Strategic Management by
Balancing theory with practice, this fully updated fourth edition of John A. Parnell's acclaimed text continues to provide detailed, accessible coverage of the strategic management field. Concise, easy to understand chapters address concepts sequentially, from external and internal analysis to strategy formulation, strategy execution, and strategic control. To help readers build their analytic skills as they master course concepts, Parnell aligns each chapter's key concepts with 25 case analysis steps, rather than relegating case analysis to a chapter at the end of the book. Current examples and high interest real-time cases, largely drawn from The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, illustrate the key role of strategic management in the United States and around the world. Ideal for the capstone strategic management course, Strategic Management is appropriate for a range of undergraduate and graduate courses.
Intellectual Property and Business by
Intellectual Property (IP) is one of the most vital assets for any business organization. It is a domain not restricted to lawyers alone; it is a crucial area of concern for business organizations, managers, and corporate leaders. Intellectual Property and Business demonstrates how companies can deploy their IP not just as legal instruments but also as dominant and powerful financial assets, and as useful arsenal that can boost their business.
The book aims to provide a basic understanding of various forms of IP that business organizations need to protect, and to analyze and understand IP management and strategy through case studies. It highlights these aspects of IP management through the lens of both a lawyer and a business manager.
Strategic Planning and Business Policy by 
Business and Public Policy by
It is increasingly common for businesses to face public policies and government regulation that demand some form of environmental or social protection. These protective public policies have grown in number, complexity, and stringency over the last few decades, not only in industrialized countries but also in the developing world. In this 2010 book, Jorge Rivera presents a theoretical framework for understanding the relationship between protective public policies and business compliance. This framework explains different levels of business compliance in terms of three different factors: the link between the stages of protective public policies and different levels of business resistance, the effect of country context, and the effect of firm-level characteristics. The second part of the book supports and elaborates on this framework by presenting empirical studies that examine two voluntary environmental programs: the US ski industry's Sustainable Slopes Program and the Certification for Sustainable Tourism in Costa Rica.
Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles by
Written during the Second World War against the background of the economic and political futility of the 1930s, this book deals with the changing role of government, and particularly fiscal policy as an instrument for regulating the national income and its distribution. Arguing that the war had an economic basis - the inability of the great industrial nations to provide full employment at rising standards of real income - the book discusses how the failure to achieve a world order in the political sphere must be sought in the facts of economic frustration.
Minority Policies by
A minority is a sociological group that does not constitute a politically dominant voting majority of the total population of a given society. This book focuses on a variety of issues which threaten minorities in the United States, as well as the policies put in place by the government to ensure the protection of these people. Topics discussed herein include discrimination cases brought against the USDA; Indian Trust Fund Litigation; federal taxation of Indian tribes and members; disadvantaged small businesses; and others.
Business Cycles in Economics by
This anthology presents papers that challenge conventional viewpoints and ideas about business cycles and monetary policy. Some of the selections bring fresh thinking to customary topics, such as business cycle models in perfectly competitive markets, the cyclicality of research and development expenditures, and the effect of uncertainty shocks on consumer spending. Others address concerns that have come to the fore in the aftermath of the global financial crisis - the consequences of quantitative easing, the effectiveness of macro prudential policies, the impact of shadow banking on the fractional-reserve banking system, and correlations in credit default losses, among others. The collection is not meant to be comprehensive (an impossible and uninteresting goal) but rather to bring together noteworthy contributions that might otherwise be submerged in the torrent of contemporary economic writing. The selection criteria were the quality of thinking, clarity of expression, and soundness of empirical research on topics of compelling interest to people who are actively engaged in the field of monetary economics. The papers included in this book also represent a range of approaches to theoretical and applied research. Some of them describe econometric tools and analytical techniques that are adapted to the study of business cycles and monetary policies. Others set forth conceptual frameworks and conduct empirical analyses that offer new insights into macroeconomic fluctuations. Still others adopt a strategy closer to field work, in the form of case studies supported by extensive statistical documentation. In sum, the papers presented in this volume not only tackle topics of pressing interest; they also illustrate the state of the art in the research methodologies employed by monetary economists.
