I don't know. I look in Time Magazine (10/24) and see the story about how
American manufacturers are, by far, the most productive in the world. The
article shows BMW building cars in Sparanburg, SC with quality standards
above and costs below anywhere else in the world that BMW could have built
the factory. The article also cites the Nucor steel plant as the most
prodcutive (statistically) plant in the world. Obviously something has
occurred in American management culture to revive the manufacturing sector.
Likewise the American finacial services sector -- the diversity and value of
the products from this area eaily dwarfs that found anywhere else in the
world.
It's easy to bash MBA's, but it's almost impossible to disassociate the
results now evident in American industry with an increasing professional
satndard among management. No study to correlate the causes and effects, but
the results that are now present in the American economy point to some agent
that has managed to create a quantum leap in both quality and cost
containment.
= Joe Raimondo =