Perhaps as much as ten percent of the US workforce new telecommutes from home, a level over three times that of 2000. Telecommuting and remote work arrangements seem likely to continue gaining on traditional work arrangements due to the influence of factors such as the continuing globalization of work... [read more...]

Here comes the generation generalization again. Generalizations can contain considerable truth even when they fall well short of being universally valid. The generalization in this article is about the characteristics of “Generation F” – the Facebook Generation. Perhaps the term “Facebook cohort” or... [read more...]

Millions of people around the world regularly engage in multiplayer online role-playing games. The authors believe that these cybercommunities reflect some of the conditions of the near-future business environment. Players who serve as game leaders face organizational and strategic challenges such as... [read more...]

When Hurricane Andrew attacked the Florida coast in August 1992, the emergency management director demanded to know, “Where is the cavalry on this one?” But neither the cavalry nor any other single authority is sufficient to prepare for or respond to major disasters. Instead, argue the authors, preparing... [read more...]

Mark Buchanan quotes organizational theorist Elliott Jaques’s words of a decade ago, that “management is in the same state today that the natural sciences were in during the 17th century. There is not one single, well-established concept in the field of management on which you can build a testable theory... [read more...]

In most cases, we find it easy to respond to the wild ideas of social theorists by ignoring, dismissing, or laughing at them. Whether or not we are justified in these responses, the lack of working models of the envisioned social orders leaves them vulnerable. Dee Hock has spent considerable time and... [read more...]

Companies reengineer their business processes, but organizational culture usually lags behind, draining some of the benefits of the changes. The same is true more generally of changes in the way people work, argues Tim Hindle in this 10-article “Survey of the Company.” Although not as stimulating as... [read more...]

The Brazilian CEO and best-selling author transformed his pump plant into a model of participative management, and launched his company on 14 straight years of double-digit growth.

Although his company, Semco, has attained double-digit growth for 14 consecutive years, CEO Ricardo Semler is not a take-charge kind of guy. That’s by design, not by weakness of personality or lack of leadership drive. According to Lawrence Fisher’s description, Semler is the leading proponent and most... [read more...]

In most cultures, monsters have a reputation for being powerful and extremely dangerous but not terribly smart. They can squash you or eat your brains, but keep your cool and you can outthink them. The situation is quite different in global business where the monsters—the world’s largest corporations—can... [read more...]

Successful efforts to exploit the growing importance of complex interactions could well generate durable competitive advantages.

The searching, monitoring, and coordinating required to manage the exchange of goods and services has become a powerful determinant of what workers and professionals actually do. By paying attention to the details the effects of interactions, the authors contend that we can learn important lessons... [read more...]