Re-creating the Corporation: A Design of Organizations for the 21st CenturyOver 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 foremost pioneers, 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 Corporation is 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 and adapt 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 ultimately guides 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. |
Contents
The Nature of Systems | 3 |
Types of Systems and Models | 21 |
Types of Management | 45 |
Process Planning Design Implementation and Learning | 61 |
Formulating the Mess Sensing and Making Sense of the Situation | 63 |
Ends Planning Where to Go | 81 |
Means Planning How to Get There | 107 |
Resource Planning Whats Needed to Get There | 131 |
The Internal Market Economy | 209 |
The Permanently Structured Multidimensional Organization | 227 |
Change Reformations and Transformations | 251 |
Panaceas Fads and Quick Fixes | 253 |
Organizational Development and Transformational Leadership | 275 |
A Short Bibliography on Systems | 295 |
An Application of Interactive Planning | 297 |
References and Sources | 319 |
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Common terms and phrases
ability Ackoff ALCOA amount Anheuser-Busch asked automobile autopoiesis behavior capital capital punishment Chapter competition conflict consumers cooperation corporation cost create creative customers decision deterministic downsizing effect eliminate employees environment ethical evaluation example executive expectations external facilitate forecast formulated function future Halal idealized design identified implementation improve increase Input Units interac interactive planning internal market economy involved knowledge leader Learning and Adaptation Lotus Notes means planning ment mess Mexico City multidimensional organization network team operations organization's organizational organizational learning Output Units participate performance Peter Drucker plant possible problem process safety management product or service profit center reactive redesign reduced relevant responsibility result selected significantly social systems Specialty Chemicals stakeholders subordinates sumers Super Fresh suppliers systems thinking tacit knowledge thing tion understanding users usually whole