AMZN Amazon.com Inc

The inaugural Management Top 250 delivered a clear message: Among big companies, the tech giants are the best managed.

The top three spots in the ranking, first published in December, went to Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google. Tech companies took seven of the top 10 spots.

The Management Top 250 is a landmark ranking that uses the ideals and teachings of the late business guru Peter Drucker to analyze and compare the performance of major U.S. companies. Mr. Drucker influenced generations of business leaders with his writings, including a regular column in The Wall Street Journal.

The Management Top 250 ranking, compiled by the Drucker Institute, examines how well a business does in five areas that reflect Mr. Drucker's core principles: customer satisfaction, employee engagement and development, innovation, social responsibility, and financial strength.

All of the top seven tech companies scored in the highest tier in at least two of the five categories, and all seven did so in innovation, which is calculated based on inputs such as research-and-development spending and statistics on patents.

Amazon was powered to the top of the ranking by its innovation score, but among the top tech companies, its scores in the five categories were among the most uneven. Its score for social responsibility fell in the bottom 20% or so of the entire universe of companies examined.

Technology companies' strong performance in 2017 wasn't an anomaly. At least six tech companies have been among the top 10 every year since 2012, according to Drucker Institute. Microsoft Corp., Apple and Amazon each ranked No. 1 twice during that stretch. (Although the list was published for the first time in 2017, Drucker has calculated scores for each year starting in 2012.)

See analysis of the 2017 Management Top 250 and explore the full list at wsj.com/managementtop250. See the full methodology at on.wsj.com/top-250-methodology.

-- Dave Pettit ( @pettitd)

Write to Dave Pettit at dave.pettit@wsj.com.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 31, 2018 11:15 ET (15:15 GMT)

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