CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- The most popular "buzzwords" in this time of change must surely be "globalization" and "restructuring." Allow me to indulge in one more reference to the latter with some remarks that may be quickly criticized as an example of "old-school, bureaucratic" thinking.
In all sincerity, however, I offer them from a "Third Way" perspective, echoing, especially in the government sector, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi's philosophy on reform in general.
Restructuring in the corporate world is following new and irreversible dynamics, which are dictated by the new deity, international competition. Prominent foreign economists and businesspeople dispute the Japanese prime minister's search for a middle ground, which, according to a recent article in the Far Eastern Economic Review, offers scant hope "for a speedy turnaround in the fortunes of the world's second-largest economy."