Chapter 2 - The Management Environment
The Changing Economy
One of the biggest problems in managing an organization today is failing to adapt to the changing world.
The futurist Alvin Toffler studied these changes and predicted some of their implications. He has written extensively about social change classifying each period of social history. Toffler argues that modern civilization has evolved over three “waves.” Some groups of people gained from the new way; others lost.
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The Global Market
Management is no longer constrained by national borders. It is more of a global village, a boundary-less world; the production and marketing of goods and services worldwide. To be effective in this boundary-less world, managers need to adapt to cultures, systems, and techniques that are different from their own.
The expanding global environment has extended the reach and goals of MNCs to create an even more generic global organization called the transnational corporation (TNC) . This type of organization does not seek to replicate its domestic successes by managing foreign operations from home. Instead, decisions in TNCs are made at the local level by people from that country.
How Does Globalization Affect Organizations?
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What Effect Does Globalization Have on Managers?
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All countries have different values, morals, customs, political/economic systems, and laws.
U.S. managers once held a parochial view (a narrow focus; these managers saw things solely through their own eyes and from their own perspectives.) of the world of business. They believed that their business practices were the best in the world. They did not recognize that people from other countries had different ways of doing things or that they lived differently from Americans....