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Show well in the world, and changes of great significance are taking place. Let me share with you the findings of a survey we have underway at the Stanford Research Institute, now called SRI International, where I also serve as Chairman. We set out to learn what businessmen perceived to be the critical issues of the 1980's, to ascertain the impacts and the implications of these issues on how business will function, and to learn how management is or should be responding to those issues. The work is not yet complete and, thus far, the chief executives that have been interviewed in depth are all headquartered in the United States, a deficiency that will be corrected. Many of those interviewed manage multinational companies. Some of the findings may be peculiar to the United States. Yet most of the issues appear of concern to many countries. Surprisingly, there is a strong consensus that centers around six principal issues. Without attempting to list them in the order of their importance, let me first as a reporter describe these to you, and then as a commentator single out one or two for special dis-cussion. INCREASED GOVERNMENT REGULATION Businessmen are gravely concerned about the increased quantity and deteriorating quality of government regulation and control. Despite the overwhelming evidence that the free market system is awesome in its accomplishments and has served people well, the public and the public servants seem to be losing faith in the market place. If they concede it is efficient, they question whether it is also necessarily equitable. We prospered under a system that aimed at providing "equality of opportunity" and recognized that difference in performance merited difference in re-ward. This system is under attack from those who seek "equality of end results" regardless of differing contributions. New political power centers and new forces have coalesced, striving to enlarge the role of government at the expense of the private sector and of individual rights and freedom. Businessmen are concerned because they observe that more government has not meant better government. Indeed, the converse seems to be true. As government has extended its reach and taken on problems of ever greater complexity, gov-ernment regulation has proven to be contradictory, increasingly complex, and sometimes counter-productive. Thinking men are becoming more and more apprehensive about the quality of the decision-making process in the public sector and its vitiating effect on the productive private sector. LOSS OF PUBLIC CONFIDENCE Businessmen are also very much concerned about the growing evidence that the business community, in the United States and elsewhere has lost much public confidence. All business has been much embarrassed by the conduct of some businessmen; and the disclosures of their conduct have cast clouds of suspicion not easily dispelled. Certain politicians and certain members of the media find this is grist for their mill and are quick to exploit any mistrust of busi-ness generally and big business in particular. The task of rebuilding business credibility is high on the list of things that need doing. ECONOMIC PROBLEMS The loss of public confidence in business, and the increased intrusion of government into business and into personal affairs, causes a third area of concern that centers around the future of an economic system buffeted by high rates of inflation, declining productivity, and inadequate capital formation. Again, these problems are not exclusive to the United States. Unless these adverse changes can be brought under better control, the consequence is likely to be a slowing down in economic growth rates. This in turn will bring in its wake chronic unemployment and inflation, a worsening climate for business, and an unreasoned demand for government to do more, even though a disillusioned public is beginning to recognize that government is often more the cause than the cure. CHANGING SOCIAL VALUES A fourth area of concern centers around the recognition that today people are different. Social values have changed. Individual expectations have changed in relation to work, for example. As corporations have grown larger, identification with the company has declined as has the worker's loyalty to it. More highly educated and affluent employees see more to life than career, and expect a good deal more than economic benefits from their work-life. Business is conscious of the need to develop managers and methods that will successfully deal with the changed attitudes of the 80's. The system will not survive unless those who toil in its vineyards decree that it should. Nor is business the only area that should be concerned about the individual's change in values and aspirations. Other surveys show that people are also disenchanted with virtually all social institutions with trade unions, with government, with the media, even with the church. LACK OF ENERGY POLICY Certainly in the United States it is not surprising to find that there is concern among the thinking about the inability of the nation to develop a national energy policy the fifth issue. Despite the urgency of the problem, the U.S. has made no progress in five years in assuring its future energy supplies. The special pleaders are everywhere in evidence on the energy scene the environ-mentalists, the champions of the "no growth philosophy", those favoring and those opposing the development of nuclear power, the advocates of the new and exotic fuel sources, the traditionalists who still see the only near-term solution in the increased production of oil, coal, and nuclear reactors. Because energy impinges upon everyone, uncertainty about the availability of energy, its form, 2 |