Study Sheet #3
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 American (U.S.) Management and Macroenvironment

stockholder capitalism Protestant Ethic hostile takeover golden parachute executive headhunter poison pill

management buyout buyout equity firm (private equity firm) professional management shareholder value (total shareholder return) performance pay stock option

1. Describe (broadly) the U.S. managerial macro-environment (economy, polity, culture).
2. Identify/discuss general tendencies in the backgrounds and career paths of senior managers in large U.S.

corporations.

Exercise A: Investigate the personal background of an individual U.S. corporate CEO (large company). Find out as much as possible about the following: age, education, family backgound, career path, time in rank, international experience. To what extent does the pattern conform with the descriptive overview in the U.S. chapter in Reader II? Identify your sources of information.

3. What is distinctive about the U.S. system of education for business and management compared to other

countries?
4. What have been some prevalent patterns, pressures and criticisms of American managers and management?

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West European Macroenvironment

Western Civilization industrial revolution Adam Smith social democracy social market economy (welfare capitalism) European Union (EU) industrial policy stakeholder capitalism

relational investing industrial democracy codetermination (mitbestimmung) works council sociotechnical system (e.g., at Volvo) European cultural typologies golden shares; preference shares

5. What is distinctive about the West European managerial macroenvironment (e.g., politics, economy, culture, education)?
6. Compare and contrast U.S. and West European patterns of employer-employee relations.

Exercise B: Investigate and report on the labor-relations environment of a West European country. Look, for example, at patterns in unionism, labor law and the like; identify your sources of information

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Western European Management

7. What is distinctive about managers and management perspective, practice, and style in Western Europe?

8. Identify intra-European variations (by culture or country) with respect to questions 5, 6 and 7.

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Management-by-Democracy (Communal and Employee-Controlled Organizations)

Robert Owen utopian socialist Rochdale Principles Mondragon experiment social ownership workers cooperative examples of democratic organizational forms

direct democracy representative democracy horizontal organization "iron law of oligarchy" economic democracy forms of employee ownership

9. Compare and contrast differences in the management process (i.e., planning, organizing, directing,

controlling, staffing) in conventional versus democratic/communitarian organizations.
10. Discuss the strengths and limitations of "democratic management."
11. Under what conditions and circumstances do coops and communal organizations have the best probability of success?

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