Changing Fortunes

THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF AMERICA'S LEADING INDUSTRIAL CORPORATIONS

In the late 1990s, the New Economy threatened to eclipse the Old Economy of traditional industrial corporations. Yet with the recent spectacular tumble of the Nasdaq and the crushing failure of dot.coms, it is clear that while the big industrials will never again occupy center stage in the economy, they still play a vital role in our business landscape. One of the first books to address the role large corporations will play in the coming century, Changing Fortunes examines this evolution and looks ahead to what these changes mean for owners, managers, employees, and the public.

Written by an eminent Harvard Business School professor and two accomplished business historians, Changing Fortunes examines the dramatic shifts in strategy that such industrial behemoths as GE, Westinghouse, DuPont, Dow, Ford, GM, Xerox, USX, and Kodak underwent in moving from an industrial to a postindustrial economy. Based on statistical analysis of Fortune 100 industrial corporations as well as detailed historical case studies of individual companies, Changing Fortunes highlights the continuing role of the industrial corporation as supplier of essential goods and services as well as of surplus funds to feed the fast-growing and cash-hungry enterprises of the twenty-first-century economy.

The process of change that began a quarter century ago is not yet complete. Changing Fortunes will help leaders in all business sectors learn to recognize and accept the continuing necessity of change in order to embrace a promising and prosperous future.

NITIN NOHRIA is Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration and Chair of the Organizational Behavior Department at Harvard Business School. He is the author of The Differentiated Network, winner of the Academy of Management's Best Book Award.
DAVIS DYER is a founding director of The Winthrop Group, Inc., a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based firm specializing in business and technology history, and a faculty member at Monitor University, part of the Monitor Group. His most recent book is (with Daniel Gross) The Generations of Corning: The Life and Times of a Global Corporation (2001).
FREDERICK DALZELL is a senior consultant with The Winthrop Group. He holds a PhD in American Civilization from Harvard University and is coauthor of a forthcoming study of Procter & Gamble.