The very fact that business research has departmentalized into the various functional areas
may be one reason. Business practitioners have always emphasized the need for general
management as a topic for both research and education, a topic which could integrate the
various functional areas in such a way that a basis for the broader policy decisions is formed.
Academia has responded to this demand by establishing courses and research in business
policy and later strategy formation. This stream of research now forms the background for
concepts like key success factors, which is not supposed to replace a more detailed evaluation
of function-specific contributions to success, but rather to direct attention to some of the broader issues around the determinants of business success.