James A. Donald opines:
At 06:24 PM 8/13/96 -0700, Checkered Daemon wrote:
a) Knowledge jobs require tremendous capital investment, as in degrees, training, continual updating of skills, etc.
But they do not require much capital investment by the boss. That is to say the key corporate assets are increasingly owned by the employees,
At some point one would expect this to lead to a change in business structure, but I see no signs of this happening.
One large change, which has been discussed previously on the list, is that management is becoming more and more a function of specifying WHAT is to be done, rather than HOW it is to be done. This leads to a business model based more on the independent contractor (whether it's a single individual, or a business that does 'outsourcing' work) than the traditional industrial assembly line. Add ubiquitous high-speed data communications networks, and suddenly national governments become not only irrelevant, but actual impediments to a free market economy. Potholes, if you will, on the information superhighway (attribution to T. May). The structural changes are many. Worldwide regulatory and tax arbitrage. Elimination of the entire job category of 'middle management'. Capital in the form of knowledge and reputation rather than fixed physical assets. Intentionally temporary organizational structures. Individual responsibility for what used to be called 'benefits'. I'm a networking consultant. My father had three jobs in his entire lifetime. I had three jobs this morning. If that's not structural change, I don't know what is. -- Checkered Daemon cdaemon@goblin.punk.net Delirium: There must be a word for it ... the thing that lets you know that TIME is happening. IS there a word? Sandman: CHANGE. Delirium: Oh. I was AFRAID of that.