This article begins by analysing classical concepts of efficiency, productivity and quality, bearing the following factors in mind: land physical resources, capital and work. It then deals with the role of new strategic factors: cybernetic management, the speed of information flow and the capacity to produce knowledge within organisations, these representing a new focus registering qualitative advances in large corporative companies' competitivity from the 1970s onwards, seen as part of a more complex vision. Recent advances in the field of management (within a globalaised social setting, based on infomation systems affecting innovation capacity, improved efficiency and transaction costs and the development of potential for modern organisations' growth) have been aided by the above three factors.