As every manager knows, new technologies are transforming products, markets, business processes, and entire industries, revolutionizing the business environment. Yet the more technology looms as a factor of competition, the more the emphasis in managerial books, executive education classes, and corporate training seminars is on the “soft” arts of leadership, change management, and employee motivation. In other words, the more science and technology reshape the very essence of business, the less useful the concept of management itself as a science seems to be.
A version of this article appeared in the November–December 1992 issue of Harvard Business Review.
