Tom Peters tells us that good managers are doers. (Wall Street says they “do deals.”) Michael Porter suggests that they are thinkers. Not so, argue Abraham Zaleznik and Warren Bennis: good managers are really leaders. Yet, for the better part of this century, the classical writers — Henri Fayol and Lyndell Urwick, among others — [...]

We are witnessing an organic change in American corporate governance. The balance of power among owner, manager, and director is in the process of transformation. The once archetypal model of the CEO’s unchallengeable control of the board of directors and shareholders is fading. The future will definitely see a new paradigm of governance. What is [...]

Global competition is a general trend, and new types of organizations are emerging to service international markets.1 Companies are coordinating manufacturing, distribution, and marketing strategies on a global scale. Information systems are a key part of these globalization strategies because computer networks move large volumes of data across great distances almost instantaneously, thereby negating the [...]

In response to increasingly heated global competition, organizations today are undergoing massive transformations in the way they are structured, managed, and operated. In focusing their attention on their customers, many organizations are redesigning business processes to deliver products and services more effectively. The effective use of information technology to support these processes has, for most, [...]

How much does your organization know? The author defines technical knowledge and provides a framework for mapping and evaluating levels of knowledge. He shows why automation without adequate knowledge leads to disaster and how to manage knowledge in a world of continual organization learning.

Many academics and practicing managers believe that there are principles for organizing and managing firms that can form a general theory of organization. The quest for the organizational “holy grail” has a long and tortuous history punctuated by bold promises and great disappointments. As in the Wagnerian operatic dramas, stories and theories about how organizations [...]

In 1988, Sunkist received royalties worth $10.3 million by licensing its name for use on such diverse products as soda, candy, and vitamins.
Goodyear claims that their tires are the recommended component of Audi and Mercedes automobiles.
Konica advertising has emphasized that corporations such as US Air and Kemper Securities use Konica copiers.

What do these recent developments [...]

U.S. automobile manufacturers have begun to heed the wakeup call that sounded more than a decade ago when Japanese automakers cut deeply into American markets. As General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler began to take stock of what had happened, they were surprised to discover that they had much to learn from the Japanese, not only [...]