The Third Industrial Revolution: From Hierarchy to Matrix to Network

A Third Industrial Revolution from 1950 to the present day brought with it new technologies, and nations were able to exploit those technologies, with sustained efforts to close the gap that existed between them and others. The Third Industrial Revolution was (is) in essence an information revolution or digital revolution—a technological shift involving microchips, computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM), fibre optics, lasers, holography, biogenetics, word processors, robotics, engineered materials, and space exploration. It was a twentieth-century breakthrough in information processing and transmission that created a new global, networked economy. This chapter will provide a narrative of how high-performing economies in the Asia Pacific Region responded to the industrial and commercial revolution and how their organisations provided new insights into effective performance. The narrative will reference the incredible growth of the Chinese economy to become the second largest in the world and of India, as the fifth-largest economy as well as the ‘Asian Dragons’ of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, followed by the ‘Asian Tigers’ of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand. But it was the standout economic performance of Japan on which this chapter will focus and in particular new approaches to organisational design, development and structure.