Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Business English or Governing for Prosperity

Business English: Writing in the Workplace

Author: Blanche Ettinger

Communication for the Workplace, 4th Edition focuses on the fundamentals of written communication within the context of workplace situations. This book discusses basic problems in written communication (good sentence structure, accurate punctuation, and effective mechanics and spelling) and encourages readers to develop their own writing skills. Using a hands-on, concise approach, it helps readers progress from a novice level of writing to a stage where they are confident in their communication skills. An abundance of business writing samples, activities and cases are included from a variety of fields such as banking, telecommunications, real estate, health care and more!   Refresh readers’ knowledge of basic English grammar and provide an easy-to-use reference for future writing activities. Contain over twenty exercises relating to specific composing deficiencies. Provide practice in areas that can be problematic, such as writing in complete thoughts, changing verb tense, and misplacing modifiers. Reinforce basic English skills by providing practice identifying and correcting sample memos, emails, reports and other business-related documents.  Throughout the book, an abundance of business writing samples, activities and cases are highlighted and relate to a variety of fields such as banking, telecommunications, real estate, health care and more! 

 



New interesting book: Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management or Financial Sector Transformation

Governing for Prosperity

Author: Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

How do political institutions help promote prosperity in some countries and poverty in others? What can be done to encourage leaders to govern not for patronage but for economic growth? In this book, such distinguished political economists as Douglass North, Robert Barro, and Stephen Haber answer these questions, providing a solution to one of the most important policy puzzles of the new century: how to govern for prosperity.

The authors begin from a premise that political leaders are self-interested politicians rather than benign agents of the people they lead. When leaders depend on only a few backers to stay in power, they dole out privileges to those people, thereby dissipating their country's total resources and national growth potential. On the other hand, leaders who need large coalitions to stay in office implement policies that generally foster growth and political competition over ideas. The result is that those who promote policies that lead to stagnation tend to stay in office for a long time, and those who produce prosperity tend to lose their jobs. Analyzing countries in North and South America and Asia, the authors discuss the range of political regimes that permit or even encourage leaders to rule by mismanaging their nation's resources. And they show that nations must forge institutions that allow all social groups to participate in and benefit from the economy as well as force political leaders to be responsible for policy outcomes.

About the Author:
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is on the faculty of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University. He is the author or editor of The War Trap, War and Reason, and European Community Decision Making, all available from Yale University Press. Hilton L. Root is senior fellow at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica.

Booknews

In nine case studies, political economists analyze how politics promotes a country's prosperity or poverty. Bueno de Mesquita is with the Hoover Institution, Stanford U. Root is at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

What People Are Saying

Frances Rosenbluth
Widely respected scholars here address the timely question of how government and growth relate.
—(Frances Rosenbluth, Yale University)




Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Strategic Marketing or The Natural Advantage of Nations

Strategic Marketing

Author: David W W Cravens

Strategic Marketing by Cravens and Piercy is a text and casebook that discusses the concepts and processes for gaining the competitive advantage in the marketplace. The authors examine many components of a market-driven strategy, including technology, customer service, customer relationships, pricing, and the global economy. The text provides a strategic perspective and extends beyond the traditional focus on managing the marketing mix. The cases demonstrate how real companies build and implement effective strategies. Author David Cravens is well known in the marketing discipline and was the recipient of the Academy of Marketing Science's Outstanding Marketing Educator Award. Co-author Nigel Piercy, has a particular research interest in market-led strategic change and sales management, for which he has attracted academic and practitioner acclaim in the UK and USA.



Table of Contents:
Ch. 1Market-driven strategy1
Ch. 2Corporate, business, and marketing strategy20
App. 2AFinancial analysis for marketing planning and control45
Ch. 3Markets and competitive space71
App. 3AForecasting guidelines94
Ch. 4Strategic market segmentation97
Ch. 5Capabilities for continuous learning about markets124
Ch. 6Market targeting and strategic positioning168
Ch. 7Strategic relationships189
App. 7ACustomer relationship management (CRM)215
Ch. 8Planning for new products221
Ch. 9Strategic brand management264
Ch. 10Value-chain strategy292
Ch. 11Pricing strategy and management316
Ch. 12Promotion, advertising, and sales promotion strategies338
Ch. 13Sales force, Internet, and direct marketing strategies360
Ch. 14Designing market-driven organizations400
Ch. 15Marketing strategy implementation and control422

