1st Edition

Understanding Business Environments

Edited By Michael Lucas Copyright 2000
    298 Pages
    by Routledge

    296 Pages
    by Routledge

    What are the forces shaping today's business world? Understanding Business Environments provides key readings which introduce the student to the factors underlying the business environment. Including chapters by gurus such as Anthony Giddens, Stuart Hall and Will Hutton, the book covers:
    * social forces including the social structure and long-term social change
    * technological factors including Information Technology and new production technologies
    * economic factors including the impact of macroeconomic policy and of the financial system
    * political factors including the legal environment and government-business relations.

    INTRODUCTION: THE CONCEPT OF THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT 1 Globalisation 2 Identifying environmental issues 3 The traditions of thought in the study of economy and society SECTION 1: THE ECONOMY 4 Conservative governments and the economy, 1979–97 5 Finance unbound 6 The management of the UK economy 7 A marxist reading of the UK economy and its management 8 Living without borders 9 Global cooperation or rival trade blocs? SECTION 2: SOCIETY 10 The structure of society 11 Social trends since World War II 12 Changing social divisions: class gender and race 13 Why inequality doesn’t work 14 A new international division of labour? 15 Culture and management SECTION 3: THE STATE 16 An overview of the English legal system 17 Power and the state 18 Putting the advanced capitalist state in perspective 19 Government–business relations in Japan and Korea 20 Business routes of influence in Brussels: exploring the choice of direct representation 21 Globalization and the advanced capitalist state SECTION 4: THE SYSTEM? TECHNOLOGY, ECOLOGY AND GLOBALISATION 22 Creating the corporate future 23 Daniel Bell and the information society 24 Global information infrastructure: eliminating the distance barrier 25 Globalization, new production concepts and income distribution 26 A road map for natural capitalism 27 Reflections on the politics linking science, environment and innovation

    Biography

    Michael Lucas, the Open University