Search results

Reviews, from an anthropological perspective, three 1993 additions to the Gulf Publishing Company's “Managing Cultural Differences” Series. This trilogy is comprised of the volumes Developing the Global Organization: Strategies for Human Resource Professionals, Transcultural Leadership: Empowering the Diverse Workforce, and Multicultural Management: New Skills for Global Success. Examines the five concepts of globalisation, diversity, multiculturalism, transcultural, and empowerment central to the trilogy and to anthropology, and as they are used in both. Views the global paradox — a bigger world economy requires the more powerful smallest of players (e.g., entrepreneurs) — as a useful framework for understanding these and related concepts as they operate in the global village today, and as they may be employed throughout and beyond the 21st century. Finally, reports on: (1) the training, transformation and development tasks of global managers of complexity in business as well as in government, academia, and the military; and, (2) the intercultural learning strategies through which these tasks are achieved and through which these managers, the multicultural workforce and teams they lead, and their organisations are empowered to contribute, collaborate and fully participate in producing their major project: Service, country, group, business, or social structure through the mixture of peoples or technology” (p. 242). This suggests a process, a becoming. In Developing the Global Organization, Robert T. Moran, Philip R. Harris and William G. Stripp continue that globalisation is both a way to think and to act. Specifically, it moves individuals “away from parochialism towards transnationalism”. And it nurtures a state of mind geared toward a more effective use of personal and organisational resources (p. 299).

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

Jobs in the future will be more demanding and tomorrow′s workers will have to learn new techniques to maintain their marketability. It is argued that what organisation development as a strategy does for the renewal of institutions, professional or human resource development does for the renewal of individuals. Because a learning manager exercises leadership in both processes, some of the enabling skills required are described, particularly human skills that can be learnt.

Introduction to the Metaindustrial Work Culture, Are human professionals in the forefront of the profound global transition now underway from the industrial to the Information Society? Are they cognisant of the driving forces of new technologies, especially microelectronics and genetic engineering? Are they exercising leadership in the creation of the work environments characterised by information processing and performed by knowledge workers? For these questions to be answered in the positive, the respondent must be aware of the emerging metaindustrial work culture. The term “metaindustrial” comes from an AT and T report on the New Industrial Revolution. It describes the ongoing social or second industrial shift away from the traditional manufacturing industries, organisational models and roles and managerial styles. That industrial way of life not only produced its unique approaches to training, development and education, it was a way of life that enacted social legislation and systems of support. It is rapidly disappearing, and the evidence is present in economic downturns, huge unemployment and bankruptcies. It is evident in the occupational trends toward information/ knowledge/education enterprises — 50 per cent of the US work force is already in the information industries, and this is projected to rise to 66 per cent by the year 2000.

With the emergence of the European Community, a new type of transcultural and transformation leadership is required on the Continent. Examines the why and the what of preparing executives and managers for the new work culture now in the process of creation. For both the global marketplace and cultural renewal among the nations from the Atlantic to the Urals, provides insight into the leadership qualities to cultivate, in terms of technical competence, people skills, conceptual skills, judgement and character, as well as the characteristics for meta‐industrial leading. These include providing more open communication/information, creating more autonomy/participation, promoting the intrapreneurial/ entrepreneurial spirit, enhancing the quality of work life, generating innovative/high performing norms and standards, utilizing informal, synergistic organizational relations, advancing technology venturing and research/development. Considers innovative strategies of human resource management and development.

The article argues that women professionals have a natural talent for harmony, or co‐operation, or synergy.

Successful management not only actively promotes team spirit, but installs the mechanisms and the means to develop team skills and to enhance team roles. Today′s managers are challenged to make a transition from the traditional way of operating or doing business, to experimenting with new styles of organising and managing.

Top managers should be future‐oriented and capable of sharing the “big picture” with their people. They need to be bridge builders, able to lead the workforce out of the industrial and into the post‐industrial age.

Plans are underway for the next 25–50 years in space. The days of “mission control” may be waning. More study and research is recommended on issues of leadership for (a) earth‐based projects in space, and (b) space‐based programmes with managers there of manned or unmanned projects. Large‐scale technical enterprises in space require a new form of macro management. Despite current difficulties associated with the management of the space shuttle, both experiential history and a possible paradigm or demonstrated model of future trends in the general field of management are offered.

Synergy has become more than a buzzword in today's corporation. In many cases, it's the key to survival and prosperity. The author identifies seven instances, ranging from acquisitions and relocations to the establishment of consortia, which call for synergistic responses.