The Productive Edge A New Strategy for Economic Growth

by Lester, Richard K.

• ISBN13: 9780393320381
• ISBN10: 0393320383
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-07-17
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

Recently, significant new productivity gains have been reported in important industries, both old and new. What is it about such industries, and individual firms in those industries, that has enabled them to regain their productive edge? In this book, a leading authority on this crucial issue searches five recent success stories--in automobiles, steel, semiconductors, electric power generation, and cellular communication--for clues to shape a new national strategy for economic growth. Taken together, these reports from the front lines of American industry point to a new agenda for growth, tailored to the volatile, unpredictable conditions that will persist in the economy for the foreseeable future. At the heart of the agenda is a proposal for a "new economic citizenship"--a new view of the rights, responsibilities, and resources that should be accorded to those who will contribute their ideas and labor to the new century.

Author Biography

Richard K. Lester is director of the Industrial Performance Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	9	(2)
Preface	11	(8)
Part I Introduction
Introduction	19	(12)
American Industrial Performance: A Top-Down View	31	(24)
Part II Five Routes to Renewal
Something Borrowed, Something New: The Regeneration of the US Automobile Industry	55	(30)
Salvation from Outside: The Triumph of Electric Steel	85	(23)
Doom, Gloom, and Boom: The Comeback of the American Semiconductor Industry	108	(36)
The Deregulation Solution: Competition Comes to the Power Industry	144	(20)
Creating New Industries: Systems Competition and the Emerging Age of Wireless	164	(29)
Part III Best Practice Revisited
Three Forces of Industrial Change: Innovation, Globalization, and Deregulation	193	(8)
Fads and Fashions and Nuts and Bolts	201	(12)
Putting People First	213	(15)
Information Technology: Doing IT Right	228	(16)
Best Practice Revisited	244	(17)
Part IV Living with Ambiguity: A Path to Faster Growth
Investment, Growth, and Uncertainty	261	(8)
Redefining the Employment Relation	269	(15)
Investing in Science and Technology	284	(24)
The Creative Organization	308	(12)
Toward a New Economic Citizenship	320	(21)
Appendices
I. Measuring Productivity Growth	329	(4)
II. A Brief Guide to Wireless Services	333	(4)
III. ``Best Practice'': Lessons from Made in America's Leading Companies	337	(4)
Notes	341	(18)
Index	359