Business, Economics, Public Relations: Focusing on Leadership, Management, and Preparing Your Company for Future Disasters and Advances

Business Management / Economics / Administration / Public Relations Majors: Preparing for leadership positions? These books will help you take your company to the next level.

Business Continuity Management: Building an Effective Incident Management Plan (BOOK): by Michael Blyth

"Business Continuity Management: Building an Effective Management Plan very effectively details how and what a company should include in composing and executing a crisis management plan. This book is a must read for both laymen and experts alike because it itemizes the most relevant facts within silos that are comprehensive enough for the expert to find value in, yet written in a manner that a layman can derive tangible value. The incident response guidelines, broken down by the event type, provide an extremely useful tool that bring immediate value to the reader."—Robert G. Molina Jr.Global Security Manager Lyondell Basell

Know What You Don't Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen (BOOK): by Michael A. Roberto

“Dr. Roberto has skillfully managed to blend in-depth research with his straightforward and enjoyable style and, in doing so, painted a masterpiece that should be considered by any institution or individual looking to detect or solve problems. Presenting cases and their lessons from multiple venues, he offers wisdom readily applicable to any arena.”—Duane Deal, Retired Brigadier General, United States Air Force

“Solving problems is one thing; finding them early enough to do something about it is quite another. In this entertaining book full of insight and examples, Michael Roberto provides managers with hands-on recommendations on how to avoid falling into decision-making traps by getting a step ahead.”—Sydney Finkelstein, Steven Roth Professor of Management, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, author: Why Smart Executives Fail and Think Again

Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty: The New Rules for Getting the Right Things Done in Difficult Times (BOOK): by Ram Charan

In Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty, Ram Charan helps you steer your business through the minefield of contracting markets, cash shortages, and ongoing uncertainty. No matter what your leadership role, Charan's insight will help ensure that your business emerges leaner, stronger, and well in front of the competition.

"We will not know when we have turned the corner, and we cannot envision the shape and scope of the world that will emerge," Charan writes. "What we can be sure of is that this is a time of tumultuous change, and with change come both danger and opportunity."

In this concise and highly accessible guide, the author provides practical actions you can execute immediately to:

• Protect cash flow vigilantly, even daily, and use cash more effi ciently
• Use ground intelligence to survive the storm and position your business to thrive in the aftermath
• Develop a better understanding of your customers
• Reevaluate your pricing strategy and capital expenditures.
• Use cost cutting strategically

Leading in Times of Crisis: Navigating Through Complexity, Diversity, and Uncertainty to Save Your Business (BOOK): by David L. Dotlich and Peter C. Cairo, Steph

Leaders today are grappling with complex choices, diverse customers and employees, and unprecedented uncertainty in the economic environment. Business models are becoming obsolete, cost and performance pressures are growing, regulatory requirements are changing, and trust in institutions is declining. Tackling these and other growing demands requires every leader to radically rethink what constitutes effective leadership.

Leading in Times of Crisis presents a new approach and concrete steps to compete in this complex, diverse, and uncertain marketplace. Drawing on compelling research and more than twenty interviews with CEOs and top-level executives, former executives and professors David Dotlich, Peter Cairo, and Stephen Rhinesmith highlight the growing urgency to evolve from a traditional, one-dimensional leadership model to what they term “whole leadership.” Whole leadership allows leaders to act in three ways that are important now but absolutely essential to their business in the future:

• Rethink Your Business
• Connect with Stakeholders
• Live Your Values

Project Management: Case Studies (BOOK): by Harold Kerzner

Compiled by Harold Kerzner, the leading authority on project management, Project Management Case Studies, Third Edition presents the most comprehensive collection of project management case studies available today. Featuring more than 100 case studies, this essential book illustrates both successful implementation of project management by actual companies as well as the pitfalls to avoid in a variety of real-world situations.

This new edition: Contains case studies illustrating successful and poor implementation of project management

· Represents a wide range of industries, including medical and pharmaceutical, aerospace, manufacturing, automotive, finance and banking, and telecommunications

· Covers cutting-edge areas of construction and international project management plus a new "super case" on the Iridium Project, covering all aspects of project management

· Follows and supports preparation for the Project Management Professional (PMP®) Certification Exam

Project Management Case Studies, Third Edition is a valuable resource for students, as well as practicing engineers and managers, and can be used on its own or with the latest edition of Harold Kerzner's landmark reference, Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling.

Renewal Coaching: Sustainable Change for Individuals and Organizations (BOOK): by Douglas B. Reeves and Elle Allison

Renewal Coaching provides a series of personal assessments that will guide individuals and teams through the seven stages of renewal. Each assessment includes both survey and narrative responses, and readers can use the journal pages in the text or convenient on-line formats to respond. The Renewal Coaching framework consists of these seven elements: Recognition Finding patterns of toxicity and renewal; Reality Confronting change killers in work and life; Reciprocity Coaching in harmony; Resilience Coaching through pain; Relationship Nurturing the personal elements of coaching; Resonance Coaching with emotional intelligence; Renewal Creating energy, meaning, and freedom to sustain the Journey.

The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff (BOOK): by Clara Shih

Shih is singularly qualified to write this book: One of the world’s top business social networking thought leaders and practitioners, she created the first business application on Facebook and leads salesforce.com’s partnership with Facebook. Through case studies, examples, and a practical how-to guide, Shih helps individuals, companies, and organizations understand and take advantage of social networks to transform customer relationships for sales and marketing. Shih systematically identifies your best opportunities to use social networks to source new business opportunities, target marketing messages, find the best employees, and engage customers as true partners throughout the innovation cycle. Finally, she presents a detailed action plan for positioning your company to win in today’s radically new era: The Facebook Era.

