Lean and Mean : Changing Landscape of Corporate Power in the Age of Flexibility

"Downsizing" seems to the (widely applauded) order of the day for giant firms like General Motors, IBM and General Electric.

Is big business on the way out? Are small firms better at generating new jobs and spurring technological innovation?This book shows that in response to international competition, big companies are becoming leaner.

Powerful multinational corporations are focusing on their core businesses and contracting out other activities, forming strategic alliances with domestic and foreign partners (many of them small firms). The book helps the reader to understand, and learn to live with the brave new world of business organization, where economic activities are decentralized, but where big firms continue to be in control.

How to reconcile the private advantages of networks with the public purpose of ensuring high labour and environmental standards is the great challenge of today.

Bennett Harrison is the author of "The Great U-Turn" and "The Deindustrialization of America".