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This paper describes a conceptual model of the process by which a “fad” makes the important transition to “paradigm”. It is a distinctive contribution to management theory whereby transferable principles are evaluated as a set of business paradigms. The heart of the transformation process is a generic systems model which provides the infrastructure linking the various sources of evidence. This includes horizontal market sector performance surveys; vertical in‐depth industrial case studies; influence diagram linking management actions to bottom‐line improvements; and consultancy rules of thumb. The approach is illustrated via application to the Total Cycle Time Compression paradigm.

This is the third article in Planning Review featuring G.E.'s experiments with planning. In the first (September 1977), Michael G. Allen, then vice president for corporate strategy, shared the company's techniques in, “Diagramming G.E.'s Planning for What's Watt.” The next article, optimistically titled, “For G.E., Planning Crowned by Success,” written by Steve Cohen, was published exactly five years later. As our current interview with Michael A. Carpenter, vice president, corporate business development and planning, indicates, G.E.'s planning department has undergone trial by fire during the past several years. However, G.E. planners are now playing an intriguing new role in the analysis of strategy, as PR's publisher, Robert J. Allio learns.

We live in an age of unparalleled access to personal data. Technological advances that seem second nature today allow for the mass accumulation of personal information by even the smallest of companies. The same technology also can be used directly by the state to accumulate mass information on its citizens. In the hands of government law enforcement officials, these surveillance advances also can be used to greatly enhance the state’s ability to exercise social control – a circumstance that has both positive and negative connotations. This chapter discusses the increasingly important confluence of privacy rights, surveillance, and social control as seen from a constitutional standpoint.

After years of limiting the expectations of privacy that citizens may have in their day-to-day lives, several recent Supreme Court decisions have attempted to take account of the privacy expectations held by individuals in today’s ever-evolving technological world, and in doing so have limited the ability of law enforcement to engage in surveillance without first obtaining a warrant. Yet more needs to be done. Specifically, the author argues that the law of standing must be updated to permit judicial claims by individuals who challenge the legality and constitutionality of comprehensive surveillance programs.