Managing in a changing environment

Abstract

The changes that have impinged on society over the period since 1945, and more particularly since the 1960s, in turn impinge on the management of organisations. These changes may be summarised as:

• Technological, affecting all social, economic and business activities; rendering many occupations obsolete and creating new ones; and opening up new spheres of activity, bringing travel, transport, distribution, telecommunication, industry, goods and services on to a global scale

• Social, the changing of people’s lives, from the fundamentals of life expectancy and lifestyle choice, to the ability to buy and possess items; to travel; to be educated; to receive ever-increasing standards of health-care, personal insurance and information; to be fed; to enjoy increased standards of social security and stability, increased leisure time and choice of leisure pursuits; and all commensurate with increases in disposable income and purchasing power, and choices of purchase;

• Eco-political, resulting in changes in all governmental forms; the state of flux of the EC, and the adoption of super-national laws and directives, and the single market; the collapse of the communist bloc and the USSR; the fragmentation of the former Yugoslavia into its component states; the emergence of Taiwan, South Africa, Korea and Vietnam as spheres of political and economic influence, taking their place in the business sphere

• Expectational, in which the changes may be expressed as from stability to a state of change itself, a state of flux; the change from the expectation of working for one company or organisation, to working for many, and the realisation that the former is increasingly unlikely; change in occupation, training and profession; change in political governance, and the instruments of state; organisations change their business (e.g. Virgin, from music into air travel) and expect their staff to change with them; hospitals in the UK are (1992–95) being reconstituted as ‘business units’ and offering medical services at a price or charge, and are expecting staff and patients to go along with this; business is indeed ‘thriving on chaos’, and ‘learning to love change’, and this is increasingly expected by those who manage it.