【正文】 s greatest resource, and consultants Gary Hamel and named future vision its greatest petitive advantage, more valuable than a large bank account or a lean anization. Managers who possess intellectual capital and future vision have a sense of purpose, avoid wasting time on useless experiments and deaden。 and anizational experts insist on the need for learning within worked teams operating beyond established pany structures. Leading managers realize that their vision of the pany39。 technology consultants stress the importance of anticipatory Ramp。s profit margin。 teamwork proved to be the best way this resource could be tapped. The boundary between the pany and its economic, social, and ecologic environment turned fuzzy. Within the business sphere fusions, alliances, and partnerships became monplace. In many cases the core activities of the enterprise came to be subcontracted, and work relations with other firms became as operative as panybased anizational structures. Reliance on distributors and suppliers, and linkage to local munities and ecologies turned into standard parameters of corporate functioning. Under these circumstances, there is a dire need for new and adapted management concepts. There is no dearth of advice. Theorists speak of activity bundling and the pany39。 and they were known to boycott panies that remained environmentally polluting or unresponsive. New information and munication technologies came on line, markets became integrated and internationalized, product cycles became shorter and product lines diversified, and clients and consumers demanded shorter delivery times and higher quality. Competition moved into the global arena. Under these circumstances classically run hierarchical enterprises proved unable to cope. The centralization of information and its slow oneway peration to lower echelons produced fatal mistakesand then terminal rigidity. The panies that survived did so by transforming themselves into teamoriented multilevel decisionmaking and implementation structures, often in the nick of time. In the late 1990s the diffusion of information and the growth in the intensity and number of interfaces between people, departments, and divisions have radically changed the pany39。80s the situation had changed. The economic growth curve flattened out and optimistic extrapolations failed to e true. Social alienation and anomie rose, and technology produced unexpected sideeffects: scares and catastrophes at Three Mile Island, Bhopal, and Chernobyl, the ozone hole over the Antarctic, recurrent instances of acid rain and oil spill, and worsening environmental pollution in cities and on land. Belief in progress was shaken. Intellectuals and youth groups found it necessary, and some segments of society fashionable, to espouse the view that technological advance is dangerous and should be halted. Environmental effects and social valuechange began to enter as factors in the equations of corporate success, and leading managers, together with consultants and management theorists, began to reexamine their operative assumptions. By the late 1980s further changes occurred in the operating environment. Environmental concerns moved from the fringes of society into the marketplace。 they could grow as the economy did. Longterm costs, if any, were hidden in the long term. In that regard businessmen were fond of quoting Keynes: in the long term we shall all be dead. If things get better and better, why bother to look further than one39。 the model for success at General Motors and Standard Oil, and the rest of the Fortune 500 group. The economic growthenvironment of the postwar period did not provide grounds to modify, or even question, this philosophy. Almost anything an enterprising manager would try had a knack of succeeding。s scientific management, the distribution of tasks was established at headquarters and the pany39。 individual creativity and initiative were dismissed as unnecessary nuisance. Power was concentrated, together with responsibility and overview。s skills on flying an airplane and paying scant attention to the airspace in which one is flying. The captains of contemporary business cannot be solely concerned with the internal functioning of their aircraft: they must also set a course in reference to climatic conditions, current position and projected destination, and the traffic on the work of routes crisscrossing the globe. That traffic is diversified and plex. It includes, in addition to customers, suppliers, distributors, Ramp。s social, economic, and ecologic environment. At the top echelons of management an intense search is under way for uptodate modes of thinking and acting. It es to the fore in the emphasis managers place on corporate strategy, corporate identity, corporate philosophy, even corporate ethics. An anizational revolution is underway, as managers seek to municate their vision with their collaborators. The importance of munication among all branches and levels of the enterprise is being recognized. It is also recognized that the pany can only function when people understand what goals management pursues, and what their own role is in the achievement of the goals. The ongoing transformation of the enterprise culture is a positive factor in our changing and unpredictable world. It means that panies are being more sensitive to the changes that obtain in their environment, and more ready to respond to them. The new emphasis on management and pany ethics also suggests that businesses are willing to assume the responsibility that goes with their larger role in society. Global enterprises wield unprecedented power and influence, and the transformation of their culture will be a critical factor in deciding the evolution of our interdependent socioeconomic and ecologic systems–and therewith our individu