The Necessary Nature of Future Firms
Attributes of Survivors in a Changing World
- George P. Huber - The University of Texas at Austin, USA, School of Geography, University Oxford Centre for the Environment
Strategic Management
"George Huber makes an important contribution with profound insights on what the future firm will look like. It will be congruent with its environment. To realize opportunities from continuing advances in science and technology and environmental complexity, the successful firm in the future will be especially good at gaining environmental intelligence, learning and integrating knowledge, and being innovative and flexible. This is not a fanciful prophesy; it is a necessary logical conclusion that Huber draws from an extensive body of scientific knowledge."
--Andrew H. Van de Ven, University of Minnesota, Past President of the Academy of
Management, and coauthor of Organizational Change and Innovation Processes
"Huber gives a compelling account of the future landscape that many managers have to face today. Filled with solid academic research laced with real-world examples, Huber not only conveys the shape of that landscape, but also the roadmap to navigate it."
--Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, Stanford University and coauthor of Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos
"This is an important book for any manager who faces a rapidly changing and increasingly competitive environment--which is to say, virtually every manager. Huber makes a cogent case for the fact that businesses will face much more dynamic and competitive environments in the future than they face today. More importantly, he offers practical advice for how managers can prepare for the uncertain future they face. Clearly written and carefully grounded in the best research evidence available, this book stands head and shoulders above the many management books offering short-term fads, fashions, and therapies of the moment."
--Richard T. Mowday, University of Oregon, former President of the Academy of Management, and former Editor of the Academy of Management Journal
Click 'Reviews' to read more pre-publication praise for The Necessary Nature of Future Firms
Survival depends on the ability to read imminent shifts in the environment and respond accordingly. This holds true for any living system, but it is especially true for firms today.
The business environment is now changing rapidly, but will change even more rapidly in the future. Only firms that can respond to these changes will survive. It is important to know, then, how business's future landscape will look. George Huber's new book, The Necessary Nature of Future Firms, describes this landscape clearly and credibly and makes explicit the organizational attributes and management practices firms must possess to be among the ranks of the "future firms."
Advances in science and technology will continue to affect business environments, making them more complex, dynamic and competitive. Moreover, this complexity and dynamism will increase at increasing rates. As the book makes clear, successful firms will cope with or exploit these changes by increasing their capabilities for correctly interpreting threats and opportunities, making decisions, acquiring and managing knowledge, innovating, and changing while simultaneously dealing with the needs for efficiency, flexibility, and employee commitment.
The Necessary Nature of Future Firms is written for managers, especially those managing change. Professionals in a wide variety of organizational roles will find it a particularly useful reference for its foresight and as an invaluable tool in winning approval for projects and initiatives. Academics in change management, information systems, organizational science, strategy, and human resources management can draw on the book as a supplementary text or as a source for lecture materials.
References housed in endnotes rather than in the text contribute to the book's readability and ease of use, as does the accessible writing style. But for all its accessibility and reader friendliness, The Necessary Nature of Future Firms is still firmly grounded in scholarship. Hundreds of authoritative works and systematic studies specifically inform this book, as do Huber's own studies and his interviews with over 100 middle- and upper-level managers about changes in their organizations. To add meaning and interest, the book's insights and conclusions are elaborated with real world examples.
"While many books deal with
decision making and many more deal with environmental complexity, this is one
of the first to lucidly tie them together and provide executives with the
specific tools and mind-set necessary to bring about significant organizational
change. The University of Wisconsin-Madison is a key driver of the integration
of business and science, and this book will be a must-read for many of the students
in our masters and executive education programs."
"The
book offers yet another outstanding contribution by an author known for
scholarship and insightful observations about the state of organizations and
their management. The topic is timely and the book offers many useful ideas
that will find their way into practice. I highly recommend it."
"This
book is a must read for managers concerned with guiding their organizations
into the information age. Management futurologists and academic writers have
speculated on the features and characteristics of new organizational forms. The Necessary Nature of Future Firms by
George Huber represents the first rigorous in-depth effort at anticipating the
shape of new organizations by combining, recombining, and interpreting a vast
management research literature and presenting it to managerial audiences. The
book is very accessible to a broad managerial audience but especially to
forward looking thoughtful managers concerned with the future of their
organizations."
“In The
Necessary Nature of Future Firms, George Huber does what Huber does
best--paint a compelling vision of the design of (near) future organizations as
well as the implications of this design. What differentiates Huber’s
‘visioning’ efforts from most others is that they are derived not from
speculation but rather from the collective thinking of a generation of
organizational scientists as interpreted through Huber’s own research and
consulting experiences. This vision of how future firms will be designed
(and, hence, how they will behave) emerges in fact from well-founded
conceptualizations and validated observations.”
“George Huber has written a
wonderfully comprehensive and integrative book on organizational change,
learning, and adaptation. Huber synthesizes the research-based work on change
in a way that will be helpful to scholars, graduate students, as well as
managers interested in organizational learning and change. The book is well
written and provocative. It is a state of the art literature review with an
experienced, practical point of view. This book belongs on both the scholar's
desk as well as in the practitioner's office.”
"Professor
Huber has produced a valuable and very well researched guide for firms making
the necessary transition to the knowledge economy. His sage advice and
experiences will greatly help any organization navigate these tricky and
dangerous waters."
"George
Huber has achieved an amazing feat in this book. He has eloquently described
what it will take for companies to prosper in the future by drawing upon what
we know today--what we really know, based on rigorous research--about speed
flexibility, learning, and innovation. Anyone interested in preparing firms for
tomorrow will benefit from this important book."
"Provocative, insightful, and an extraordinary useful look at
managing complex organizations in rapidly changing environments. This book must be read by managers
and scholars trying to comprehend the challenge of managing in uncertain times
under compressed time constraints."
“In this rich and comprehensive book, George Huber calls on
managers to take stock of their companies through a careful and systematic
analysis of environmental and other pressures that will shape the nature of
business into the future. The depth of analysis and detailed advice for
managers is impressive. The book provides leading-edge perspectives on
knowledge management, change, culture, strategy, and many aspects of decision
making and human resource management. This is a timely and comprehensive book that
includes everything the informed manager needs to know to examine his or her
business and move it successfully into the future. This is a must read for the
serious, thoughtful executive.”
“The Necessary Nature of Future Firms is
cleverly written, grounded in history, integrates an unusually extensive survey
of organizational research, and is filled with evocative examples and practical
guidelines which should make it great reading for practitioner and theorist
alike. Huber has accomplished a rare feat--he has created a book that is both
practically relevant for executives and suggests many viable avenues for
organizational scholarship.”
Sage College Publishing
