Read "New Millennium Thought: Perspectives and Trends" (posted below) and answer the following Questions. You are part of the top management team of a large multi-national organization and you are an expert in the diffusion of innovations perspective. You are expected to be the discussion leader as your organization considers adopting a strategic plan for the next ten years. How will you plan to address the issues raised in this case study? What concepts from chapter 10 and chapter 11 may be particularly important to integrate into your organization as you look toward the future?

New Millennium Thought: Perspectives and Trends

Perspectives on the New Millennium

As the new millennium continues to unfold and we look toward the future there are very different trajectories that organizations may follow. One critical factor appears to be the continued availability of cheap energy. Large-scale production requires significant amounts of cheap energy and many scientists believe that the era of cheap energy, in the form of oil, may soon be ending. Another important factor is that the basis of the world economic system is predicated on continued growth of population and consumption. Many environmental scientists, however, argue that our finite planet has only so many resources. Some argue that we have already passed the point of maximum population, while others argue that point looms on the horizon.

What implications do these observations have for the new millennium? The end of cheap energy and population growth will significantly impact the type of world in which we live. As you will see in the sections to follow the most significant changes will be smaller and more local forms of organizing. Large corporations will no longer exist in this environment. People will be organized in smaller communities that may need to be self-sufficient in energy and agricultural production. Consumer products will be produced in cottage businesses.

Are these changes inevitable? If so, when will they occur? These questions are difficult to answer and complete answers are beyond the scope of the present case. Some of the sources cited below provide our readers with a starting place to find out what the scientific community is saying about these issues.

Traditional Perspectives and the New Millennium

The traditional perspective of organizing is still being played out in the global marketplace. Large corporations continue to compete with one another for market share by producing products in mass quantities at ever-higher levels of efficiency. Sadly, efficiency often requires cheap labor where workers are not paid a living wage whether at Wal-Mart in the U.S. or in a manufacturing company in China.

The continuation of the traditional model, however, requires the availability of huge amounts of cheap energy to fuel large-scale production processes. And the era of cheap energy appears to be coming to a rapid end. Crude oil prices are at $78.00 per barrel as of the fall of 2010 (Bloomberg, 2010) and most experts believe that prices will only continue to increase. Why is crude oil so expensive? The answer is complex. Part of the problem is the instability in the Middle East, the major oil-producing region in the world. So, security costs now have to be factored into oil production and delivery. The two Gulf Wars have also damaged many oil fields in Iraq (a major producer) to the point that extraction costs now exceed the oil yield from those fields. These damages may have eliminated access to billions of barrels of oil, a significant loss to the world market (Orlov, 2006).

Most troublesome is the belief held by many scientists that we have reached or soon will reach the state of peak oil production. Peak oil is that point at which the production of oil will start a continual decline. Another way of looking at it is that when we reach peak oil, only half of the amount of oil that exists on the planet remains. On the one hand, thats a lot of oil. On the other hand, worldwide consumption of oil continues to increase every year. Furthermore, the oil we have accessed to the present point in time was the easiest and least inexpensive to extract because it was closer to the surface. The oil that remains is more expensive to extract and will only become more so. At a certain point drilling is no longer viable because it will cost more energy to remove the oil than the energy that oil produces. So, we will never be able to gain the use of all the oil that remains because of the increasing costs of extraction.

Why all this focus on oil? Well, oil is the cheapest and most efficient energy necessary for large organizations to use to produce and transport products. Oil is also the cheapest form of energy to heat homes, produce electricity, and fuel vehicles. If oil continues to become more expensive, we will need to rely increasingly on other forms of energy (solar, wind, hydrogen, nuclear, battery, hydroelectric, etc.). The problems with these alternatives is none is as efficient as oil as a producer of energy; they cannot, at present, come close to meeting world energy needs; and some of them are unreliable. So, without the availability of cheap, efficient, and reliable energy, the traditional model of large-scale production will end.

Some argue that we will discover new technologies that will meet our increasing energy needs, but most scientists are not so optimistic (Pfeiffer, 2006). The implication of the eventual end to cheap energy is a collapse of large-scale production and a return to simpler models of pre-industrial production. Sophisticated technologies requiring huge amounts of energy will no longer be available. Simple production by small groups of individuals using hand tools may become the norm, at least during a transition period as we redefine how we organize ourselves. The way we live, how we travel, the education we will need, and the jobs we choose will all be affected by this profound shift.

One very interesting source that describes the impact of peak oil is James Howard Kunstlers (2005) The Long Emergency. He believes that developed countries such as the U.S. will need to make new arrangements in a post-industrial age for the manufacture, distribution, and sale of ordinary goods. Specifically, goods will probably be made on a cottage industry basis rather than on the factory model because the scale of available energy will be much lower. The selling of products will also need to done on the local level so merchandise only needs to be moved short distances. Although there is no way to predict when these changes may occur, in the next five to ten years it will become increasingly clear what road we will be traveling down.

