NECESSARY NATURE OF FUTURE FIR

1. Auflage 2004
ISBN: 978-0-7619-3035-8
Verlag: SAGE PUBN

Buch, Englisch, 328 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 539 g

Click 'Additional Materials' for downloadable sample chapter

"George Huber makes an important contribution with profound insights on what the future firm will look like. It will be congruent with its environment. To realize opportunities from continuing advances in science and technology and environmental complexity, the successful firm in the future will be especially good at gaining environmental intelligence, learning and integrating knowledge, and being innovative and flexible. This is not a fanciful prophesy; it is a necessary logical conclusion that Huber draws from an extensive body of scientific knowledge."

--Andrew H. Van de Ven, University of Minnesota, Past President of the Academy of
Management, and coauthor of Organizational Change and Innovation Processes

"Huber gives a compelling account of the future landscape that many managers have to face today. Filled with solid academic research laced with real-world examples, Huber not only conveys the shape of that landscape, but also the roadmap to navigate it."

--Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, Stanford University and coauthor of Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos

"This is an important book for any manager who faces a rapidly changing and increasingly competitive environment--which is to say, virtually every manager. Huber makes a cogent case for the fact that businesses will face much more dynamic and competitive environments in the future than they face today. More importantly, he offers practical advice for how managers can prepare for the uncertain future they face. Clearly written and carefully grounded in the best research evidence available, this book stands head and shoulders above the many management books offering short-term fads, fashions, and therapies of the moment."

--Richard T. Mowday, University of Oregon, former President of the Academy of Management, and former Editor of the Academy of Management Journal

Click 'Reviews' to read more pre-publication praise for The Necessary Nature of Future Firms

Survival depends on the ability to read imminent shifts in the environment and respond accordingly. This holds true for any living system, but it is especially true for firms today.

The business environment is now changing rapidly, but will change even more rapidly in the future. Only firms that can respond to these changes will survive. It is important to know, then, how business's future landscape will look. George Huber's new book, The Necessary Nature of Future Firms, describes this landscape clearly and credibly and makes explicit the organizational attributes and management practices firms must possess to be among the ranks of the "future firms."

Advances in science and technology will continue to affect business environments, making them more complex, dynamic and competitive. Moreover, this complexity and dynamism will increase at increasing rates. As the book makes clear, successful firms will cope with or exploit these changes by increasing their capabilities for correctly interpreting threats and opportunities, making decisions, acquiring and managing knowledge, innovating, and changing while simultaneously dealing with the needs for efficiency, flexibility, and employee commitment.

The Necessary Nature of Future Firms is written for managers, especially those managing change. Professionals in a wide variety of organizational roles will find it a particularly useful reference for its foresight and as an invaluable tool in winning approval for projects and initiatives. Academics in change management, information systems, organizational science, strategy, and human resources management can draw on the book as a supplementary text or as a source for lecture materials.

References housed in endnotes rather than in the text contribute to the book's readability and ease of use, as does the accessible writing style. But for all its accessibility and reader friendliness, The Necessary Nature of Future Firms is still firmly grounded in scholarship. Hundreds of authoritative works and systematic studies specifically inform this book, as do Huber's own studies and his interviews with over 100 middle- and upper-level managers about changes in their organizations. To add meaning and interest, the book's insights and conclusions are elaborated with real world examples.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Huber, George P.

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Management Unternehmensführung
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften: Allgemeines
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Betriebswirtschaft: Theorie & Allgemeines

