Research Methodology

More than two decades ago, German management professor Hermann Simon coined the term “hidden champions” to describe the outstanding enterprises in his home country as he examined their role in Germany’s economic development and innovation progress (1996). He developed his idea further and extended this research to global companies (2009). In 2011, CEEMAN and IEDC-Bled School of Management, Postgraduate Studies launched an elaborate project: 18 research teams worked with over 165 companies across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Turkey to study the hidden champions of their respective countries. Published in 2013 and based on Simon’s methodology, the book Hidden Champions in CEE and Turkey: Carving out a Global Niche, edited by Peter McKiernan and Danica Purg, sought to uncover examples of hidden champions, but also to compare the new findings with Simon’s (Purg et al. 2019). An additional aim was to identify what support hidden champions needed in Central and Eastern Europe and in Turkey, as the business environment and historical background in which they were striving to succeed were (and still are) quite different from those of more mature market economies.