Today’s workforce is increasingly made up of volunteers — at least in spirit if not in fact. How will the traditional management tasks of motivating and directing employees change in the face of that new reality? The authors answer this question by examining an example of an economic enterprise that acts in many ways like a voluntary organization: the open-source software movement.

Companies such as Lego, British Petroleum, Baxter, Virgin and Unilever are reversing the law of diminishing returns by redefining their businesses and then practicing a powerful kind of customer focus. The author reveals six vital components for successful strategy based on customer focus, urging managers to leave behind transactional, linear thinking for a focus on increasing returns.

As consumers become more savvy about the Internet, the authors contend that that they will insist on doing business with Web companies they trust. The describe how Web trust is built in a three-stage cumulative process, review current trust-building practices for the Web and propose the use of new, software-enabled advisors.

Grooming in-house candidates for leadership roles is critical for companies that want to stay competitive. Pooling their experience helping companies develop in-house talent, leadership experts Robert M. Fulmer, Philip A. Gibbs and Marshall Goldsmith provide insights about today’s best leadership-development practices. They base their observations on a recent study that benchmarked six best-practice companies.

As adapting to globalization becomes increasingly necessary, business customers are pressuring suppliers to accept global-pricing contracts. By exploring why customers want GPCs, under what circumstances the contracts are likely to profit suppliers, and how to successfully implement contracts, the authors identify preparation as the key to success.

How can a company continually generate new knowledge and pump it throughout its network? Success, say the authors, depends less on its IT infrastructure than on the social system in which its people operate. Focusing on Nucor Corp.’s success in the 1980s and 1990s, the authors explain how all companies can maximize knowledge sharing by setting stretch goals, providing incentives, cultivating empowerment, and encouraging experimentation.

In an unprecedented study, the authors found that U.S. suppliers to the automotive industry performed at much higher levels when supplying Japanese automakers in North America than when supplying the Big Three U.S. automakers. Why? The Japanese companies worked with the suppliers in a give-and-take partnership, leveling their own production schedules to avoid big spikes in demand, creating a disciplined system of delivery “time windows,” and developing lean transportation systems to handle mixed-load, small-lot, just-in time deliveries.