cover image Crisis & Renewal

Crisis & Renewal

David K. Hurst. Harvard Business School Press, $24.95 (229pp) ISBN 978-0-87584-582-1

Billed as a radical view of corporate growth cycles, this volume lays out a revitalization plan for managers coping with bureaucratic stagnation. Using the hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari Desert and the Quakers of 17th-century England as analogous cases, Hurst, a consultant and research fellow at the University of West Ontario National Center for Management Research and Development, develops his theory that the evolution of organizations, whether they be corporations, philosophical entities or civilizations, follows a natural pattern that repeats itself and can be predicted. The initial stage is characterized by enthusiasm, high purpose and shared responsibility, which bring out the best in everyone involved. But, alas, a successful enterprise inevitably falls victim to institutionalization as processes are formalized, rigidity sets in and democratic processes are replaced by hierarchical rankings. Only a crisis or near catastrophe can restore the original milieu of purposeful cooperation. Usually this happens on its own; but if it doesn't, Hurst urges managers to create the crises themselves through acts of ``ethical anarchy.'' Author tour. (Sept.)