Interpretive Perspectives and the New Millennium

How society socially constructs reality during the end of the cheap oil era will have a significant bearing on the world we live in. Ignoring the problem will not make it go away. Furthermore, the cheap oil era has had significant environmental impacts, including global warming. Rising temperatures and ocean levels and more catastrophic storms will impact where people may live and work.

One way to socially construct reality in this era is taking a Darwinian survival of the fittest perspective. Nations will compete for access to cheap oil and oil wars are not out of the question according to the Research and Development Center of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Westervelt & Fournier, 2005). Of course, this competition will ultimately fail because of the massive amounts of energy required to fight the battles to gain access to oil. Also, by competing, we lose the advantages of cooperation. Specifically, to face the complex problems associated with the end of the fossil fuel era we need to work collaboratively with one another thereby tapping the best creative minds of the world. This is a very different construction of reality than the competitive model that exists at present. The U.S. is showing no signs of reducing its thirst for oil, neither is India or China. The U.S. and China, in particular, have also shown a commitment to competition in seeking access to the cheapest oil available.

Another dominant interpretive frame that may emerge in the next several years is aggressive pursuit of technological solutions to the energy problem. This pursuit may also be either competitive or cooperative. What makes this frame unique is that it is driven by the belief that science will produce an answer to our energy needs that will allow us to sustain not only our present energy usage but also increasing needs in the future. Those who hold onto this interpretive frame are advocates of continuing the traditional model of large-scale organizing and production.

If society embraces the possibility of finding a technological solution to the energy problem to allow continued growth we will eventually need to challenge the problems associated with growth. When economists use the term growth they are referring to more people buying more products and services. Obviously, this means continued increases in population. If population continues to expand we will need to harvest more of the worlds resources including metals, wood and agricultural land.

The final interpretive frame challenges the economic and population growth model in exchange for a conservation model. Dr. M. King Hubbert, the first scientist to discuss peak oil, observed:

For most of human history the population doubled every 32,000 years. Now its down to 35 years. That is dangerous. No biologic population can double more than a few times without getting seriously out of bounds. The world is seriously overpopulated right now. There can be no possible solutions to the worlds problems that do not involve stabilization of the worlds population (Hubbert quoted in Hickerson, 2004, p. 1).

The reason it is critical to stabilize the worlds population is that humans continue to need more natural resources and energy in order to survive. Most of the worlds scientists agree that current population and energy trends are unacceptable and not sustainable. According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the impact of excessive, unsustainable energy consumption may undermine the very culture and the activities it supports (Westervelt & Fournier, 2005). Given these problems, what options may frame our vision of the future?

In place of the growth model is a steady state model in which world population is stabilized (perhaps at reduced levels) and the economy neither grows nor shrinks. Of course, this framework raises numerous moral, ethical, and social issues for many people. There are also economists that challenge the viability of a steady state economy. Support for this framework does exist, however (Czech & Daly, 2004; Hickerson, 2004). Two leading advocates of the steady state model of population and economics are Brian Czech, a wildlife biologist, and Herman Daly, a former economist at the World Bank and author of Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development. These two researchers argue that a steady state model is inevitable given the fundamental conflict between economic growth and the conservation of life (all species) on the planet. Humans have gone too far in abusing the environment and harvesting the earths resources. Survival in the future will depend on positioning our population and economic activity within a steady state where the earth may replenish its resources for continued use over time.

The health of a steady state model is also dependent on shifting away from the focus on competition that dominates capitalistic industrial society. In place of the competitive model is one of cooperation and community. Even in developed countries people may find themselves living in smaller towns organized into neighborhood associations, neighborhood watch programs, community gardens, and existing friend and family networks. Agriculture will be localized with community gardens providing certain food needs. Remaining food needs of townspeople will require forming cooperative networks with communities of farmers. In the cooperative communities envisioned by S.R. Wolf, editor of Uncommon Thought Journal, building knowledge and skills among community members will be critical. Community members will need knowledge so they can become self-sufficient in basic survival skills related to food production, constructing and maintaining shelter, maintaining transportation systems (e.g., bicycle and small engine repair), and protecting the environment. Skills such as working with hand tools, using herbal medicine, making septic systems, paper making, candle making, glass blowing and blacksmithing may all become highly desirable skills in small self-sufficient cooperative communities. In order to build this knowledge base and the requisite skills needed to promote community health, Community Colleges may become critically important. Although the changes that are implied in the shift from a competitive capitalistic model to a cooperative community model are significant, they are possible. Preparation, planning, and community building will be necessary. As Wolf (2006) concludes, the more we can do now, and the more we can build and move into an alternative organization and economy, the more likely we are to successfully meet the future that will come.

Critical Perspectives and the New Millennium

Discussion Question:

You are part of the top management team of a large multi-national organization and you are an expert in the diffusion of innovations perspective. You are expected to be the discussion leader as your organization considers adopting a strategic plan for the next ten years. How will you plan to address the issues raised in this case study? What concepts from chapter 10 and chapter 11 may be particularly important to integrate into your organization as you look toward the future?