After writing about big companies and innovation, how they should change their inner structure and culture in order to keep up, I found this 1998 Harvard business review;
Despite all the recent talk of decentralized management, empowered employees, and horizontal processes, the large industrial organization continues to dominate the economy today…… but we see sign of a counterphenomenon: the disintegration of the larger corporation.
It describes the history and the economic need for organizations than and now, and the signs of a new economy that is slowly rising allowing for elastic networks of entrepreneurs and freelancers rather than big corporates to do what needs to be done in a creative and efficient way. It points on new roles bigger companies might play in this new entrepreneurial era, and what the future could bring for the networks of entrepreneurs and freelancers. Absolutely worth a read with some good examples and signs of our ever changing economy. How long before we are in this era of microbusinesses and elastic networks?