The Frontier of Management

One of our most esteemed writers on economics and management here gathers 35 essays aimed at instructing America's industrial managers in the problemsand certainly the opportunitiesof our postindustrial society. Drucker may be difficult reading for the novice in this field, but his pieces, arranged in categories such as economics, people, management and the organization, make clear his thesis that today's economic-industrial frontiers are being manned by more-or-less faceless entrepreneurs who are emerging as managers of the big corporations that have gone through such crises as the 1973 oil crunch devised by OPEC and the ensuing inflationary storm, the virtual takeover of the car market by the Japanese, etc. American managers, he shows, have courted disaster by going for ""short term'' profits, whereas innovation is the ticket for the futureand for workers whose jobs are gone, the need for flexibility is urgent. Drucker shows keen insights into his themes, which range from high-tech innovations, automation, German/Japanese productivity, to the ``liberal art'' of management, the prophetic ``visions'' of IBM's Tom Watson, hostile takeovers and much more. Fortune Book Club and Executive Program main selectons; BOMC alternate. (October)