Swans, Swine, and Swindlers addresses a core, contemporary question: What steps can we take to better anticipate and manage mega-crises, such as Haiti, Katrina, and 9/11?This book explores the concept of "messes." A mess is a web of complex and dynamically interacting, ill-defined, and/or wicked problems; their solutions; and our conscious and unconscious assumptions, beliefs, emotions, and values. The roots of messes can be classified as Swans (the inability to s...

Swans, Swine, and Swindlers addresses a core, contemporary question: What steps can we take to better anticipate and manage mega-crises, such as Haiti, Katrina, and 9/11?This book explores the concept of "messes." A mess is a web of complex and dynamically interacting, ill-defined, and/or wicked problems; their solutions; and our conscious and unconscious assumptions, beliefs, emotions, and values. The roots of messes can be classified as Swans (the inability to s...

In February of 2008, amid the looming global financial crisis, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France asked Nobel Prize-winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, along with the distinguished French economist Jean Paul Fitoussi, to establish a commission of leading economists to study whether Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—the most widely used measure of economic activity—is a reliable indicator of economic and social progress. The Commission was given the further task of laying out an...

Business revolves around making decisions, often risky decisions, usually with incomplete information and too often in less time than we need. Executives at every level, in every industry, are confronted with information overload, less leeway for mistakes, and a business environment that changes rapidly. In light of this increased pressure and volatility, the old-fashioned ways of making decisions–depending on intuition, common sense, and specialized expertise–are simply no longer sufficie...

The definitive introduction to organizational economics, with contributions by leaders in the fieldIn even the most market-oriented economies, most economic transactions occur not in markets but inside managed organizations, particularly business firms. Organizational economics seeks to understand the nature and workings of such organizations and their impact on economic performance. This landmark book assembles the leading figures in organizational economics to pr...

There has been an explosion of interest in entrepreneurs in the popular media, as well as in business, policy, and education. But what do entrepreneurs do? What is entrepreneurship and why is it important? What is distinctive about entrepreneurs? And where do they come from? In this Very Short Introduction Paul Westhead and Mike Wright weave a pathway through the debates about entrepreneurship, providing a guide to the entrepreneurial process. They look at how the actions of entre...

In this book we argue that as a first step it is important to recognize these group dynamics and the problems they cause. Some of them can be minimized through, for example, properly designed decision processes. Others are more complicated. But all of them need to be recognized and understood so that we can properly shape our expectations of the degree and quality of oversight corporate boards of directors can provide, and so that we can turn our energy toward the many group level factors ...

Financial disasters--and stories of the greedy bankers who precipitated them--seem to underscore the idea that self-interest will always trump concerns for the greater good. Indeed, this idea is supported by the prevailing theories in both economics and evolutionary biology. But is it valid?In What Price the Moral High Ground?, economist and social critic Robert Frank challenges the notion that doing well is accomplished only at the expense of doing good. Frank explores ex...

This innovative textbook covers the most important challenges facing family businesses. Practice-inspired and research-based, it emphasizes both practice and theory along with concepts, cases and reflection questions to illustrate key topics.This text discusses the relevance of family firms across the globe, their unique strengths and weaknesses, their governance, strategic management, the succession process, drivers of long-term success and interpersonal dynamics. Taking a holisti...

Mixing personal narrative, managerial theories, real-life case studies, classroom lectures, and philosophical musings, Michael Zisser's new How The Other Sector Survives provides a practical and engaging guide to successful management in the non-profit, social service sector. His invaluable expertise comes from nearly 30 years of experience leading the nation's first settlement house, based on Manhattan's Lower East Side, including maneuvering unique mergers and acquisitions with other non...

Strategic decisions deal with the long-term direction of the firm and its main activities, usually the responsibility of the top managers in an organization. Because the firm is the critical unit of analysis in strategy, we need to define what firms are, how they create value, and what their organizational boundaries are in order to understand their overall performance. However, this must be done in a manner that is most useful for strategic analysis and decision making. In other words, we...

In commerce, many moral failures are due to narrow mindsets that preclude taking into account the moral dimensions of a decision or action. In turn, sometimes these mindsets are caused by failing to question managerial decisions from a moral point of view, because of a perceived authority of management. In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram conducted controversial experiments to investigate just how far obedience to an authority figure could subvert his subjects' moral beliefs. In this thought-pro...