The productive edge : how U.S. industries are pointing the way to a new era of economic growth / Richard K. Lester.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-357) and index.

1. Introduction -- 2. American Industrial Performance: A Top-Down View -- 3. Something Borrowed, Something New: The Regeneration of the U.S. Automobile Industry -- 4. Salvation from Outside: The Triumph of Electric Steel -- 5. Doom, Gloom, and Boom: The Comeback of the American Semiconductor Industry -- 6. The Deregulation Solution: Competition Comes to the Power Industry -- 7. Creating New Industries: Systems Competition and the Emerging Age of Wireless -- 8. Three Forces of Industrial Change: Innovation, Globalization, and Deregulation -- 9. Fads and Fashions and Nuts and Bolts -- 10. Putting People First -- 11. Information Technology: Doing IT Right -- 12. Best Practice Revisited -- 13. Investment, Growth, and Uncertainty.

Recently, significant new productivity gains have been reported in important industries, both old and new. What is it about such industries, and individual firms in those industries, that has enabled them to regain their productive edge?

In this book, a leading authority on this crucial issue searches five recent success stories - in automobiles, steel, semiconductors, electric power generation, and cellular communication - for clues to shape a new national strategy for economic growth. Taken together, these reports from the front lines of American industry point to a new agenda for growth, tailored to the volatile, unpredictable conditions that will persist in the economy for the foreseeable future. At the heart of the agenda is a proposal for a "new economic citizenship"--A new view of the rights, responsibilities, and resources that should be accorded to those who will contribute their ideas and labor to the new century.