Management Imperatives for the Year 2000
Traditional management styles and organizational structures must change radically if business is to face successfully the competitive challenges of the next century. Ways must be found to unlock the creative potential which is manifest at the middle and lower levels of our present bureaucratic organizations. Progressive companies, often in joint cooperation with unions, are already pointing the way to the future by encouraging broader involvement in decisions once throught to be vested only among those at the higher levels. Technology can be a driving force for change. The requirement that large numbers of employees be clustered in offices and factories will no longer be appropriate when one projects the implications of the microprocessor revolution. Much of what we know of as "work" can be performed in the home or in remote locations, thus resulting in decentralized organizational structures and a change in the nature of work in community life and in society as a whole.
Workforce 2000 demographic changes and their impacts
The U. S. workforce is becoming highly diverse. Human resource practices of the past will not be effective in managing tomorrow's heterogeneous labor force. Managing a diverse workforce is the key to future success, therefore identifying and learning the trends shaping the future of human resource is one of the most demanding tasks of managers. The purpose of this study is to examine the demographic bhanges occurring and that will continue to occur in the future. Changes such as the decrease in the size of the population and workforce, increase in the average age of the population and workforce, increase in the number of women, minorities, immigrants and contingent workers in the workforce are examined and their impacts on the society and industry are discussed.
Socially responsible enterprise in Cuba: a positive role model for Corporate Social Responsibility?’
This article examines the unique institutional environment of socialist Cuba, where currently a process of controlled marketization and expansion of private enterprise is taking place. The article investigates business behaviour in Cuba with particular reference to implicit assumptions relating to socially responsible enterprise, or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as the term is understood in Western Liberal Democracies. It draws upon a series of interviews with business practitioners and business commentators (both Cuban and non-Cuban residents on the island). The interviews focused on the participants’ awareness of business ethics and socially responsible enterprise, and the cultural differences in assumptions and expectations relating to the concept of CSR between the Cuban and non-Cuban interviewees. We find that Cuba at this early stage of tentative marketization presents a positive role model of socially responsible enterprise. Both the highly regulated State economy and the embedded norms and values of social equity that have emerged as a consequence of Cuba’s socialist revolution facilitate business social responsibility. The relevance of this research to current debates in relation to CSR is discussed and it is argued that capitalist economies may similarly benefit from tighter regulatory control and by cultivating more pro-social business norms that prioritise ethical over economic concerns.