jobs when they leave?

>Pay: How well do workers get paid, and how much do workers’ wages rise over time?

>Fairness: Do Black and Hispanic workers move up at the same rate as everyone else? And do women move up at the same rate as men?

>Culture: Do workers stay? Are managers and executives drawn from within?

 >Tracks the experience of more than 4.72 million U.S. workers at 396 firms in roles open to candidates without a college degree.

>Aggregates 12 metrics across five categories of measurement (with four of the categories—Promotion, Pay, Fairness and Culture—included in the Drucker Institute’s model).

>For each metric, a score is calculated for each occupation-company pair, such as the retention rate for customer service representatives for each company in the index.

>These scores are then converted to quintiles, allowing for the direct comparison of equivalent or closely-related roles across various companies, ensuring a standardized benchmark.
CSRHub: Comp & Benefits Rating >A company’s capacity to increase its workforce loyalty and productivity through rewarding, fair and equal compensation and financial benefits.
>Includes benefits that engage employees and improve worker development
>Also focuses on long-term employment growth and stability by promotion practices, lay-off practices and relations with retired employees.		 Combines data from nine socially responsible investment analysis (ESG) firms, hundreds of nongovernmental organizations, government agencies, news feeds, social networking groups and publishers.
Glassdoor: Culture & Values Rating, Career Opportunities Rating, Compensation & Benefits Rating How well the organization’s employee-related practices align with several key Drucker principles. >Information is submitted by employees of the company.
>Minimum n=100
Glassdoor engagement metrics: Overall Rating, Recommend Rating Employee engagement with the organization. See above
Glassdoor confidence metrics: CEO Rating, Positive Business Outlook Rating Confidence in the organization and its leadership. See above
Indeed: Work Wellbeing >My work has a clear sense of purpose.

>I am achieving most of my goals at work.

>I often learn something at work.

>I am paid fairly for my work.

