Has Capitalism Reached A Turning Point?
Steve Denning
Forbes, 26 September 2014
EXTRACT
These events are worth remembering in the context of the emerging movements to reform the management of big corporations today, as thought leaders allude to the possibility of a Reformation in management, and indeed of the entire system of capitalism in which managers operate. Thus in June 2014, Clayton Christensen and Derek van Bever wrote in the June 2014 issue of Harvard Business Review (HBR). “The orthodoxies governing finance are so entrenched that we almost need a modern-day Martin Luther to articulate the need for change.”
Christensen and van Bever are not alone in calling for some kind of Reformation. At the conclusion of this article, I list a number of the articles that have appeared over the past few months in leading pro-business journals such as Harvard Business Review, The Economist, Financial Times, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and Forbes.com, all denouncing key management practices and calling for major change. So are we reaching a turning point in management, and indeed in capitalism as a whole, analogous to the religious Reformation five centuries ago?