Book review: Acoustic and MIDI Orchestration for the Contemporary Composer or Illustrated Course Guide

The Natural Advantage of Nations: Business Opportunities, Innovation and Governance in the 21st Century

Author: Alan AtKisson

This book is more than just a "palliative care" guide for the planet—it is about innovation, solutions, competitiveness and profitability. At work, at home and as members of society, our generation has an obligation—and an exciting opportunity—to be part of the solution in restoring the balance. The authors present a bold vision for the future and demonstrate how we can get there, drawing on lessons of competitive advantage theory and the latest in sustainability, economics, innovation, business and governance theory and practice. The result is nothing less than the most authoritative and comprehensive guide to date, to building the new ecologically sustainable economy.

For further information about The Natural Edge Project and to view the book’s online companion.



Sunday, February 15, 2009

War and Press Freedom or Storage and Commodity Markets

War and Press Freedom: The Problem of Prerogative Power

Author: Jeffery A Smith

War and Press Freedom: The Problem of Prerogative Power is a groundbreaking and provocative study of one of the most perplexing civil liberties issues in American history: What authority does or should the government have to control press coverage and commentary in wartime? First Amendment scholar Jeffery A. Smith shows convincingly that no such extraordinary power exists under the Constitution, and that officials have had to rely on claiming the existence of an autocratic "higher law" of survival. Smith carefully surveys the development of statutory restrictions and military regulations for the news media from the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791 through the Gulf War of 1991. He concludes that the armed forces can justify refusal to divulge a narrow range of defense secrets, but that imposing other restrictions is unwise, unnecessary, and unconstitutional. In any event, as electronic communication becomes almost impossible to constrain, soldiers and journalists must learn how to respect each other's obligations in a democratic system.

"[Smith] has put together an informed, detailed, and delightful analysis of the gradual erosion of a free press....Smith's strength in this volume is his relentless use of historical example to demonstrate a pervasive erosion of constitutional principle....[Smith] has amassed a powerful argument that concessions to national security lead to a withering of freedom and the emergence of an autocratic secretive' government."-- The Law and Politics Book Review Praise for Jeffery A. Smith's Previous Books

FRANKLIN AND BACHE Envisioning the Enlightened Republic
(OUP, 1990)

"[Smith is] a thoughtful and compellingwriter....He provides insights into both men not found elsewhere. He makes a major contribution in portraying the Jeffersonian journalism of the Federalist period as more than mere namecalling."--Journalism Quarterly

PRINTERS AND PRESS FREEDOM The Ideology of Early American Journalism
(OUP, 1988)

"A splendidly researched and persuasively argued historical review of the original intention of the First Amendment's promise of press freedom."--The New York Times Book Review

"This ambitious, audacious effort rethinks large chunks of American and English history in relation to eighteenth-century American newspapering and pamphleteering and presents the origins of First Amendment theory in a new light."--Journalism Quarterly



New interesting textbook: Amministrazione di vendita: Conoscenza ed abilit�

Storage and Commodity Markets

Author: Jeffrey C Williams

Storage and Commodity Markets is primarily a work of economic theory, concerned with how the capability to store a surplus affects the prices and production of commodities. Its focus on the behavior, over time, of aggregate stockpiles provides insights into such questions as how much a country should store out of its current supply of food considering the uncertainty in future harvests. Related topics covered include whether storage or international trade is a more effective buffer and whether stockpiles are more useful in raw or processed form. Several chapters are devoted to analyzing such government programs as price bands, buffer stocks, and strategic reserves; other chapters deal with the statistical properties imparted by storage.



Table of Contents:

Preface; Acknowledgments;

1. Introduction;

Part I. The Basic Model:
2. Competitive equilibrium with storage;
3. Solving for the storage equilibrium Appendix: Numerical solution of the storage model;
4. The effects of storage on production, consumption, and prices;
5. Convergence to the steady state;

Part II. Implications Of Storage For Reasearch On Time Series:
6. Time-series properties due to storage;
7. Test of rationality;

Part III. Extensions Of The Model:
8. The market's reaction to news;
9. The interaction of storage and trade;
10. Inventories of raw materials, finished goods, and goods in process;
11. Market power and storage;

Part IV. Public Interventions:
12. Welfare analysis of market stabilization;
13. Floor-price schemes;
14. Public storage under price bands and price pegs;
15. Public policies to supplement private storage;

Part V. Epilogue:
16. Lessons about commodity markets and modeling strategies; References; Author index; Subject index.