Over the last three decades the average life expectancy of a corporation in North America has dipped well below 20 years. In fact, by 1983 a full third of the 1970 Fortune 500 companies had been acquired, merged, or broken apart. In this landmark book, one of the business world's foremost pioneers, Russell L. Ackoff, delivers this indispensable guide for those hoping to beat these odds--and to better navigate the corporate challenges of the next millennium. While most business and management schools continue to teach the functions of a corporation separately--production, marketing, finance, personnel--the reality is that for a corporation to endure each division must work with the others to create an effective system. Re-Creating the Corporation is Ackoff's masterful blueprint for understanding and creating these model corporate systems. In four comprehensive sections--Background, Process, Designs, and Change--Ackoff lays out in clear concise prose the five organizational goals of successful corporate systems: plan effectively, learn and adapt rapidly, democratize, introduce internal market economies, and employ a flexible structure that will minimize the need for future restructuring. And through a deft mix of practical and theoretical examples drawn from a wide range of applications in a wide range of firms, this book ultimately guides executives to the system best suited to meet their organizational goals. Re-Creating the Corporation, which is the culmination of a lifetime of innovative and insightful business thought from one of the business world's premier thinkers, is essential reading for those attempting to navigate the rapidly changing economic environment of the next millennium.

About the Author
Russell L. Ackoff is currently Chairman of Interact, an institute dedicated to education, consulting, and research, and Professor Emeritus of the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Considered one of the most innovative and insightful management thinkers of the 20th century, he is also the author of the acclaimed The Democratic Corporation: A Radical Prescription for Recreating Corporate America and Rediscovering Success, published by Oxford University Press in 1994.

Reviews
"With corporations ever-larger, this book places modern systems and structures within the reach of any manager by offering a compelling design for 21st Century organizations. TRANSFORMING."--Business Reader Review "A very straightforward book based on systems thinking, an approach that views the corporation as an organic whole swimming in its environment rahter than as a conglomerate of disparate departments and functions." "With clarity and style, Ackoff has drawn a very simple map for the implementation of systems thinking in the corporation."--Stacy Hague, CIO



Book Information
ISBN 9780195123876
Author Russell L. Ackoff
Format Hardback
Page Count 348
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 668g
Dimensions(mm) 245mm * 164mm * 29mm