Sustainability is not just about being green. According to the author, a professor of management in Australia who questions the foundations of “Anglo/American capitalism” in favor of a more socially kind model as is practiced in Germany's Rhineland, it also means survival of a business and of the society and community that surround it.
Critics have correctly pointed out that the business environment in Germany is not ideal. Entrepreneurship and innovation struggle there; a graying workforce imposes growing demands on the social safety net. Not least, Americans at their desks during the summer can only watch in awe while Germans typically enjoy six weeks of paid vacation each year.
Avery is ready for all these arguments, and argues that despite them the Rhineland model is still better for business and society. “The key differentiators between the two models are the long-term, stakeholder, and contextual focus of the Rhineland model versus the short-term, shareholder-oriented, and self-centered approach of the Anglo/U.S. approach. The evidence indicates that the Rhineland model is more sustainable in that it enriches not only the enterprise but also those who come into contact with it,” she writes.
While we do not think it is quite fair to lump all Anglo and U.S. companies together to make generalizations about management, the Sustainable Leadership Grid that the author outlines does offer readers a shorthand to compare and contrast these different models on such elements as decision making, “people priority,” teams, union-management relations, knowledge management, and others. In general, it is fair to say, as Avery does, that a CEO in the Rhineland is a “top team speaker” while in the United States the CEO is often held up as a “decision maker, hero.” In the element of management development, the Rhineland tends to “grow their own” while U.S. companies prefer to “import” new managers, with mixed success.
We like the comprehensive case studies that the author offers on a variety of successful Rhineland companies, some (but not all) already household names abroad: Porsche, Novartis, BMW, and Allianz, for example. The end result is a scholarly but readable book that challenges much of what we take for granted about management in the world today and attempts to offer a different if not flawless path.
Gayle C. Avery is a professor of management at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.