Business Horizons articles from March 1996

Business Horizons archives from March 1996

Controlling legal costs: steps you can take.
March 1, 1996... Long-time readers of Business Horizons will recall that these pages have not lacked for things to say about lawyers. My predecessor, Harv Bunke, praised Singapore for its "blessedly low level of litigiousness" and took lawyers to task for...

The ultimate strategic question: stay, go, or change? Strategic redirection can provide an answer to the question every company must ask.
March 1, 1996... Sooner or later, every company's executives have to answer the ultimate strategic question, "Shall we stay in a business, leave it, or enter a new one?" The answer largely shapes a company's fate for at least a decade, and often much longer. Some...

The evolving corporate paradigm: corporate strategy of the future is reinventing business itself in search of competitive essence.
March 1, 1996... During the past year, about 5 percent of the companies appearing in Fortunes listing of largest businesses had not been there the previous year. In fact, over the past decade, the Fortune listing shows an average rate of change that has been...

Strategic collaboration: breaching the castle walls - walls between and within the fiefdoms of production and distribution are crumbling as firms learn to align crossed strategies and work for the customer.
March 1, 1996... Medieval castles have a characteristic architecture. Fortified inner buildings have many towers interrupted by window slits that allow inhabitants to see out without being easily seen--or targeted. Extremely thick outer walls bristle with...

Achieving the core competence - it's as easy as 1, 2, 3, ... 47, 48, 49. (corporate innovation)
March 1, 1996... Peter Drucker declares that every organization needs one core competence: innovation. We all know innovation is important. Leading edge CEOs--Jack Welch of General Electric, Ed McCracken of Silicon Graphics, Lewis Platt of Hewlett-Packard,...

Total quality management in the small business environment.
March 1, 1996... Total Quality Management, or TQM, has become one of the most frequently discussed topics in current business literature. Because of the competitive pressures created by Japanese companies, quality became a competitive weapon in the 1980s in most...

Adding "zip" to product development: concurrent engineering methods and tools.
March 1, 1996... You've heard the success stories of firms that are applying concurrent engineering approaches in new product development, or NPD, programs. Reports of shorter development time, better design quality, lower manufacturing costs, and higher revenues...

Green alliances: strategic relations between business and environmental groups.
March 1, 1996... Environmentalism is undergoing fundamental change. It is altering how environmentalists and business executives view one another and elevating the strategic significance of ecology. Long bitter enemies, environmentalists and businesses are now...

American values in the French workplace.(management styles of Americans working in France)
March 1, 1996... "The Ugly American concept is definitely alive here; the Americans don't make as much of an effort at language and are more demanding that people speak English to them." This remark by an American expatriate in Europe illustrates why Americans...

Japanese management, recession style.
March 1, 1996... Japanese business has entered a new management phase. Major corporations are changing their personnel practices by eliminating employee positions. This runs counter to a cultural foundation of Japanese business practices that has emphasized the...

Labor market models in Europe and America - and unhappiness with both.(labor market characteristics and some possible solutions)
March 1, 1996... Scant job creation and long-term, high unemployment have become so severe in Western Europe that a number of international bodies--the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Commission of the European Communities (CEC), and the Organization for...

Managerial loyality: beyond the towering ziggurats of the old industrial system.(changes in company structure creates new manager type)
March 1, 1996... Contemporary executives are facing an unprecedented dilemma. They are struggling to reconstruct a viable philosophy of leadership that does not assume the existence of managerial loyalty to an organization. Dedication and commitment are believed...