Re-Creating the Corporation A Design of Organizations for the 21st Century

by Ackoff, Russell L.

• ISBN13: 9780195123876
• ISBN10: 0195123875
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-07-29
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Over the last three decades the average life expectancy of a corporation in North America has dipped well below 20 years. In fact, by 1983 a full third of the 1970 Fortune 500 companies had been acquired, merged, or broken apart. In this landmark book, one of the business world's foremostpioneers, Russell L. Ackoff, delivers this indispensable guide for those hoping to beat these odds--and to better navigate the corporate challenges of the next millennium. While most business and management schools continue to teach the functions of a corporation separately--production, marketing, finance, personnel--the reality is that for a corporation to endure each division must work with the others to create an effective system. Re-Creating the Corporationis Ackoff's masterful blueprint for understanding and creating these model corporate systems. In four comprehensive sections--Background, Process, Designs, and Change--Ackoff lays out in clear concise prose the five organizational goals of successful corporate systems: plan effectively, learn andadapt rapidly, democratize, introduce internal market economies, and employ a flexible structure that will minimize the need for future restructuring. And through a deft mix of practical and theoretical examples drawn from a wide range of applications in a wide range of firms, this book ultimatelyguides executives to the system best suited to meet their organizational goals. Re-Creating the Corporation, which is the culmination of a lifetime of innovative and insightful business thought from one of the business world's premier thinkers, is essential reading for those attempting to navigate the rapidly changing economic environment of the next millennium.

Author Biography

Russell L. Ackoff is currently Chairman of Interact, an institute dedicated to education, consulting, and research, and Professor Emeritus of the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Considered one of the most innovative and insightful management thinkers of the 20th century, he is also the author of the acclaimed The Democratic Corporation: A Radical Prescription for Recreating Corporate America and Rediscovering Success, published by Oxford University Press in 1994.

Table of Contents

Preface
Background
The Nature of Systems	p. 3
Types of Systems and Models	p. 21
Types of Management	p. 45
Process: Planning, Design, Implementation, and Learning
Formulating the Mess: Sensing and Making Sense of the Situation	p. 63
Ends Planning: Where to Go	p. 81
Means Planning: How to Get There	p. 107
Resource Planning: What's Needed to Get There	p. 131
Implementation and Control: Doing It and Learning	p. 157
Designs: Democracy, Economy, and Flexibility
A Democratic Hierarchy: The Circular Organization	p. 179
The Internal Market Economy	p. 207
The Permanently Structured Multidimensional Organization	p. 225
Change: Reformations and Transformations
Panaceas, Fads, and Quick Fixes	p. 251
Organizational Development and Transformational Leadership	p. 273
App. A: A Short Bibliography on Systems	p. 293
An Application of Interactive Planning	p. 295
References and Sources	p. 317
Index	p. 323
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.