Evolve. (Book Reviews).(Review)

Evolve Rosabeth Moss Kanter Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, 2001 352 pages; $27.50 Hardcover

In her new book Evolve, Rosabeth Moss Kanter offers a practical, hands-on guide to cultivating an E-culture. What is an E-culture? An E-culture is not "lipstick on a bulldog" or applying cosmetic, surface fixes or experiments within an organization that don't produce real, lasting change. Rather, an E-culture is a new way of living and working that will potentially change every aspect of today's organizations. Kanter argues that the web is both a stimulus and facilitator for a new organizational culture, founded on human relationships, networks, communities--not merely technology Kanter offers several key propositions that are woven throughout this trail blazing book including that an E-culture: (1) brings about "creative destruction" destroying and replacing existing business models, (2) introduces transparency, where mistakes are magnified, (3) fosters a spirit of cooperation within the company and across the industry supply chain--relationships matter more than ever in the digital world, 4) forces organizations to become both simultaneously decentralized and centralized, and (5) results in ad-hoc organizational structures, capable of improvising and morphing to capitalize on emerging opportunities.

Kanter makes the point early in her book to debunk some of the common myths of the internet in general and an E-culture in particular. For example, she observes that the internet economy tends to exaggerates anti-historical tendencies, favoring instead new ventures and new ideas detached from tradition. However, upon completing the research for her book she concludes that even though the technology is revolutionary and network economics are different, "cyberspace is full of reinvented wheels", where the problems of leadership, organization, and change are similar to those experienced in the past.

The book is based on 300 in-depth interviews conducted among individuals representing 785 organizations primarily in North America and Europe. Kanter's investigation is not unlike the work of an anthropologist whose observations are conceived in colorful and memorable stories. The book is organized into three sections. The first section deals with the challenges of establishing an E-culture. Here she contrasts E-cultures and E-cults according to Kanter have only the "style parts", such as communal kitchens, dress-down codes, pets, music, game rooms, etc. Superficial add-ons, with no change on how the company operates, do not produce Internet successes. She also deals with how companies confront change, especially the wannadots, who are gradually moving toward the Internet. Williams-Sonoma and Mary Kay are introduced as examples of how a traditional "brick and mortar" companies successfully evolve to "bricks and clicks" business models.

Part Two of Kanter's book considers the implications for businesses in the advent of the Internet and identifies best practices for implementing ...