Articles

The author presents a framework for developing a company’s strategic vision.

Information technology was supposed to stimulate information flow and eliminate hierarchy. It has had just the opposite effect, argue the authors. As information has become the key organizational "currency," it has become too valuable for most managers to just give away. In order to make information-based organizations successful, companies need to harness the power of politics -- that is, allow people to negotiate the use and definition of information, just as we negotiate the exchange of other currencies. The authors describe five models of information politics and discuss how companies can move from less effective models, like feudalism and technocratic utopianism, and toward the more effective ones, like monarchy and federalism.

What is the next production frontier? The author argues that it is operating factories as learning "laboratories." These are complex organizational ecosystems that integrate problem solving, internal knowledge, innovation and experimentation, and external information. Chaparral Steel is the model example, and the experiences of its managers and employees are used throughout the article to show how the learning laboratory works.

Xerox received the Malcolm Baldridge Quality Award in 1989 for its manufacturing operations. A key element in its program was instituting a system of quality cost measures. The system helped managers determine the costs of activities such as inspecting products, making excessive engineering changes, doing rework, and repairing substandard equipment. But when it was time for the company's U.S. marketing division to join the quality bandwagon, managers had to come up with whole new definitions and measurements. This article explains how they adapted cost of quality concepts to a service business -- with dramatic results.

In 1982, Robert Benjamin published a forecast of the state of information technology in the year 1990. He wrote that the information systems environment was in a considerable state of "flux" and information systems managers could benefit from a prediction of the "endpoint scenario [in order to] focus major planning strategies." Ten years later, it's time to provide a new set of landmarks for another decade of flux. Benjamin and his coauthor, Jon Blunt, envision the information technology world of 2000. What can we expect? What should we not expect? And what can we not even begin to guess?

Line managers are increasingly assuming responsibility for planning, building, and running information systems that affect their operations. This is forcing organizations to evaluate how they allocate IT decision-making responsibilities. This paper describes a conceptual framework and an intervention process that can help firms devise and implement an effective IT management architecture. The authors illustrate their methods with real world examples.

Do you consider distribution and inventory costs when you design products? Can you keep your customers informed of when their orders will arrive? Do you know what kind of inventory-control systems your dealers use? If not, you've succumbed to the pitfalls of inventory management. You're not alone. Manufacturers have been concentrating on quality of incoming materials and outgoing products, but they haven't been paying as much attention to the costs associated with transporting and storing them. Lee and Billington describe fourteen pitfalls of supply-chain management and some corresponding opportunities. The more complex your network of suppliers, manufacturers and distributors, the more likely you can gain operational efficiencies by attending to inventory.

What happens if an applicant for a job in your firm has a disability -- is blind or infected with HIV or epileptic? Will you know how to treat that applicant without discrimination? The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed to make sure that the 15 million disabled people not already covered by antidiscrimination legislation would be assessed for jobs on their skills and abilities, not on their disabilities. This article will help you begin to plan for the day that applicant walks in your door.

In recent years, businesses have rushed to adopt an empowerment approach to service delivery in which employees face customers "free of rulebooks," encouraged to do whatever is necessary to satisfy them. But that approach may not be right for everyone. Bowen and Lawler look at the benefits and costs of empowering employees, the range of management practices that empower employees to varying degrees, and key business characteristics that affect the choice of approaches. Managers need to make sure that there is a good fit between their organizational needs and their approach to frontline employees.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989 marked the end of the old contest between capitalism and communism; the integration of the European Common Market on 1 January 1993 will mark the beginning of a new economic contest. At that moment, for the first time in more than a century, the United States will become the second largest economy in the world. Japan, Europe, the United States -- who will own the twenty-first century? This article is adapted from Thurow's book, "Head to Head: Coming Economic Battles among Japan, Europe, and America" (William Morrow, 1992).