 Employees respond to 15 statements about a company and give a rating from 1 “strongly disagree” to 5 “strongly agree” (with results for four of the statements included in the Drucker Institute’s model).
Innovation
 Lightcast: Cutting-edge Job Postings (Relative)* Hiring in 14 cutting-edge fields: 3-D printing, applied AI, augmented and virtual reality, autonomous vehicles, blockchain, cloud computing, data privacy and protection, drone technology, fintech, generative AI, green jobs, Internet of Things, mobile payments and robotics. Calculates a ratio taking a company’s number of cutting-edge online job postings divided by its total postings and compares that to the mean for its industry (with industries defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard).
Lightcast: R&D Job Postings (Relative)* Hiring for research and development positions. Calculates a ratio taking a company’s number of R&D-related online job postings divided by its total postings and compares that to the mean for its industry (with industries defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard).
Clarivate: Number of Inventions (Relative) Publication of the first patent application. Divides a company’s number of patent applications by the average for its industry (with industries defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard).
Clarivate: Rate of Patent Abandonment (Relative) Rate at which patent applications are abandoned, giving a sense of whether a company follows Drucker’s principle of no longer investing in products and services that have become obsolete. Divides a company’s rate of abandonment by the average for its industry (with industries defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard).
Clarivate: Trademark Applications (Relative) Number of trademark applications filed annually. Divides a company’s number of applications by the average for its industry (with industries defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard).
Clarivate: Trademark Registers (Relative) Annual count of different registers where trademarks have been filed, indicating new distribution channels. Divides a company’s number of registers by the average for its industry (with industries defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard).
Clarivate: R&D Expenditures (Relative) Research and development expenditures. Divides a company’s R&D expenditures by the average for its industry (with industries defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard).
“Most Innovative” company listings Innovation and technological accomplishment in products and processes. As named by the American Innovation Index, Boston Consulting Group and Fast Company.
Professor Dimitris Papanikolaou of Northwestern University and Professor Amit Seru of Stanford University: Patent Value (Relative) Innovativeness of firms based on the market’s immediate valuation of their patents granted over the previous year. >Through a process developed by the professors and their colleagues, stock market reaction to announcements of approved patent applications is isolated from other news.
>Scores are divided by the average for a company’s industry (with industries defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard).
Supply Chain Resource Cooperative: Innovation Rating Metrics related to spend management, category management, strategic sourcing and supplier relationship management. Through a process developed by North Carolina State University professor Robert Handfield, a review is conducted of publicly available information, as well as interviews and surveys of corporate procurement specialists.
wRatings Innovation Index Customer perceptions of companies’ performance in innovation. >A composite of seven attributes as derived from customer feedback: usefulness, quality, simplicity, coolness, uniqueness, variety and competence.
>The formula was developed by wRatings and Strategos, a strategy and innovation consulting firm.
Social Responsibility
 CSRHub: Overall ESG Score (Absolute) 12 indicators of employee, environment, community and corporate governance performance. Combines data from four socially responsible investment analysis (ESG) firms and hundreds of nongovernmental organizations, government agencies, news feeds, social networking groups and publishers.
CSRHub: Overall ESG Score (Relative) See above Percentage rank of firm’s overall score relative to industry peers (with industries defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard).
HIP Investor: Overall ESG Rating A company’s impact in five areas: health, wealth, earth, equality and trust. Analyzes public disclosures to rate and rank companies for future risk, return potential and net impact on society.
HIP Investor: SDG Rating How well a company’s practices align with the Sustainable
Development Goals established by the United Nations.		 Analyzes 62 indicators across the 17 SDGs.
“Shared Value” metric Whether a company has put a social purpose at the core of its business strategy. Averages standardized scores from two sources: HIP Investor’s Vision Rating and a formula developed for the Drucker Institute by Alice Korngold, which examines certain governance and transparency practices that are seen as indicators of a “shared value” orientation.
Supply Chain Resource Cooperative: Social Responsibility Rating Supply-chain policies, practices and results, including audits and lawsuits, with respect to human relations and the environment. Through a process developed by North Carolina State University professor Robert Handfield, a review is conducted of publicly available information, as well as interviews and surveys of corporate procurement specialists.
Sustainalytics: Management Score (Absolute) Material ESG risk that can be influenced and managed through suitable policies, programs and initiatives. Assessment of how successfully a company manages its most material ESG risks based on evaluations of its policies, programs, management systems and performance as determined through public filings, disclosures and news reports.
Sustainalytics: Management Score (Relative)* See above Divides a company’s Management Score by the average of its industry (with industries defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard).
Financial Strength
 ISS EVA: Economic Profit metric >Economic Value Added.
>EVA Spread.
>EVA Margin.
>EVA Momentum by Capital.
>EVA Momentum by Sales.		 >A company’s sales, less all operating costs, including taxes and depreciation, less a full weighted-average cost-of-capital interest charge on the net assets used in business operations.
>A company’s return on invested capital minus its weighted average cost of capital.
>Calculates for every dollar of sales, the economic profit generated for the company.
>Change in EVA for one year and three years divided by the last year of invested capital.
>Change in EVA for one year and three years divided by the last year of sales.
Refinitiv Eikon: Accounting Profit metric >Operating return on invested capital.
>Return on assets.
>Return on common equity.
>Earnings for common shareholders.		 >Percentage return that a company makes over its invested capital.
>Calculated by dividing a company’s annual earnings by its total assets.
>Calculated by dividing net income by shareholders’ equity.
>Net income minus cost of preferred dividends.
Refinitiv Eikon: Share of Market The percentage of an industry or market’s total sales that is attributable to the particular company over a specified time period. Calculated by taking the company’s sales over the period and dividing by the total sales of the industry over the same period (with industries defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard).
Refinitiv Eikon: Three-Year Average Total Shareholder Return Combines share price appreciation and dividends paid to show the total return to the shareholder. Expressed as an annualized percentage.

* Refined in 2020