Rethinking the Enterprise: Competitiveness, Technology and Society

by Philippe de Woot

Overview

The challenges of the 21st century are immense: implementing a more sustainable development model, maintaining markets and societies as open as possible, deploying entrepreneurial dynamism in the service of the common good, boosting employment, reindustrializing Western countries while promoting the development of emerging countries. ... How can we better focus our extraordinary creative capacity to meet the challenges ahead? If there is a key trend in our time, it is that of the progress of science and technology. This trend has become a steamroller, whatever the vagaries of history and economic conditions. It is enterprise that transforms, often as soon as they emerge, scientific knowledge and technologies into products and services. By mastering the methods and tools of techno-science, it has the power of knowledge behind its economic strategies. Techno-science constantly provides new opportunities and more powerful competitive weapons. Enterprise is therefore the main mediator between science and society. Yet is it an agent of progress? This essay explores the key role enterprise could play in the transformation of the economic system. By changing its culture, it can be a powerful tool to better meet the global challenges of our century. De Woot proposes that a spirit of enterprise, creativity and innovation are necessary responses to societal challenges. Although the current economic model is the source of major deviations, enterprise in the broadest sense can help correct many of them. From *problem* it can become *solution*.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781783532261
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/16/2014
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Philippe de Woot is Emeritus Professor at Louvain Catholic University in Belgium, where he taught Business Policy, Strategic Management and Business Ethics. He has led multidisciplinary research in these fields and is still actively committed to the research and promotion of Corporate Social Responsibility. He is the author of many books and articles on these subjects. He is a former Dean of Louvain School of Management and has taught at INSEAD as an invited professor in the Avira Program. He has been Consultant or Director of various European multinational corporations. He is a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium, the International Academy of Management and the European Academy for Arts and Sciences. He is Correspondent of the Institut de France.

Table of Contents

Author’s noteIntroduction1. Drifts and deviations of the market economy1.1 A high-performing model1.2 Globalisation and autonomy of economic power1.2.1 Increasing power of economic players1.2.2 Power disconnected from politics and ethics1.3 Unwanted systemic effects, drifts and deviations1.3.1 Damage to the planet1.3.2 Poverty, inequality, precariousness1.3.3 Weakening of social ties1.3.4 Financial domination1.3.5 Behavioural drift2. Rethinking the purpose of business2.1 Economic creativity: specific function of business enterprise2.2 Ambiguity of economic and technical creativity2.3 Transforming creativity into progress3. A responsible entrepreneurial culture3.1 Restoring ethical and civic dimensions to corporations3.1.1 Back to ethics3.1.2 Back to citizenship and the ‘political’3.2 Areas of progress: entrepreneurship, leadership, statesmanship3.2.1 Entrepreneurship: the entrepreneur, creator of progress and not just profit3.2.2 Leadership: leaders, architects of creativity and collective consciousness3.2.3 Statesmanship: executives as citizens, societal dimension and new consultation

Editorial Reviews

"For de Woot, the question is not to curse or contradict the enterprise but to revisit its purpose, its raison d’être. In this task he is at his best. Using Greek myths he takes us back to the forgotten fundamentals of the economic saga: enterprise’s vocation is to be creative and innovative. The entrepreneur is there to change the existing order and this is neither simple nor without danger. This essay is thought provoking. It is vital to read it to find at the same time pleasure and ideas. It is so rare…!"

Jean-Pierre Hansen

"Invites us to rethink the enterprise in its contribution to society rather than as a machine to produce profit while stakeholders are reduced to externalities."

Bruno Colmant