Introduction To Market-Based Management



Introduction To Market-Based Management

To begin with, Introduction to Market-Based Management was an excellent booklet and provided an extreme amount of information to organizations who currently follow a command-based management approach. Although, according to the market-based management booklet a market-based approach is best for organizations who want to be successful, it is by no means an easy transition. In order for a company to fully transition from command-based management to market-based management they have to undergo a tedious, yet fulfilling process. After reading how successful Koch Industries is and how they once had fewer than 700 employees, about 1,000 miles of pipeline, and operations focused on Kansas and Oklahoma twenty-five years ago has grown into a company that has an annual track record above industry average lets me know that their use of "market-based management" is the greatest move any organization can make.

The basis of the market-based management booklet is to provide readers with the principles the authors believe are important in making progress toward their first objective: "to articulate the conceptual framework and principles of market-based management in a manner that could be understood by the entire organization". In my organization this objective does not apply. Any information would not be "articulated" to the whole organization,but to a managers and higher ups. I like this way of thinking because the whole organization will feel they are involved and play an important role in the outcome of the organization. Furthermore, the booklet goes on to state that organizations and businesses need to tap into their employees talents, abilities, and knowledge in order to serve the customer better. According to the authors of the booklet, to accomplish this goal they must use market-based management because it provides a framework on how they can meet the requirements.

In addition, this book is very different in that it tells a story not only of business success but also of growing intellectual discovery and the application of ideas from a wide range of free-market writers who most of the readers of Economic Affairs will know well. The ideas of von Mises, Hayek, Polanyi, Vernon Smith, Schumpeter and many others have been considered and utilised in one way or another. To some people, this process confirms Keynes's famous dictum that businessmen espouse the ideas of some defunct economist, but this reviewer sees it as a rebuff to Keynesian cynicism. Charles Koch (pronounced Koke) succeeded to a private family business, Koch Industries Inc., which has done extraordinarily well. It is now a hugemultinational across a range of industries, and as the business has grown its owner/ manager has had to devise methods of control like any other multinational. This is very difficult for every firm as it expands. How do you ensure that all the managers and staff on whichever continent they are working are doing so as conscientiously as possible for the company? Charles Koch went into the family business in 1961 after graduating from MIT and a spell consulting with Arthur ...