M-Form Society
Ouchi, William G. The M-Form Society. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1984.
In THE M-FORM SOCIETY, Ouchi shows how much government can learn from business
management. The strongest companies are M-Form � multidivisional � where middle
managers may compete with each other but work together to iron out their
differences before approaching top management with unified proposals. This idea
of management teamwork can be successfully applied to society to achieve
striking results.
The book identifies three basic elements of an M-Form society and shows how they
must interact to be effective:
* strong interlocking trade associations � active forces pushing for new
business initiatives and supporting basic research and development that benefits
everyone;
* a responsive governmental organization � a nonpartisan forum for decision
making on business issues of national importance and for implementing new
initiatives;
* the active participation of banks � if banks become stockholders of
corporations, they can ensure a more stable capitalization of business.
Many attribute Japan's success in the world economy to central planning, yet
this book points out that Japan is actually an M-Form society and shows how
competing businesses learned to work together to foster the spectacular rise of
Japan's computer industry. America has its own M-Form success stories � like
Minneapolis, a city that "really works."
In THE M-FORM SOCIETY Ouchi asserts that the United States can move ahead
significantly if we throw off our addiction to adversarial competition and
instead emphasize the teamwork necessary in an M-Form society. He presents a
bold action agenda for achieving this transformation with specific
recommendations for both business and government.
The time for criticizing ourselves is past, Ouchi says. Rather it is time to
look ahead, time to establish the teamwork we need, time for action.
References
http://www.williamouchi.com/book_mform.html |
