The new corporate environment will differ significantly from that of the present period. Those industrial organizations of the present day which will survive in the knowledgebased society and economy are those whose organizational structures, processes, and technologies provide them with the necessary flexibility to change in ways which will make them compatible with the changing societal environments.

In the current period of transition, society and its institutions are in the process of exploring new goals, values, technologies, and processes. Certainly, not all of these new goals, values, technologies, and processes will prove to be acceptable, and will survive into the knowledgebased age. It is this very uncertainty that is the cause of disagreement as to the eventual shape of the emerging age. Many of the alternative goals, values, technologies, and processes that will be rejected during this period of transition may well be resurrected and implemented at some point during the knowledgebased society. Thus, whatever characteristics are projected today may well change tomorrow.

Information is the latest organizational function to be targeted for inclusion in the strategic planning process, as one more means of improving the probability of attaining organizational performance objectives. The incorporation of information management into the strategic planning process is imperative in the wake of the vast increase in the stock of information managers must assess and address.

There is a significant danger, however, that the economic dislocations (worker unemployment, firm bankruptcies, and declines in national economic activity in some countries) associated with the transition period between an industrial economy and a postindustrial economy will not themselves be transitory. A more or less permanent character for these phenomena would significantly mar the attractiveness of a postindustrial society and economy.

One major reason for the significant impact of knowledge will have on future society is found in the growing size of the knowledge base. Considering its present size, even a significant reduction in the rate of knowledge growth would not preclude a continued significant growth in the absolute level of knowledge.

A mechanistic organization tends to be formal and somewhat forbidding, while the organic organization tends to be highly informal and somewhat chaotic. The organic organizational structure is associated with change, and such a structure is preferable when functioning within a dynamic external environment. Innovation is fostered by an organic organizational structure,