TABLE OF CONTENTS During the 1970s and 1980s, American business and government managers were stirred to action by external pressures, including foreign competition, deregulation, increasing costs of materials and services, and shareholder or taxpayer demands for better accountability. Shedding the organizational complacency that had set in during the early postwar years, leaders in business and government began to explore new alternatives; to seek long-term rather than short-term solutions; to weed out unproductive procedures and divisions in favor of productive work; and to innovate with ideas that spanned across divisional boundaries.
New attitudes about corporate and government agency management seem to underscore some of the basic tenets of capital economies: (1) management decisions are made about the levels of current consumption, savings or long-term investment; and (2) if an individual decision is made for long-term investment, then management must decide how much should be placed in capital goods for the further production of goods and services, and what types of capital formation, in combination with other capital goods, will generate the greatest future value. True net investment (or net capital formation) consists of net additions to a company s or a government s stock of equipment, facilities, or inventories.
Changing attitudes toward management and business processes by business and government are bringing a new focus to organizational strategy. The greater emphasis on the core business (or businesses) of these organizations stimulates a rethinking of how to modify internal procedures, of alternatives...
