Turning points: creating strategic change in corporations

Abstract

As firms surface from such 1980s excesses as careless investments, ethical lapses, and financial legerdemain, they face a challenging new business world of determined global rivals who are now able to compete in every region of the world; technological breakthroughs that can create whole new industries, even while they destroy older ones; a global market characterized by incredible complexity and much higher standards; and a clear recognition that those firms which fail to adapt to these and other new challenges will be judged in harsh Darwinian terms - extinction will be the ultimate cost of the failure to create strategic change. Thus, says Charles Fombrun, business now stands at a turning point. Either managers can allow inertia to carry them blindly down the path to oblivion, or they can confront their situations, focus attention, identify solutions, and implement strategies that will enhance their chances of survival into the twenty-first century. Charles Fombrun offers an analysis and guidance for managers who must grapple with and initiate the process of change. He argues that change is a subjective process and that, as a result, most of us are impaired because we personalize circumstances and guard our self-interests. Further, Fombrun shows that change must be a collective enterprise, not just the venue of top managers; the challenge, therefore, is to mobilize support.

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