In the United States, most of the last half century has been devoted to worrying about the Soviet Union. Democracy and capitalism faced off against dictatorship and communism. Suddenly, the threat disappeared. The Berlin Wall came down; East Germany and West Germany were united; democracy and capitalism arrived in the formerly communist countries of middle [...]

Empowering service workers has acquired almost a “born again” religious fervor. Tom Peters calls it “purposeful chaos.” Robert Waterman dubs it “directed autonomy.” It has also been called the “art of improvisation.”
Yet in the mid-1970s, the production-line approach to service was the darling child of service gurus. They advocated facing the customer with standardized, procedurally [...]

Do you consider distribution and inventory costs when you design products? Can you keep your customers informed of when their orders will arrive? Do you know what kind of inventory-control systems your dealers use? If not, you’ve succumbed to the pitfalls of inventory management. Lee and Billington describe fourteen pitfalls of supply-chain management and some corresponding opportunities.

What happens if an applicant for a job in your firm has a disability — is blind or infected with HIV or epileptic? Will you know how to treat that applicant without discrimination? The Americans with Disabilities Act ensures that candidates are assessed for jobs on the basis of their skills and abilities, not their disabilities. Accordingly, the authors provide advice for reevaluating employment practices and procedures.