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The purpose of this paper is to record an interview with Richard T. Pascale, an international business consultant.

The paper uses an interview technique to reveal Richard T. Pascale's views on the relevance of complexity science to management.

The paper reveals that Pascale believes that there are some common properties to all living things that have great relevance to business. These are: prolonged equilibrium is a precursor to death; innovation occurs near the edge of chaos; all living things exhibit the capacity for self‐organisation and emergence (most recently popularised by the idea of the tipping point); and when you tamper with living things, you confront the law of unintended consequences. All four of these ideas have begun to penetrate managerial consciousness.

This paper provides some usual views on the relevance of complexity science to management from a well‐known international business consultant.

Many firms have adopted one or more “radical” management remedies in a quest for breakthroughs in performance. But their goal of “discontinuous” improvements usually has an unspoken stipulation: change that causes breakdowns is not acceptable. A few innovative companies have found, however, that process and offering breakthroughs can't occur without carefully orchestrated management system conflict and breakdowns.

Professor, consultant, and best‐selling author Richard T. Pascale has closely observed General Sullivan's efforts to do the impossible: to transform the largest and most tradition‐bound employer in the United States. (Including support personnel, the U.S. Army is nearly two million strong.) In his opening remarks to a joint session with General Gordon R. Sullivan, Pascale lauded the General's progress toward making the vital transition from the era of “beat the Russians” and “being the best army” to “be all you can be.”

A full understanding of the economic development processes of the Newly Industrialised Countries (NICs) is important both for the multinational corporations and the developing countries. This paper suggests a theoretical framework based on experience theory to explain how the NICs obtained their strategic comparative advantages in global markets. It is argued that the world social and economic environment of the post‐World War II period was conducive for the realisation of such advantages. Most recent changes, however, have important implications for both the developing countries and the multinational corporations in the selection of global strategies.

Why is Sony, despite its Betamax set‐back of the early 1980s, continually pushing its new 8‐mm standard against the VHS format of archrivals JVC and Matsushita? Why did Shiseido, the major cosmetic company in Japan, persist in investing continuously in the United States and Europe since the 1970s despite years of accumulated losses? Why is a company like Kubota, a leading manufacturer of farm equipment, moving into computers and biotechnology with no time frame for success?

Management is one of the most challenging tasks of everyday life. It can be defined most simply as getting things done through people. But dealing with people presents many complexities due to differences in personalities, attitudes or motivational levels, learning styles, communication skills and technical competencies. Despite these differences, the mission of managers is to get the task accomplished. Additionally, managers are supposed to motivate employees to perform better. Managing an organisation is a demanding job. The question, then, is what constitutes effective management? And what are current themes of, and approaches to, management? This article seeks to answer these questions, first, by examining popular management books published in the US in the last decade, and then, in light of environmental changes, by discussing emerging leadership styles and human resource management implications.

Popular management writings are examined in an attempt to answer the following questions: What constitutes effective management? What are the current themes of, and approaches to, management? Emerging leadership styles and human resource management implications are discussed.

Many experts attribute Japan's spectacular economic success to superior management techniques. But the real key to Japan's performance may be outstanding marketing skills.