Corporate Resurgence and the New Employment Relationships: After the Reckoning

A critical mass of events has been transforming the American work scene, bringing unprecedented and irreversible changes in how American corporations relate to world markets and how they interact with their workforce. These changes are bringing about New Paradigms in corporate structure, organization, and operation. For many corporations, these changes involve substantial alterations such as recasting worklife. Rebirth is often validly used as a descriptive term for corporations that successfully weathered the massive onslaught of global economic, demographic, and technological changes in the last decade and the imperatives confronting many others for years to come. Officials, executives, and students need to know how and why new policies, strategies, organization designs, and employment relationships are indicated as well as lessons learned and guidelines from which to launch new policies and employment relationships. This is necessary because: these parties must enact or guide developments; or, they are a part of the changes and need the understanding of the factors which have changed their work roles, their expectations for the future and in many cases their standard of living.

This book is written to provide understanding and sufficient examples and guidelines for planners, strategists, and senior managers so that they can start to address the specifics of their situations. It provides numerous exhibits encompassing New Paradigm features; point-by-point features of newer employment relationships (based on a new psychological contract); timely and useful reference information sorted out according to key topics. New Paradigm organizations are characterized by management credibility, mutual trust, and cooperative working relationships. Employee involvement and participative management are hallmarks of the New Paradigm companies.

ELMER H. BURACK is Professor of Management, University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of some 19 professional and academic books and has consulted with a number of organizations in the human resource and strategic change areas. In addition to his professional and academic work, he has held a number of regional and national offices. He is currently a board member (and co-founder) of the Midwest Human Resource Planner’s Group.