ABSTRACT
E.F. Schumacher described the Arab oil embargo of 1973 as the watershed economic event of the twentieth century. “Things will never be the same again,” Schumacher (1979, 5) said, and they haven’t. The embargo provided the small crack that many organizations (e.g., Japanese auto manufacturers) needed to get a stronger foothold in the international market, and the global economic race was on. With the world’s two most populous countries, China and India, now in the race, the demand for oil and other natural resources is rising and will continue to rise for the foreseeable future. A key point exposed by the 1973 embargo is that the causes and effects of environmental turbulence go beyond the boundaries of economic activity, spilling into the arenas of politics, social welfare, and ecological concerns. Incredible advances in technology have paralleled the explosion of global economic activity since the embargo. Modern information technology has transformed almost every product and every process in every industry. Further, there have been increasing social and environmental demands from citizens worldwide leading to unprecedented levels of consumer advocacy, social activism, and legislation aimed at changing the way organizations do business. These complex, interrelated economic, geopolitical, technological, social, and ecological demands define the twenty-first century business environment that organizations must be capable of adapting to if they want to survive and thrive.
