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.
Summary
A comprehensive guide to understanding and improving business organizations from one of the world's foremost
management thinkers
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.
