The organisational landscape is changing rapidly in the first decade of the twenty-first century, and the pace of these changes seems certain to increase. Prominent management academics and practitioners writing in the 1980s and 1990s heralded many of these transformations.

A significant change affecting organisations — and one that helps shape the contemporary organisational environment — is the emergence of the global economy. Global competition is now the new economic reality, which translates into a management cultural revolution, such that it can now be said that business is international business. To be effective within the global marketplace, managers must understand the importance of cross-cultural managerial practices and the demands of culturally diverse workforces. Given these imperatives, the most effective managers of this decade and beyond will be those who adapt within the cultural context in which they manage. The management of people in diverse workforces and in different countries is an important theme in this book, because there is now an important shift from parochial to international managerial practices.

Another paradigm shift in management thinking is the increasing focus on producing more effective and efficient workplaces and organisational structures. A second theme in the book explores these landscape adaptations. The information revolution has occurred where, for example, industrial organisations such as the car manufacturing giant The Ford Motor Company, complete with blue-collar factory workers, are being replaced at a phenomenal rate by information organisations such as the giant software company Microsoft, filled with white-collar, knowledge workers. The Henry Fords of the old organisational world have handed over to the Bill Gates of the new world. The emerging information organisations are quite different from their predecessors. Typically, they are smaller and smarter; they have core, peripheral and outsourced staff; their keys to success are information and knowledge; their organisational structures are fluid and organic, to make them more responsive to necessary changes; their hierarchy is minimised; and expert teams of employees solve problems and make decisions. Moreover, the place of work is rapidly changing. In the 1980s international companies typically had offices strategically located in the major capital cities of the world, and business executives spent considerable time commuting. Many of these corporate edifices are no longer needed because the Internet and video conferencing are fast communication facilities and because so many people telecommute for all or at least part of the working week.

Other chapters in this book focus on the twenty-first century changes taking place at the individual level, particularly noting issues with the centrality of work across cultures and the design of jobs, along with their effects on motivation and, ultimately, organisational effectiveness. Essentially, managers must fully understand individual differences in traditions, values and attitudes across cultures. They must create environments in which work is interesting and challenging, employees are empowered to embrace autonomy and responsibility, and there is a better balance between what an employee wants from the organisation and what the organisation offers. They must develop new structures to facilitate teamwork and learning in the new knowledge-based organisations. And they need to promote harmony and minimise conflict.

All these initiatives foreshadow changes to the processes of management, and these too are explored here. It is increasingly clear that new and modified managerial competencies are required to maintain a company’s competitive edge. To name but a few, flatter organisational structures of the future signal changes in the use of power by managers; more emphasis has to be placed on communication because it is the life blood of any organisation; and managers and leaders with vision are required to transform their organisations in an everchanging landscape. Achieving the latter will not be easy. Some leaders and managers aspire ‘to go where no manager has gone before’, yet most of them feel more comfortable in familiar territory or space. However, embracing and initiating change is paramount for achieving a competitive edge. Ultimately, management is about getting results — the right results — and thus, more effective managers are required in the twenty-first century.

Organisational Behaviour: A Global Perspective introduces students to the new realities of work and organisations in the twenty-first century. The book is designed to help managers in all countries to adapt to and cope more effectively with the pressures and demands of the information age. It also updates the field of organisational behaviour to incorporate the new challenges associated with the global marketplace. Effective managers of the future will require a sound understanding of the organisational frameworks, theories and practices presented in this text if they wish to meet the increasingly challenging performance targets associated with managerial life and globalisation.