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A blueprint for reinvention.Today's leaders know that spped and agility are the keys to any company's success, and yet many are frustrated that their organizations can't move fast enough to stay competitive. The typical chain of command is too slow; internal resources are too limited; people are already executing beyond normal expectations. As the pace accelerates, how do you inspire people's energy and creativity? How do you collaborate with customers, vendors, and partners to keep your organization on the cutting edge? What kind of organization matches the speed and complexity that businesses must master—and how do you build that organization?Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat, one of the world's most revolutionary companies, shows how open principles of management—based on transparency, participation, and community—reinvent the organization for the fast-paced connected era. Whitehurst gives readers an insider's look into how an open and innovative organizational model works. He shows how to leverage it to build community, respond quickly to opportunities, harness resources and talent both inside and outside the organization, and inspire, motivate, and empower people at all levels to act with accountability.The Open Organization is a must-read for leaders struggling to adapt their management practices to the values of the digital and social age. Brimming with Whitehurst's personal stories and candid advice for leading an open organization, as well as with instructive examples from employees and managers at Red Hat and companies such as Google, The Body Shop, and Whole Foods, this book provides the blueprint for reinventing your organization.

TODAY'S LEADERS KNOW THAT SPEED and agility are the keys to any company's success, and yet many are frustrated that their organizations can't move fast enough to stay competitive. The typical chain of command is too slow; internal resources are too limited; people are already executing beyond normal expectations. As the pace accelerates, how do you inspire people's energy and creativity? How do you collaborate with customers, vendors, and partners to keep your organization on the cutting edge? What kind of organization matches the speed and complexity that businesses must master—and how do you build that organization?Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat, one of the world's most revolutionary companies, shows how open principles of management—based on transparency, participation, and community—reinvent the organization for the fast-paced connected era. Whitehurst gives readers an insider's look into how an open and innovative organizational model works. He shows how to leverage it to build community, respond quickly to opportunities, harness resources and talent both inside and outside the organization, and inspire, motivate, and empower people at all levels to act with accountability. The Open Organization is a must-read for leaders struggling to adapt their management practices to the values of the digital and social age. Brimming with Whitehurst's personal stories and candid advice for leading an open organization, as well as with instructive examples from employees and managers at Red Hat and companies such as Google, The Body Shop, and Whole Foods, this book provides the blueprint for reinventing your organization.

Over the last few decades, there has been a great deal of management literature recommending the removal of firms'hierarchies and the empowerment of employees. Ivan Pongracic, Jr. examines these themes through the lenses of the economic theory of the firm. Balancing the tendency for management literature to overlook basic costs and trade-offs of decentralization, and the rigidity of economics that hinders an appreciation for the real world phenomenon of decentralization, this book arrives at a realistic middle ground between the two extremes. The dance between hierarchy and employee empowerment exists in even the most hierarchical firms, and this book explores this often overlooked dynamic.The decentralization of decision-making and flattening of managerial hierarchies within business firms can best be understood as a response to situations where employees hold knowledge that is superior to that held by firms'owners and managers. Decentralizing decision-making in those circumstances allows firms to utilize their employees'superior personal knowledge, often by encouraging them to act in creative, entrepreneurial ways, while requiring some reliance on intra-firm spontaneous order processes to co-ordinate the activities of the employees. This book adds an important component to the standard economic theory of the firm by exploring the implications of intra-firm knowledge dispersion. It also explains how firms engage in a process of continuing experimentation to create an organizational structure that fosters employee creativity and entrepreneurship.Scholars in economics, entrepreneurship, organizational studies and management will find this book a fascinating exploration of firm behavior.