Workforce Ecosystems: Reaching Strategic Goals with People, Partners, and Technologies

by Elizabeth J. Altman, David Kiron, Jeff Schwartz

A pioneering guide to understanding and leading workforce ecosystems, which include not only traditional employees, contractors, and gig workers, but also partner and complementor organizations that work with companies to accomplish enterprise and individual goals.

Who is your workforce? This was a simple question when most organizations focused on hiring full- and part-time employees, but now organizations engage with both internal and external collaborators including subcontractors, freelancers, app developers, marketplace sellers, and others. As technology enables new, more efficient forms of working, and roles become more project- and outcomes-based, workforces are evolving into workforce ecosystems requiring updated strategies, leadership, and management practices.

Workforce Ecosystems by Elizabeth J. Altman, David Kiron, Jeff Schwartz, and Robin Jones is an essential research-driven framework for leading these complex, interconnected workforces. Drawing on case studies, worldwide surveys, and extensive interviews with C-suite executives and senior leaders from Amazon, IBM, Mayo Clinic, NASA, Nike, Roche, Unilever, the US Army, Walmart, and others, the authors explore what workforce ecosystems are and how to navigate their unique challenges and opportunities.

Practical and field-tested, Workforce Ecosystems will prepare leaders to identify distinguishing characteristics of workforce ecosystems; take advantage of their increasing relevance as the world becomes more interconnected and technology-enabled; refine business strategies to incorporate them; focus leadership, management practices, and technologies to leverage them; and traverse the ethical, societal, and public policy considerations of workforce ecosystems.

256 pages, Hardcover

Published April 11, 2023

About the author

Dr. Elizabeth J. Altman is an assistant professor of management at the Manning School of Business, University of Massachusetts Lowell. Altman served as a visiting professor at West Point and has been a visiting scholar at the Harvard Business School. She is currently Guest Editor for the MIT Sloan Management Review research program on the Future of the Workforce. Altman teaches strategy, organizational theory, and human resources in undergraduate, MBA, and doctoral programs. Her research focuses on strategy, innovation, platforms and ecosystems, leadership in the digital economy, organizational identity, and organizational change.

Altman spent 19 years in industry. She was a vice president at Motorola in executive roles in industrial design, product development engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and strategy. Awarded a U.S. Dept. of Commerce and Japanese government fellowship, Altman worked as an engineer for Sony in Japan. She lectures and consults worldwide for multi-national clients and has served on corporate and non-profit boards.

Altman’s work has been published in Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Journal of Management Studies, and other internationally recognized management journals and books. Altman co-authored the book, “The Innovator’s Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work,” (Harvard Business Press).

Altman holds a Doctorate in Business Administration from Harvard Business School, a Master’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s of Science in Management both from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), and a Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University where she served on the Board of Trustees. Altman was named one of Boston Magazine's “Top 100 Most Influential Women in Boston,” and one of Boston Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” top business and community leaders. She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.