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The European management concept
THE EDITOR
The European Management
Editorial
Europe is a very sceptical continent, which can recognise that there are lots of publications aimed at managers, and in any case it consists of 35 countries speaking over 60 major languages. Why should anyone believe that there is an interest in something which might be labelled European Management? There are two profound pressures for change, which are forcing us all to consider ourselves increasingly to be European, and decreasing to be concerned with narrow national interests. The negative pressure is the palpable success of businesses based in the United States and Japan in penetrating European markets and in dominating European production activities. We recognize that our national platforms are inadequate to enable us to retaliate effectively against those competitive pressures. We need to get a European act together. The positive pressure comes from a communications technology based on the satellite. The world is being shaped by communications- transmitted through space, and there are lots of us who would like to stress a European idiom in those noisy channels. It is clear that one of the dominant trends of the later 1980’s and the 1990’s will be a moderation of the European national idioms in favour of a more European one. These idioms will express themselves in company cultures, management styles, the values which inform our management decisions, and in the institutions through which we express them. The outstanding strategic management lessons which we have learned, and which the Japanese have learned so effectively, from the experience of the major American corporations, has been the importance of
Concept
Introduction
strategic management and control of mass - even global - markets in order to provide an outlet for the products and services of large scale technologies. The European idiom is not global. It is much more about the finer distinctions which enrich our lives. The German visiting Spain is going to a foreign country, and values the experience, in a way in which the Californian visiting New York can not. It is clear that the overwhelming theme of European management debate just now is the Japanese Challenge and how we may organize ourselves to cope with it. Evidently Japanese management is doing some things better than European management at present. Malcolm Trevor in our leading article, Sir Kenneth Corfield and Marisa Bellisario all refer strongly to this. It is evident that these three leaders of European telecommunication technology are looking for a response at the European level. Management is, however, also about more earthy matters, and we are pleased to carry a report by Margaret Bermel and Harold Lazarus, perhaps of more interest to some of our readers than the problems of European global strategy, reporting how American corporations are handling early retirement for the executives, which may suggest something of the shape of things to come. We are concerned about the creation of leadership potential, a topic which is addressed by the McKinsey Director, J. Quincy Hunsicker, in exploring some of the themes which will inform management of the future. Scholars occasionally look at management
138
THE
EDITOR
and come up with some interesting findings: in this issue we report two studies - one of the British managerial response to strategic change, and the other of the training needs of Australian company directors.
European managers continue to have some sort of sceptical regard for the efforts of the European community to improve the lot of companies and their management. As always we conclude this issue with a review of the European Community Developments.
The European Management
Editorial
Europe is a very sceptical continent, which can recognise that there are lots of publications aimed at managers, and in any case it consists of 35 countries speaking over 60 major languages. Why should anyone believe that there is an interest in something which might be labelled European Management? There are two profound pressures for change, which are forcing us all to consider ourselves increasingly to be European, and decreasing to be concerned with narrow national interests. The negative pressure is the palpable success of businesses based in the United States and Japan in penetrating European markets and in dominating European production activities. We recognize that our national platforms are inadequate to enable us to retaliate effectively against those competitive pressures. We need to get a European act together. The positive pressure comes from a communications technology based on the satellite. The world is being shaped by communications- transmitted through space, and there are lots of us who would like to stress a European idiom in those noisy channels. It is clear that one of the dominant trends of the later 1980’s and the 1990’s will be a moderation of the European national idioms in favour of a more European one. These idioms will express themselves in company cultures, management styles, the values which inform our management decisions, and in the institutions through which we express them. The outstanding strategic management lessons which we have learned, and which the Japanese have learned so effectively, from the experience of the major American corporations, has been the importance of
Concept
Introduction
strategic management and control of mass - even global - markets in order to provide an outlet for the products and services of large scale technologies. The European idiom is not global. It is much more about the finer distinctions which enrich our lives. The German visiting Spain is going to a foreign country, and values the experience, in a way in which the Californian visiting New York can not. It is clear that the overwhelming theme of European management debate just now is the Japanese Challenge and how we may organize ourselves to cope with it. Evidently Japanese management is doing some things better than European management at present. Malcolm Trevor in our leading article, Sir Kenneth Corfield and Marisa Bellisario all refer strongly to this. It is evident that these three leaders of European telecommunication technology are looking for a response at the European level. Management is, however, also about more earthy matters, and we are pleased to carry a report by Margaret Bermel and Harold Lazarus, perhaps of more interest to some of our readers than the problems of European global strategy, reporting how American corporations are handling early retirement for the executives, which may suggest something of the shape of things to come. We are concerned about the creation of leadership potential, a topic which is addressed by the McKinsey Director, J. Quincy Hunsicker, in exploring some of the themes which will inform management of the future. Scholars occasionally look at management
138
THE
EDITOR
and come up with some interesting findings: in this issue we report two studies - one of the British managerial response to strategic change, and the other of the training needs of Australian company directors.
European managers continue to have some sort of sceptical regard for the efforts of the European community to improve the lot of companies and their management. As always we conclude this issue with a review of the European Community Developments.