ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the importance of the changing global business environment. It explains the factors that have caused it and the major types of change. The three types of change that occur most frequently in organisations are incremental, transitional and transformational. The chapter also explores management response paradigms and their suitability to today's global business environment. It describes the challenges that contemporary organisations face. Organisations that are determined to develop a strategic approach to innovation need to facilitate and sustain cultures that encourage creativity in order to generate ideas. The chapter discusses how change affects the fortunes of business organisations and warns of the dangers of management and marketing myopia. Senior management of MNCs as well as SME entrepreneurs need to be alert to the dangers of business environmental trends and to respond swiftly. The current and foreseeable discontinuous change that is impacting on business organisations emphasises the importance of continually reappraising the business environment.