Policy and Choice by
Traditional public finance provides a powerful framework for policy analysis, but it relies on a model of human behavior that the new science of behavioral economics increasingly calls into question. In Policy and Choice economists William Congdon, Jeffrey Kling, and Sendhil Mullainathan argue that public finance not only can incorporate many lessons of behavioral economics but also can serve as a solid foundation from which to apply insights from psychology to questions of economic policy.The authors revisit the core questions of public finance, armed with a richer perspective on human behavior. They do not merely apply findings from psychology to specific economic problems; instead, they explore how psychological factors actually reshape core concepts in public finance such as moral hazard, deadweight loss, and incentives.Part one sets the stage for integrating behavioral economics into public finance by interpreting the evidence from psychology and developing a framework for applying it to questions in public finance. In part two, the authors apply that framework to specific topics in public finance, including social insurance, externalities and public goods, income support and redistribution, and taxation.In doing so, the authors build a unified analytical approach that encompasses both traditional policy levers, such as taxes and subsidies, and more psychologically informed instruments. The net result of this innovative approach is a fully behavioral public finance, an integration of psychology and the economics of the public sector that is explicit, systematic, rigorous, and realistic.
Human Resource Policy by
‘Human Resource Policy'provides practitioners and students with a conceptual framework and practical guidelines to establish and maintain an effective HR policy function. It highlights the importance of, but often neglected, policy function as the vital link between strategy and practice. Taking a uniquely holistic approach to HR policy, ‘Human Resource Policy'demonstrates how HR policies can contribute to the achievement of organisational goals and the development of organisational culture. It focuses on practical aspects such as the processes of policy development and policy implementation so that they are understood and have maximum impact on policy function. Common policy management challenges are also discussed.
Business Strategy by
How will you determine if your company has succeeded if you can't base its performance on a well-defined business strategy? A strategic plan, established at your venture's birth, helps crystalize the future of the organization--mapping a clear path from where the company stands today to where you wish it to be.Renowned business author Brian Tracy has provided a simple path to creating the specific business strategy needed for your company's success. Readers of Business Strategy will discover how to:• Ask the five key questions vital to any strategic plan• Determine a corporate mission that lifts and inspires people• Define themselves in relation to their competition• Anticipate crises• Reposition their business with new products, services, and technology• And moreIncorporating wide-ranging examples--from Alexander the Great to IBM to General Electric--this concise, practical guide gives readers proven ideas for increasing their company's bottom line and maximizing their strengths and opportunities. The path to success starts at the beginning!
Business Strategy by
Managers, strategy consultants, and strategy and entrepreneurship teachers will find this book’s new paradigm illuminating. In non-academic style the author takes off from the Knightian uncertainties or knowledge absences that pervade business and make strategizing both necessary and valuable. He sketches a structured practice that managers and consultants might choose to follow, not a theory. Firms create value only by acting out newly imagined solutions to the opportunities that uncertainties open up. Strategic judgment is the necessary complement to rigorous analysis as these are engaged. Spender follows philosophy’s turn to language, suggesting firms form first as an idiosyncratic constructed language (jargon) that helps their participants select what to pay attention to and interpret what they learn. The entrepreneur’s/CEO’s most fundamental task is thus to create and control the firm’s language (its business model) and thereby its knowledge. The arc of practice–uncertainty–judgment–rhetoric–collaborative practice—turns strategy discourse on its head, presenting it as a constructive value-creating activity rather than the application of theory. This also shows how strategic work is morally and ethically burdened. Chapter 1 introduces these ideas. Chapters 2 and 3 review the languages implicit in consultants’ strategic tools and academics’ theories of the firm. Chapter 4 analyses the constraints to innovative strategic language that, in Chapter 5, is used to draw in the judgments of those others the entrepreneur needs to build a viable firm. Chapter 6 considers the context of private sector strategic work today. There are appendices on case-work, teaching strategy, current strategy texts, and further reading.
Staffing to Support Business Strategy by
Exploring the relationship between strategy, advantage, and staffing, this guide shows that a firm’s talent philosophy and business creed determine its employment needs and explains that a company’s choice and execution of hires directly relates to its overall business sense and competitive edge. Examining nine strategic staffing decisions all firms must make, this essential reference illustrates the importance of people in the quality of a company’s technology and products.
Skills in Business by
Public skills policy in most market economies in the last forty years made one repeated error, time and again. We seem to be unable to learn from those mistakes. Consistently public policies view a wide range of economic and social issues e.g. low productivity, low-skilled jobs, low wage, inequality and in-work poverty as the consequence of skills deficits and a lack of qualifications held by individual workers. Whilst mis-diagnosing the source of the problems and failing to deliver any effective change, public skills policies continue with a policy prescription of 'more skills' and 'more degrees'. If we have not solved the problems with this decade-old approach, why should the same medicine work this time? This book examines the role of public skills policy from a completely different perspective. It starts by challenging the lack of a systematic analysis of the link between skills utilisation and business strategy, and provides a new model for fresh thinking. The book extends this theoretical analysis to examine the implications for the sectoral approach to skills development as a more effective form of public policy. -- from back cover.
