The Frontiers of Management
Summary
The reference has not verified this book in detail; the summary states only what the title, author and subject establish.
Peter Drucker collected these essays, written mostly in the early and middle 1980s for the Wall Street Journal and for Harvard Business Review, on where management practice was moving.
The subjects include the effects of information technology on organisational structure, and specifically Drucker's argument that computing would eliminate management layers whose function was relaying information; the emergence of institutional investors as owners and the resulting governance vacuum; entrepreneurship and innovation as disciplines rather than as temperaments; the internationalisation of business and the shift toward alliances rather than wholly owned subsidiaries; demographic change; and management in Japan and its differences from American practice.
As with his other collections, the pieces repeat each other and are separated from the sustained development that the books provide. Several predictions were early and correct, particularly on organisational flattening and on the governance problem created by institutional ownership. Others were not. Readers wanting Drucker's arguments developed should read the books; this is journalism from a specific period.
Key takeaways 6
- Information technology would eliminate management layers whose function was relaying information upward and downward.
- Institutional investors became owners of American corporations without any capacity or incentive to exercise ownership.
- Entrepreneurship and innovation are disciplines that can be learned and organised rather than temperaments some people possess.
- International business was shifting toward alliances and partnerships rather than wholly owned foreign subsidiaries.
- Demographic change was already determined and would reshape labour markets, consumption and pensions with no remaining uncertainty.
- Drucker argues that the information-based organisation requires far more specialists and far fewer managers.
Who should read it
Readers of Drucker who want his mid-1980s topical essays, though the books develop the same arguments more completely.
About Peter F. Drucker
Management writer and consultant; professor at Bennington, NYU and Claremont Graduate University
He invented management as a field of study, and The Practice of Management and The Effective Executive remain the primary sources every later writer builds on.
Where it sits in the reference 2
Similar books 6
Chosen by shared topics, the entries that hold them, and the people who recommended both.
