Successful businesses have spent the past two decades retooling and rethinking how to manage their people better. Most big companies that have survived and prospered in the 21st century view employees as a vital strategic asset. In comparison, the U.S. federal government is a Stone Age relic, with its top-down bureaucracy, stovepiping of labor and responsibilities, and lack of training and investment in its own public servants. The inevitable result is a government not keeping up with the ...

This book provides the first comprehensive economic valuation of U.S. National Parks (including monuments, seashores, lakeshores, recreation areas, and historic sites) and National Park Service (NPS) programs.The book develops a comprehensive framework to calculate the economic value of protected areas, with particular application to the U.S. National Park Service. The framework covers many benefits provided by NPS units and programs, including on-site visitation, carbon sequestrat...

The true cost of the Iraq War is $3 trillion—and counting—rather than the $50 billion projected by the White House.Apart from its tragic human toll, the Iraq War will be staggeringly expensive in financial terms. This sobering study by Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda J. Bilmes casts a spotlight on expense items that have been hidden from the U.S. taxpayer, including not only big-ticket items like replacing military equipment (being...

We all negotiate on a daily basis. We negotiate with our spouses, children, parents, and friends. We negotiate when we rent an apartment, buy a car, purchase a house, and apply for a job. Your ability to negotiate might even be the most important factor in your career advancement.Negotiation is also the key to business success. No organization can survive without contracts that produce profits. At a strategic level, businesses are concerned with value creation and achieving competi...

This study is about the principles for constructing polite speeches. The core of it first appeared in Questions and Politeness, edited by Esther N. Goody (now out of print). It is here reissued with a fresh introduction that surveys the considerable literature in linguistics, psychology and the social sciences that the original extended essay stimulated, and suggests distinct directions for research. The authors describe and account for some remarkable parallelisms in the linguistic constr...

Leading economist John B. Taylor’s straightforward plan to rebuild America’s economic future by returning to its founding principles.Mired in a crippling economic slump and hamstrung by partisan political debates, America faces substantial economic challenges, from widespread unemployment to the government’s ballooning debt. These assaults on our prosperity reflect the unintended consequences of more than a decade of government intervention in virtually all areas o...

When discussing being stuck in a "win-win vs. win-lose" debate, most negotiation books focus on face-to-face tactics. Yet, table tactics are only the "first dimension" of David A. Lax and James K. Sebenius' pathbreaking 3-D Negotiation (TM) approach, developed from their decades of doing deals and analyzing great dealmakers. Moves in their "second dimension"-deal design-systematically unlock economic and noneconomic value by creatively structuring agreements. But what sets the 3-D approach...

This volume presents in a forthright and lively way, an account of the philosophical position generally identified as 'Postpositivistic' that undergirds much of mainstream research in education and the related social sciences. The discussion throughout is informed by recent developments in philosophy of science. Authors D. C. Phillips and Nicholas C. Burbules cite a number of interesting examples from the educational research and evaluation literature to illustrate the value of a scientifi...

An account of George W. Bush's accomplishments in office, by an administration insider and Washington Post columnist.A former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush, Marc A. Thiessen offers a record of Bush's two terms and the events and policies that shaped them—including his response to the devastating attacks of 9/11.In chapters covering the economy, education, foreign policy, health care, disaster response, immigration, and a number of...

Peter Cappelli confronts the myth of the skills gap and provides an actionable path forward to put people back to work.Even in a time of perilously high unemployment, companies contend that they cannot find the employees they need. Pointing to a skills gap, employers argue applicants are simply not qualified; schools aren't preparing students for jobs; the government isn't letting in enough high-skill immigrants; and even when the match is right, prospective employ...

This book provides students with a concise introduction to the philosophy of methodology. The book stands apart from existing methodology texts by clarifying in a student-friendly and engaging way distinctions between philosophical positions, paradigms of inquiry, methodology and methods. Building an understanding of the relationships and distinctions between philosophical positions and paradigms is an essential part of the research process and integral to deploying the methodology and met...