Formerly a top operational manager with multinational organizations, John Harte applies his hands-on knowledge of the business world to provide a realistic examination of workplace and marketplace conditions. In place of reasoned management and disciplined organization, Harte depicts daily distractions, disorder, vagueness, and confusion. Instead of the logical processes described in classroom case histories with rational solutions, he provides tales of an abundance of irrational judgments, personal foibles, and business follies.

Harte has witnessed the demise of many companies—some of which, in his opinion, could have been saved. With over thirty years' experience to draw on, he analyzes why so many businesses and products fail, when others succeed. He examines the amazing progress of Japan and other Pacific Asian countries; explains the decline of German, Canadian, British, and French management practices; and provides strategies for top management and the marketplace.

The business sectors described in this all-encompassing book include: high-technology; fast-moving packaged consumer goods; manufacturing and retailing consumer durables soft goods; fashion products; service sector industries; manufacturing, wholesaling, and retail trade; and a whole range of new service industries. His unusually tough-minded view will benefit business entrepreneurs, managers, and executives, as well as those interested in the study of business and marketing.