The current CEO of Wal-Mart says he has "no choice" but to sacrifice the welfare of his employees in order to serve his customers' need for low prices. So, why are they paying the guy millions a year if there is no possibility for him to change things? I think he is either kidding us or himself. The truth is more likely that he likes things the way they are, or he lacks the strategic imagination to come up with a viable and profitable ways to change them. If either is true, he is overpaid and probably not up to doing the job.

By all indications, American business leaders are more adept at creating business strategies than they are skilled at human capital management. American entrepreneurs are world-beaters when it comes to creating new businesses, and corporate managers are adept at using the latest marketing, financial, and technological practices.

As Starbucks' CEO Howard Shultz explains, the high-quality customer service that makes it possible for his company to charge a premium for its coffee results from the investments it makes in employee welfare and training.

Sadly, at Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler sales continually trend downward, manufacturing costs rise, and employment declines. As the result of the decrease in the number of cars produced by American manufacturers, membership in the United Auto Workers has dropped from a high of over 1.5 million thirty years ago to less than half a million today.

Manufacturing productivity is greatly determined by the design of jobs and how workers are rewarded.

The optimist in me sees corporations in the present era as more open to change than they were in the 1990s. Certainly, because of the relatively poor performance of many corporations in the early part of millennial , there seems to be less arrogance in executive suites, and that usually translates to a willingness to consider alternatives.

The status of women in the workplace has improved dramatically since 1972. More women today have good jobs, the gap between the incomes of men and women has been markedly reduced, and women are reporting far higher levels of job satisfaction.