Here are some representative answers to our question. You can also add your own thoughts here.
“Centralized management structure will seem most antiquated as the speed of business will continue to accelerate companies that thrive will be unencumbered with the command/control ways of the past.”
“The need for large, expensive & highly trained information technology departments will have disappeared because reliable, robust & highly configurable solutions will be available via the Internet.”
“Structural characteristics—already we are seeing the dissolution of almost any defined form (certainly any fixed form) reflected in network analyses that illuminate the real, or necessary, paths of process flows and communications, and the essential ongoing art of ad hoc organization.”
“Hierarchies with people called superiors will be perceived as antiquated given that most of the connections that are important to business (ie customer contact…) are in the hands of what we today imply are inferiors!”
“Hierarchies with people called superiors will be perceived as antiquated given that most of the connections that are important to business (ie customer contact…) are in the hands of what we today imply are inferiors!”
Insipid silliness. Sin will always be alive and well within the human heart. A system of accountability will always be required. Delegated and dispersed authority? Absolutely, that’s in place now. But no one pointing the direction, no one leading and a system to get there? Where do people come up with this nonsense?
Maryland Brian
This professor needs to get off campus once in a while. I am a manager in a large Fortune 500 company and from what I see practically all his observations are wrong in the real world. One example is the return of centralized control over data, as the past 10 years or so has produced some rather disjointed, home-grown stuff. Companies are clamping down on internet use, which is widely abused throughout the work day. And those in control will never give up the power and prestige of the hierarchy. But maybe in twenty years . . .. Nah!