Living Company
De Geus, Arie. (2002). The Living Company. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.
Instead of being a typical management book on what should and should not be done to perpetuate the status quo, author Arie de Geus drew on his experiences within Royal Dutch/Shell, research from biologists and psychologists, and the study of multinational corporations or companies with a great deal of longevity. Instead, De Geus believes that companies that want to succeed commit to develop all their employees at all career stages to their maximum potential. The four major principles to this are:
Sensitivity to the corporate environment -- Long-lived companies pay attention, learn, adapt, and evolve as circumstances require.
Persona -- Successful organizations are cohesive and have a strong sense of identity that helps them build a shared community.
Tolerance -- These successes are patient, typically more decentralized, less hierarchical, and give a wider spread of decision making authority, but are tolerant of non-core activities, dissent, and changing paradigms.
Frugality -- These organizations are fiscally conservative, but not selfish; Instead, they invest in their own growth and prefer to use options instead of being forced into compliance.
Chapter Title -- The Lifespan of a Company
Chapter Summation -- Successful organizations have been the lifeblood of Western Civilization for the last 500 years. Yet, most companies never really grow to realize their full potential. The few companies that have lasted for hundreds of years have many
Definitions/Terms -- Global diversification: the ability to ensure the organization evolves as necessary in a climate of globalism, community of humans.
Integration of Knowledge -- Uses a multidisciplinary approach to integrate history, sociology, business, and psychology to form a broader picture of what the key elements are in successful organizations.
Evaluation of Presentation -- Author uses a socio-cultural, historical approach to define issues that allow certain organizations to exist over centuries, not decades. The author evaluates the success of companies in their longevity, since 40% or so fail within a failure rate of under ten years, on an international average. Really, what tends to happen, is that most companies fail to achieve what it is they are really capable of, instead relying on the status quo and short-term goals, or "because their managers focus on the economic activity of producing goods and services, and they forget that their organizations' true nature is that of a community of humans" (3). This begins our journey into what it takes to be successful in business, and the reasoning behind it.
Question -- Is there a relationship between the half-life of technology and the manner in which companies are or are not successful in evolving to the next phase of consumer needs?
Chapter Title -- The Shift from Capitalism to a Knowledge Society
Chapter Summation -- It is no longer necessary for the modern organization to choose either profit (usually quick profit) versus longevity. Both are interwoven since over the past several hundred years the global economy has shifted from the wealth of tangible goods (land, factories, etc.) to wealth from what people know about doing x, y, or z (knowledge).
Definitions/Terms -- Profit vs. longevity; knowledge economy, scarcity of production and resources, guilds and unions
Integration of Knowledge -- Integrate post-World War II economic and sociological theory (rising leisure class, more suburban, automobile, role of technology) into thesis about the way the new economy is set up.
Evaluation of Presentation -- Since knowledge is not always tangible, there must be a balance between human resource allocation and knowledge management. Thankfully, technological improvements have resulted in the ability to store and manage a great deal of information so that as human capital evolves (moves, expires, etc.) the actual knowledge of what makes the organization work is not lost. There are so many positives about the idea of knowledge management in the knowledge economy: easier training, longevity with the company and therefore the company itself, greater satisfaction with the job, greater contribution to the overall positive nature of society, which is win-win for all.
Question -- What tools are needed for a company to remain successful in a knowledge economy?
Chapter Title -- The Memory of the Future
Chapter Summation -- Learning is perception and we humans are particularly suited for cognitive communication and memory. Open, extroverted companies that encourage learning will succeed in the long run because they view life's foibles as challenges rather than
Integration of Knowledge -- The smart and successful organization has a hypothesis already in place -- a contingency plan integrating all facets of the organization, for what might happen if a portion, or all, of their resources run out or are interrupted in some...
Personal issues re. Cloud computing and data security This essay is an attempt on sorting out my conflictual feelings on cloud computing and data security. These include emotional investment on the subject, intellectual curiosity, advocacy, and bias. The following also explains my attraction towards the research. Cloud computing is the use of computing resources (both hardware and software) that are delivered as a service over the Internet. I certainly have a mix
Love is a personal issue that attracts public debate with each person giving it their own approach as understood or experienced in the past. The two stories herein look into people in search of love and another set, a group of people trying to understand the love they have experienced in the past. There are depiction of people trying to get into terms with what love is and trying to
Personal Selling in Hospitality Personal selling in the tourism and hospitality industry is an essential part of destination and hotel sales, driving base demand, creating awareness, and is becoming more competitive than ever before as organizations' continue to learn the benefits of this marketing component. This paper will analyze some of the traits that could be associated with the ideal salesperson in this industry by reviewing the literature as well as
Recognizing the Significance Effective Interpersonal Communication I have also learned that many types of interpersonal conflict in the workplace begin as little more than ineffective communications and misinterpretations by one or more individuals. The email communications medium has demonstrated itself to be particularly vulnerable to unintended tones or to unintended interpretations or assumptions. For that reason, I may sometimes review email exchanges. In our organization, the privacy policy is that supervisors
Career Effectiveness For many in the workforce, the transition to parenthood marks the beginning of their work-family concerns. Policy makers and parents themselves often believe that the solution is a switch from full-time to part-time work (Stacy, 2000). Further, research shows that throughout early parenthood, women exhibit significant movement into and out of the labor force (Hynes and Clarkberg, 2005). Hence, the learner anticipates big adjustments in her career as she
For example, a person who is originally from a conservative religious community may be more comfortable living an openly gay lifestyle elsewhere but not when returning to his or her community of origin. If the differential degree of personal disclosure allows the person to enjoy the fullest and most satisfying relationships in both scenarios, that differential degree of disclosure serves and helps achieve a beneficial purpose for the individual. Meanwhile,
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now