Rigid, old corporate styles, like the inflexible steel and stone headquarters that symbolized them, are fast becoming quaint vestiges of things past. Many of today's managers are beginning to understand that encouraging some behaviors at the edge of accepted organizational propriety can actually help their companies keep up with and adapt to the intense pace of change in the dynamic competitive environ I ment of the twenty-first century.

HBR Case Study. Bert Donaldson was a star performer at home in the States. But in Europe, he's floundering. He arrived in Zurich a year ago to build a European team by uniting the local parts suppliers that Argos International based in Detroit, has acquired.

Ideas at Work. When woven into a company's critical management systems, activity based costing can be a powerful tool for continuously rethinking and improving a business. But most managers do not realize how much is involved in implementing and in getting employees to embrace ABC in this way.