Business theories and philosophies are rarely the topic of the breakfast table, if indeed people still have time to sit and eat before rushing out of the door. But never before has there been such a period of intense change at every level of our society. Almost everything that we took for granted is now open to debate, where that be the relationship that Britain has with the rest of the world, or at a more personal level, how the company we work for adapts to an increasingly competitive marketplace, and how that will affect our jobs. Nothing is fixed. Everything is up for debate. What we are all searching for is clarity, insights and a reminder of the lessons of history that are in danger of being forgotten.
Fortunately, there is someone who has the answers, or at the very least, some insightful questions that should be asked. “Capitalism in Crisis” is the combined insights of three of the world’s top analytical brains who have been guiding businesses and governments in their quest to find answers and shape strategy. However, what they have cleverly done in this two-volume work is to layout the problems and show the solutions in a highly accessible way using illustrations as well as text. They have proved that a picture is indeed worth much more than a thousand words.
Professor Charles Hampden-Turner, author of twenty two books translated into as many languages; Professor Fons Trompenaars, organisational theorist, management consultant and best-selling author; and Professor Linda O’Riordan, expert in stakeholder management and responsible entrepreneurship. All three have have combined their talents to produce these highly valuable and easy to follow books.
There are two volumes to Capitalism in Crisis. Volume one investigates what has gone wrong. In Part I we state that wealth is created by all stakeholders working as one, that is employees, suppliers, customers the community, the government, the environment and the shareholders. There is a good reason why shareholders are put last; they can only collect what the stakeholders have created between them. They are not last in importance – we need equality – they are last in time. What they earn depends on how well
they have endowed those who do the actual work. Employees, suppliers and customers well served will produce better goods and more revenue. Shareholders must wait for this work to be done. Nations that treat their stakeholders well are growing apace. Stakeholder capitalism is the next evolutionary step.
Volume Two responds to the challenge laid down in Volume One. There we argued that shareholders and the financial sector of the economy had become severed from stakeholders within companies who do the actual work and create the wealth we all enjoy. This has led to gross inequality with declining rewards for those working in the real economy on productive tasks. In turn, this has reduced salaries and wages and diverted funds from the most important contributors. We are less productive and innovative as a consequence. We have become obsessed with money as a mere means and are blind to the worthy ends to which it might be employed. Economic Man is bereft of purpose and meaning. These problems are all socially constructed by the way in which we think and we ended Volume One by criticising excesses wrought by these perceptions and advocated new mind-sets that promise to make us much more effective.
In this volume we will first address the subject of values in Part V. We will argue that values have scientific and verifiable meanings and it is possible to determine with great accuracy the kind of valuing that contributes to our integrity and the values that tear us apart. We criticise the contention of positivists that values are entirely subjective, have no testable meaning and are mere matters of taste, like the taste-buds on tongues. We believe this doctrine has betrayed generations of students and must come to an end. Once we have restored values to their proper place, we will see who in our society creates wealth and value and who does not, who threatens democracy and who supports it. All values are really differences, and we need to reconcile these differences to remain civilized and in dialogue with one another.
Further information from Chris Day Filament Publishing Ltd Telephone 07802 211587 email: chris@filamentpublishing.com
Capitalism in Crisis by Charles Hampden-Turner, Fons Trompenaars, and Linda Riordan
Volume One – 260 pages ISBN 978-1-912635-56-6 £15.99
Volume Two – 304 pages ISBN 978-1-912635-98-6 – £15.99
Size: 203mm x 203mm (8” x 8”)
Distributed through Gardners Books Eastbourne
Launched – May 2019