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Chapter 1 Dangerous Deficiencies
WHAT IS HAPPENING? WHAT IS NOT?
THE ROLE OF TOP MANAGEMENT
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Chapter 2 The Future Environments of Business Organizations
SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND IMPROVED TECHNOLOGY
Scientific Knowledge
Improved Technologies
Mental Blocks to Imagining a Different World on the Same Planet
Interim Summary and Transition
THE COMPLEXITY OF FUTURE ENVIRONMENTS
Environmental Variety
Environmental Density and Interdependence
Interim Summary and Transition
ENVIRONMENTAL DYNAMISM AND COMPETITIVENESS
Velocity, Turbulence, and Instability
Environmental Competitiveness
Chapter 3 Sensing and Interpreting the Environment
FACIT AB
IMPORTANCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL SENSING AND INTERPRETATION
Consequences and Importance of Interpretation
ENVIRONMENTAL SENSING IN FUTURE FIRMS
Intelligence Gathering
Intelligence Gathering As a Staff Function? As an Outsourced Function?
Intelligence Gathering As Specialized Accountability
Intelligence Gathering As Eclectic Responsibility
Supporting Sensors
Probing the Environment
Sensing Early Responses to the Firm's Actions and Products
Top Managers As Environmental Sensors
INTERPRETING WHAT IS SENSED
Declines in Quality and Timeliness of Organizational Interpretations
Enhancing Interpretation in Future Firms
Faulty Interpretations
Chapter 4 Organizational Decision Making
DECISIONS AND DECISION MAKING RESOURCE IN FUTURE FIRMS
Increasing Environmental Dynamism and Its Consequences
Increasing Environmental Complexity and Its Consequences
Increasing Competitiveness and Its Consequences
Decision Maker Capabilities: Past, Present, Future
DECISION MAKING PRACTICES IN FUTURE FIRMS
Ensuring Scope
Ensuring Speed
Effects of Forthcoming Information Technologies on Decision Speed and Scope
IT Investments Focused on Analysis
IT Investments Focused on Communication
TEMPTING PRACTICES
Intuitive Decision Making
Satisfying and Analogizing
Firms' Responses to Personal Propensities to Use Short-cut Methods
Chapter 5 Knowledge Acquisition: Organizational Learning
LEARNING, KNOWLEDGE, AND INNOVATION
ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING: A PRACTICE WHOSE TIME HAS COME
LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE
Highly Effective Learning Experiences: Designed Experiments
Highly Effective Learning Experiences: Natural Experiments
Highly Effective Learning Experiences: Learning from Action Probes and Operations
Highly Effective Learning Experiences: Learning by Observing Samples of One or Fewer
LEARNING FROM OTHERS - VICARIOUS LEARNING
Absorptive Capacity
Importing Knowledge in the Form of Expertise
Enhancing Organizational Learning by Enhancing Individual Learning
INTRODUCING LEARNING PRACTICES
Chapter 6 Leveraging Learning through Knowledge Management
SEMATECH
THE FOUR REPOSITORIES OF ORGANIZATIONAL KNOWLEDGE
THE NEED TO MANAGE KNOWLEDGE
DIRECT, INFORMAL KNOWLEDGE SHARING
An Example of How Motivation Can Negatively Affect Direct, Informal Knowledge Sharing
Organizational Culture: An Achievable Solution to the Problem of Motivation?
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
Motivational Issues in Knowledge Management Systems
Managing Motivation in Knowledge Management Systems
Situational Influences Favoring the Use of Extrinsic Motivators
Long-lived traditions and cultures
Increased use of teams, and of incentives for team performance
Lower levels of organizational and group identification
Person-to-Person Knowledge Sharing from a Distance
PLANNED KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER ACROSS TEAMS
Capturing and Transferring Team Learning
Obstacles to Intra-Organizational Knowledge Transfer, and Solutions
Chapter 7 Innovation: The Integration and Exploitation of Knowledge
OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALIZATION
WITHIN-FIRM APPROACHES TO INTEGRATING KNOWLEDGE: A BRIEF RECOUNTING OF CURRENT STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES
Interim Summary and Transition
KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION STRUCTURES IN FUTURE FIRMS
CHANGES IN INTRA-FIRM STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES
Dividing and Coordinating the Work
Coordination Processes
INTER-FIRM STRUCTURES
Knowledge Transfer Between Levels and Across Firms: A Brief Update on Current Practice
CHANGES IN EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES
Changes in Staffing Practices
Finding Expertise
CHANGES IN EXPERTS' EMPLOYMENT STRATEGIES
Factors Curtailing the Growth in Independent Contracting
Chapter 8 Dealing with the Simultaneous Needs for Change, Productivity, Flexibility and Employee Commitment
MORE-THAN-OCCASIONAL CONFLICTS
Change-Productivity Conflict
Change-Commitment Conflict
Change-Flexibility Conflict
Productivity-Commitment Conflict
Flexibility-Productivity Conflict and Flexibility-Commitment Conflict
DOWNSIZING
Downsizing in the Future
Forces Inhibiting Downsizing
Loss of Organizational Knowledge
Lower Productivity of Retained Employees
Decreased Effectiveness of Inter-firm Relations
Increases in Unwanted Turnover
USE OF TEMPORARY AND CONTRACT WORKERS
Forces Inhibiting Use of Temporary Workers
CHANGE AND CULTURE
Environmental Effects on Future Firms' Cultures
Environmental Effects on Management's Culture-managing Actions and Success
Unintended Adverse Effects on the Firm's Culture
How Cultures Affect the Ability of the Firm to Change
CULTURE AND COMPENSATION
Organizational Culture
Changes in the Conditions Favoring Direct Supervision
Changes in Conditions Favoring Pay for Performance
Changes in Conditions Favoring Pay for Performance for Teams
Changes in Conditions Favoring Use of Organizational Culture
Epilogue

Über Autor(innen)

Huber, George P.
George P. Huber teaches "Organizational Change and Redesign" in the Executive MBA program and "Organizational Decision Making" in the doctoral program at The University of Texas at Austin, where holds the Charles and Elizabeth Prothro Regents Chair in Business Administration. His current research focuses on organizational change, organizational design, and organizational decision making. He has also conducted and published research in the areas of information technology and individual and group decision making. Dr. Huber is a Fellow of the Academy of Management and of the Decision Sciences Institute and is a charter member of the Academy of Management Journals Hall of Fame.

In 1993, his co-edited book, Organizational Change and Redesign: Ideas and Insights for Improving Performance, was published by Oxford University Press, and in 1995 his co-edited book, Longitudinal Field Research Methods: Studying Processes of Organizational Change, was published by Sage Publications.

Dr. Huber has held full time positions with the Emerson Electric Manufacturing Company, the Procter and Gamble Manufacturing Company, the U.S. Department of Labor, Execucom Systems Corporation, and has served as a consultant to many corporations and public agencies. Professor Huber has held full time faculty appointments at the Universities of Wisconsin, California, and Texas.