1997 Presidential Address: Twenty-First-Century Organizations: Business Firms, Business Schools, and the Academy

We are on the precipice of an epoch-a distinctive, exciting, and challenging time for organizations. My focus is on twenty-first-century organizations and the characteristics required for survival and long-term success. To begin, consider that you are a member of the Board of Directors of a major corporation in the year 2010-13 years in the future. What do you believe will be the characteristics of business organizations in this year? What strategies will they employ? How will they be structured? How will they manage their human capital? How many of the current high-profile company names will you recognize in the year 2010? To put it in perspective, look back to 1984-13 years in the past. What were the high-profile company names during that year? Many of you would probably mention Apple and IBM. How many of you would have mentioned Microsoft and Compaq? How much change has occurred in U.S. and world economies and in organizations during the last 13 years? The popularity of personal computers was only beginning 13 years ago, and Microsoft and Compaq were young, largely unknown firms. The Internet was an unknown commodity, and few referred to electronic networks. Multiply the amount of change that occurred between 1984 and 1997 by thirtyfold to fortyfold or more and you will have the amount of change that will occur between 1997 and 2010. According to Alan Greenspan, we are in a new economic age with an organic market economy (Foust, 1997). This new economic age entails a new competitive landscape driven largely by globalization and the technological revolution (Bettis Hitt, Keats, Stimpert & Duhaime, 1997). We are in the age of mass customization, where we can have even highly complex products manufactured to our personal specifications in a short period of time (Kotha, 1995). Speed now is of critical importance, while dramatic, radical innovations will frequently occur and be difficult to predict (Eisenhardt & Tabrizi, 1996). Because of frequent radical innovations, there is increasing emphasis on designing new products and moving them to the marketplace rapidly (Dougherty & Corse, 1995). For example, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, U.S. manufacturers required 5 to