Creating organizational advantage

pp., £12.95. Other dimensions of the changes in the workplace include:

Information 'Superhighways': the UK National Information Infrastructure (1995), 116 pp., £16.00 and Working at a Distance: UK Teleworking and its Implications (1995), 40 pp., £12.00 both from the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology and Global Superhighways; The Future of Inter-

vided by Total Innovation: How to on the authors' extensive experience of Develop the Products and Services that helping to bring about change in South your CUSTOMERS Want, STEWART Africa. BnAv, Pitman Publishing (1995), 217 pp., £25.00. Customers are the driving force behind From Concept to Cus-

tomer: the Practical Guide to Integrated Product and Process Development, and Transforming the Bottom Ldne: ManBusiness Process Reengineering, JACK aging Performance with the Real NumB. REVILLE,NORMANL. FROGONSR and bers, TONY HOPE and JEREMY HOPE,

national Telecommunications Policy,

HARRY K. JACKSON JR, Van Nostrand VINCENTCABLEand CATHERINEDISTLER, Reinhold (1995), 464 pp., £32.00. A The Royal Institute of International particular dimension to these issues is Affairs (1995), 48 pp., £12.50. A skep- covered in Exploring the World of the tical view of where it is all going is Entrepreneur: Working Jbr Yourself, provided by The Automated Society: KENNETH HOFFMAN and RICHARD What the Future Will Be and How We RUSSELL, International Thomson PubWill Get it That Way, MASSE BLOOM- lishing (1994), 168 pp., £11.95, a US FIELD,Masefield Books (1995), 139 pp., based work-book. General creativity $19.95. All these information tech- issues are discussed in The Essence of nology studies need to be read in con- Management Creativity, ToNy PRO& nection with Ethics of Information TOn, Prentice Hall (1995), 222 pp., Management, RICHARD O. MASON, £10.95 and Innovation and Change in FLORENCEM. MASONand MAnYJ. CULN- Organizations, NIGEL KING and NEIL IAN, Sage Publications (1995), 327 pp., ANDERSON, Routledge (1995), £25.00 (hb), £10.99 (pb) (but the role of learn£14.95. ing was virtually ignored, as was the case in many of the books mentioned in this paragraph!). Anyone concerned with the (economic) role of the small Creating Organizational Advantage, business enterprise in a mature market COLIN EGAN, Butterworth-Heinemann economy could try Small Business (1995), 200 pp., £19.99. Enterprise: an Economic Analysis, Provides a critical appraisal of the fashions and fads in management theory. Also exposes the strategic weaknesses, and reasons for failure, of many change programmes. Plenty of intellectually challenging material for serious students of the subject, and many valuable messages for managers; unfortunately it needs to be distilled further for those unlikely to struggle through the closely argued points.

The Power of Innnovation: How to Make Innovation a Way of Life and put Creative Solutions to Work, MIN BASADUR,Pitman Publishing (1995), 330 pp., £25.0O. New products are the future life blood of any company, yet few companies find this area is given the attention it deserves. This volume describes a tested framework based on the simplex process for divergent thinking. It is important to have a market-driven approach, and another basic introduction to this important subject is pro-

GAWN C. REID, Routledge (1993), 327 pp., £15.99 and Small Business

Management: an Active Learning Approach, DAVID STOKES, DP Publications, second edition (1995), 386 pp., £10.95.

When Corporations Rule the World, DAVID C. KORTEN, Berrett-Koehler (1995), 374 pp., £23.50. Argues that the convergence of ideological, political and technological forces is leading to an ever-greater concentration of economic and political power in a handful of (nongovernmental) organizations. Details of the personal journey of the author and the arguments themselves are both worth reading. Other dimensions to these issues are covered in The Age of

Nicholas £18.00.

Brealey (1995),

226

pp.,

Presents an alternative analysis of why businesses underperform. It emphasizes the importance of a new horizontal information system which will produce different numbers, those that help managers eliminate unnecessary costs, speed up business processes, support quality programmes, improve decisionmaking and promote innovation. "Most organizations remain prisoners of their accounting systems and management structures." Readable and relevant. Another book that focuses on the important role of management information is Meeting of the Minds: Cre-

ating the Market-Based Enterprises, VINCENTP. BARABBA,Harvard Business School Press (1995), 245 pp., £21.95. Very readable. Offers a strategic approach to marketing based on the simple principle that market leadership is attained by transforming information into shared knowledge. Focuses on the need to listen, learn and lead. Companies need to use systems thinking to view customers and the market as an extension of the firm; they achieve a meeting of the minds which creates value for customers and the community, as well as the enterprise itself.

Business Process Change: Reengineering Concepts, Methods and Technologies, VARUNGRAVERand WILLIAMJ. KETTINGEn(eds), Idea Group Publishing (1995), 687 pp., £84.50.

Twenty-five papers concerned with the use of business process reengineering as the vehicle to restructuring mature Participation: New Governance for the bureaucratized processes in order to Workplace and the World, PATRICIA achieve the strategic objective of MCLAGAN and CHRISTO NEL, Berrett- increased efficiency, reduced costs, Koehler (1995), 323 pp., £19.95. Shows improved quality and greater customer why the shift to participation can't and satisfaction. Although essentially acawon't occur unless we are willing to go demic papers, all those concerned with through personal changes. Partly based the operational issues could benefit Long Range Planning Vol. 29

August 1996