The Seven Principles of Digital Business Strategy by
If we are creating most of our competitive advantage at the strategic planning stage, why are we spending so little time on this and so much time on technology? This book is not about why you should digitally transform and become more strategic; it's about how. It lays out the steps that must be taken, the data that should be used, and the decision tree to be followed. Following the principles laid out in this book allows organizational leaders, marketers, and technologists to talk at a high strategic level without getting bogged down in the tactics and delivery that consumes most of the time, attention, and activity in the modern workplace. Use the seven principles of digital business strategy to define the direction of travel for your business in today's digital economy.
The Seven Inconvenient Truths about Business Stragegy by
The Seven Inconvenient Truths of Business Strategy is an antidote to a process of strategic planning that in many organizations is often sporadic, biased, poorly articulated and rarely implemented with total success. Drawing on a fundamental collection of definitive principles, the author offers a structure for strategizing; an indicator and explanation of strategic tools, and insights into collaborative techniques for carrying out the process successfully: formation, evaluation, alignment and implementation. It will help you ensure that your strategic process is always professional, relevant.
Strategy-Specific Decision Making: a Guide for Executing Competitive Strategy by
This comprehensive text provides a novel approach to business policy and strategic management for both undergraduate and advanced courses. Drawing on a cohesive case study, it presents strategic analysis from the operations level of a firm, and gives students the tools to assess the choices that result in a unified implementation of a firm's strategy throughout all levels of the organization. An instructor and student's simulation guide adds to this volume's usefulness.
Smart Policies for Workplace Technology by
"Covers employment policies that employers need to make a workplace safe for technology, including email use, employee blogs, cell phones, Internet access, and much more. The second edition includes a new chapter on social networking sites. It also includes the latest statistics, legal rules and information about workplace technology"--Provided by publisher.
Driving Digital Strategy by
Digital transformation is no longer news. It is a necessity. Sunil Gupta, head of the digital transformation practice at Harvard Business School, provides a framework for large organizations to think through where and how to begin their transformation. Traditional boundaries of industries no longer define competition; businesses have to deal with partners who are both friends and enemies; competitive advantage does not come from low-cost or product differentiation strategies; how companies create and capture value is dramatically changing. This book shows how to rethink the four fundamental pillars of business to reinvent business for this new world. Business leaders, Gupta argues, need to reexamine four fundamental aspects of their business to thrive in the digital era--their business strategy, their value chain, their customers, and their organization. The book addresses questions that arise as companies navigate through this transition and provides a road map for this transformation. Filled with rich case studies and deep analysis, it shows how established firms can mitigate the threat as well as leverage the opportunities in the digital era.-- Provided by publisher.
The Business of Platforms by
The Business of Platforms is an invaluable, in-depth look at platform strategy and digital innovation. Cusumano, Gawer, and Yoffie address how a small number of companies have come to exert extraordinary influence over every dimension of our personal, professional, and political lives. They explain how these new entities differ from the powerful corporations of the past. They also question whether there are limits to the market dominance and expansion of these digital juggernauts. Finally, they discuss the role governments should play in rethinking data privacy laws, antitrust, and other regulations that could reign in abuses from these powerful businesses.
Next Generation Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid by 
Risky Strategy by
"What is risk? Is it danger or opportunity? Can it be managed or is it something to be embraced and tried? When companies are developing their business strategies, risk is often mentioned in passing (and frequently misunderstood), but is rarely seen as a core part of the strategic decision-making process. This can lead to unforeseen complications, as strategy is all about making decisions that concern an uncertain future, and therefore risk should play a significant role in this process. The handling or understanding of risk is often delegated to specialists and much of what is written about risk is, due to its complexity, inaccessible to the majority of senior managers involved in making strategic decisions. This book aims to make the consideration of risk more accessible and understandable to those managers and, in doing so, develop a common language and understanding for talking about it. The book is based on research carried out by Ashridge Business School, as well as live case studies of the strategic decision-making process in action, which really brings the subject to life. By drawing on key elements of both strategy and risk, this book will outline how an understanding of risk can play a critical part in decision-making and offer long-term and profitable gain to organisations"-- Provided by publisher.
How to Write a Business Plan by
"You need a sound business plan to start a business or raise money to expand an existing one. For over 30 years, how to Write a Business Plan has helped fledging entrepreneurs -- from small service businesses and retailers to large manufacturing firms -- write winning plans and get needed financing. This bestselling book contains clear step-by-step instructions and forms to put together a convincing business plan with realistic financial projections, effective marketing strategies, and overall business goals, "--Page 4 of cover.
