n barely one generation, our culture has experienced two momentous changes in tandem. Rigid work structures that provided relative stability and prosperity for 150 years have given way to a more fluid postindustrial economy, driven by new technology and global competition. At the same time, women are for the first time assuming positions of influence in business and in public life. The confluence of these two transformations, one economic and one social, has enormous implications for the hture.
The new economy is rewarding companies that decentralize the means of production, which today include knowledge, expertise, and human talent. It simply has become less expensive to organize work in dspersed, local settings-down to the private home-than in massive offices or factories. As Peter Drucker reminds us, value creation is shifting to the indwidual rather than to the organization as a result of these changes. For many, however, this concept presents difficulties. People fi-equently perceive themselves as powerless because of the pace of organizational change and the erosion of employment security. It is thus a time of great insecurity. Nevertheless, rmllions of professionals-women in particular-are learning to invent their own positions rather than waiting for a new system to provide them. Women are often most affected by the breakdown of barriers between work and home, and by the changing relationship between organizations and employees. They are initiators of the social revolution that has allowed half of humanity to begin taking its place in the larger society. So the study of women's lives at this particular moment offers us the opportunity to assess the impact that the social and economic revolutions are having in at least three realms of public life: career development and training, commercial and social entrepreneurship; and the new physical, social, and spiritual communities that are reshaping American culture.