Her early work looked at the communes of the 1960's and the social movement that brought them into existence, and the book she wrote about it, called "The Men and Women of the Corporation", had a big impact.
The new model organization, she notes, is lean, flat and athletic, rather than tall and authoritarian.
It's the job of the people at the top, Kanter says, to set the goals and values of the corporation, below them the middle layers design and manage the programmes and the systems, the forums and relationships that bind the whole together, while the project ideas and innovations hopefully bubble up from the bottom layers.
Her latest book e-Volve, draws together the best ideas of the best companies. The Internet, she says, could produce a great leap forward to a shared consciousness around the world and connect peoples everywhere. The best businesses in the digital world, she says, will be those that foster community internally and serve communities externally.
Rosabeth, of course, ends with a list of the qualities needed by business managers if they are to succeed in the new world of digital commerce:
- curiosity and imagination
- good communication skills, near and far
- cosmopolitan mindset, not confined to a single world view
- grasping complexity, finding the connections
- caring about feeding peoples' bodies and spirits
Biography:
Rosabeth Moss Kanter was once listed by the London Times newspaper as one of the fifty most powerful women in the world. Yet she commands nothing except ideas.
Not yet sixty, Kanter has been writing books of great insight for a long time, and the latest one may be her best yet. It is called 'e-Volve!'.
She is a sociologist by training and it shows. She looks at organizations as communities and cultures. Professor Kanter's current research is on the development of new leadership for the digital age.
She also runs a successful consultancy business, Goodmeasure Inc., whose consulting clients include some of the world's most prominent companies. Goodmeasure is currently developing Web-based versions of Kanter's leadership and change tools, to help embed them in the daily work of organizations everywhere.
Bibliography:
- Kanter, Rosabeth M. (1972) Commitment and Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective
. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Kanter, Rosabeth M. (1977)Men and Women of the Corporation: New Edition
New York: Basic Books.
- 'The Mind of the Strategist, New York, McGraw Hill, 1982
- Kanter, Rosabeth M. (1983) Change Masters
: Corporate Entrepreneurs At Work,London,Unwin Paper Backs.
- 'The Bordeless World', London, William Collins, 1990
- 'The Evolving Global Economy', Boston, MA, Harvard B.S.P, 1995
- 'The End of the Nation State', London, HarperCollins, 1995
- 'Evolve! : Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow
, Harvard Business School Pr, 2001
- Kanter, Rosabeth M. (2006) Innovation: the classic traps, Harvard Business Review.
- SuperCorp: How Vanguard Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth, and Social Good
Kanter, Rosabeth M. (2009) New York: Crown. - Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End
- When Giants Learn To Dance
- World Class: Thriving Locally in the Global Economy
- Rosabeth Moss Kanter on the Frontiers of Management
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