The Cultural Crisis of the Firm

ISBN-13: 9781557866387 / Angielski / Miękka / 1997 / 272 str.

Erica Schoenberger

Opis

This is an examination of one of the most puzzling and important issues in western economic analysis - corporate inertia in the face of known threats to survival. The book is part synthetic, part based on intensive case studies, and part theoretical.

Recenzje

"In The Cultural Crisis of the Firm Erica Schoenberger has produced a thoughtful and accessible book that begins to address the much neglected questions of why firms sometimes get it wrong (and sometimes disastrously wrong) when they try to respond to change in their operational environments." Michael Taylor, University of Portsmouth

"The Cultural Crisis of the Firm was an enjoyable, stimulating and all–too–short read ... it should appeal both to geographers and non–geographers alike. Buy it and read it!" A.Tickell, University of Southampton

"Schoenberger′s work presents a credible retheorization of the firm and the nature of industrial decline that deserves further reading and debate." Karen Bakker, University of Oxford

Spis treści

Acknowledgements.

Part I. Competition, Time, and Space.

1. The End of an Industrial Era.

2. Competition, Time, and Space in Industrial Change.

3. The New Competition and the Recalibration of Time and Space.

4. The Sources of Industrial Rigidity.

Part II. Corporate Culture, Strategy, and Change.

5. Corporate Culture and Strategy.

6. Culture, Identity, and Corporate Transformations: case Studies.

Part III. The Cultural Crisis of the Firm.

The Cultural Crisis of the Firm.

Bibliography.

Index

O autorze

Erica Schoenberger was educated at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley. She is currently Professor of Geography in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Anthropology.

Blurb

This is an examination of one of the most puzzling and important issues in western economic analysis corporate inertia in the face of known threats to survival. Why is it that large and powerful corporations, which have dominated industrial markets for decades, suddenly become uncompetitive? Erica Schoenberger seeks to understand his apparently irrational behavior through and investigation, on the one hand, of corporate culture, and on the other of institutional and cultural change in the advanced economics of the western world. The book is based partly on recent work on the subject in the US and Europe, and partly on the author s own intensive case studies of firms such as Lockheed and Xerox.

Conventional concepts of corporate culture and identity used in business strategy are, the author argues, flawed: they have not only resulted in a widespread inability to adopt appropriate strategies for change, but in misguided decisions on location, manufacturing method, product design, use of new technology, and employment practice. The stakes surrounding these errors of judgement are high. They involve the social and economic well–being of large numbers of people: industrial competitiveness is not the only factor in social well–being and becoming competitive can itself result in dislocations and distress. But not being competitive at all is worse.

This is a pioneering investigation of corporate culture and behavior in the wider context of social and economic change. Innovative in its approach, original in its perspective, and accessible and hard–hitting in its conclusions, The Cultural Crisis of the Firm will be required reading both within the community it examines and among those who seek to understand the recent history of the large corporation.