The Improvement Guide: A Practical Approach to Enhancing Organizational Performance (BOOK): by Gerald J. Langley

This new edition of this bestselling guide offers an integrated approach to process improvement that delivers quick and substantial results in quality and productivity in diverse settings. The authors explore their Model for Improvement that worked with international improvement efforts at multinational companies as well as in different industries such as healthcare and public agencies. This edition includes new information that shows how to accelerate improvement by spreading changes across multiple sites. The book presents a practical tool kit of ideas, examples, and applications.

The Innovation Manual: Integrated Strategies and Practical Tools for Bringing Value Innovation to the Market (BOOK): by David Midgley

The Innovation Manual provides a solution to the problems faced by those at the forefront of innovation. It takes you through the seven topics that have the highest impact on the success of value innovation, be this innovation a new product, a new service or a new business model. The seven topics are:

- Creating advantage in the minds of many

- Chartering innovation within the organization

- Preparing, developing and supporting the right team

- Placing customers at the centre of innovation

- Changing the organization to deliver the innovation

- Motivating the right partners and sharing the returns

- Building momentum in the market

Each topic is linked to an organized toolkit that allows managers to apply this knowledge immediately. The tools sit within an overall framework to show how they build on and reinforce one another. Along with this, the book guides busy managers on applying the tools properly, detailing the relevance of each for specific industries, and how to customize them when necessary.

When Growth Stalls: How it Happens, Why You're Stuck, and What to Do About It (BOOK): by Steve McKee

When Growth Stalls demonstrates that sluggish growth is generally produced not by mismanagement or strategic blundering but by natural market forces and management dynamics that are often unrecognized--and widespread. The book presents seven characteristics that commonly correlate with stalled growth and what to do about them. Some are external forces to which countless companies have fallen victim: economic upheavals, changing industry dynamics, and increased competition. What McKee points out, however, is how often they catch companies off-guard. More surprising are four subtle and highly destructive internal factors that conspire to keep companies down: lack of consensus among the management team, loss of nerve, loss of focus, and marketing inconsistency. McKee makes the case that, regardless of what's going on outside of an enterprise, it's what's inside that counts.

Economics: Government Roles and Relationships, Making Policies

Examine the government's role and relationship within the private sector in China, the government's role in globalization, and how "other" options the government should consider when making decisions concerning our environment.

Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the State (BOOK): by Yasheng Huang

"Yasheng Huang is an insightful scholar of China's political economy. In this important book, he shows how China's rural economy took off in the 1980s, led by 'township and village enterprises' that were essentially private, only to be ignored in the 1990s by state-led development that focused on urban regions such as Shanghai. The 'Shanghai miracle,' he argues - and as any businessman who has worked there knows - was not the simple triumph of capitalism, but of a stronger and more intrusive (and effective) state. If one wants to understand the policy origins of China's growing divide between rich and poor, urban and rural, one need look no further than this book."—William Kirby, Harvard University

"Sure to generate a lively debate, Professor Huang's study provides a provocative and well-researched challenge to much current thinking on China's economic development. The widely shared gains of the 1980s have not been matched in more recent years. Danger signs include the stagnation in household incomes, growing inequality and illiteracy, and heightened governance problems. Huang argues that China will not be able to continue to grow unless the benefits of growth are widely shared through fundamental political and legal reforms."—Susan Rose-Ackerman, Yale Law School

Globalization and the Race to the Bottom in Developing Countries: Who Really Gets Hurt? (BOOK): by Nita Rudra

"With this very impressive book combining sophisticated quantitative analysis with subtle national case studies, Rudra confirms her place in the vanguard of scholars working on how politics mediates the effects of globalization in the developing world. Her focus on the importance of organized labor-government interactions and on the plight of the middle class outside the OECD is a welcome corrective to the simplistic mud slinging that all too often characterizes the globalization debate."—Geoffrey Garrett, Chief Executive Officer of the United States Studies Centre and Professor of Political Science, University of Sydney

Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change (BOOK): by Pat Murphy

Plan C explores the risks inherent in trying to continue our energy-intensive lifestyle. Using dirtier fossil fuels (Plan A) or switching to renewable energy sources (Plan B) allows people to remain complacent in the face of potential global catastrophe. Dramatic lifestyle change is the only way to begin to create a sustainable, equitable world. The converging crises of Peak Oil, climate change, and increasing inequity are presented in a clear, concise manner, as are the twin solutions of community (where cooperation replaces competition) and curtailment (deliberately reducing consumption of consumer goods). Plan C shows how each person’s individual choices can dramatically reduce CO2 emissions. It offers specific strategies in the areas of food, transportation, and housing. One chapter analyzes the decimation of the Cuban economy when the USSR stopped oil exports in 1990 and provides an inspiring vision for a low-energy way of living.

Wealth into Power: The Communist Party's Embrace of China's Private Sector (BOOK): by Bruce J. Dickson

"Wealth into Power provides a penetrating analysis of the complex relationship between the Chinese Communist Party and China's thriving private sector. In this ground-breaking study of the political orientations, social backgrounds, and survival strategies of Chinese private entrepreneurs, Bruce Dickson shows that China's new capitalists, far from becoming a driving force for democratic change, have become part of the authoritarian order. By challenging the conventional wisdom about the relationship between economic development and democratization, Dickson presents a sobering political reality that has often been missed in the current discourse on China's future."—Minxin Pei, senior associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and author of China's Trapped Transition

Economics: Efficiency vs Company Responsiveness and a Re-Evaluation of Economic Theories

Controversial writings about new and revised economic theory, analysis from professors at some of the top universities in the world on the recent economic downturn, and a reevaluation of what the best minds in the history of economics have to offer us.

A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent into Depression (BOOK): by Richard A. Posner

A surprising volume that explains what happened to the banking system and economy in terms the lay reader can easily understand...[Posner's] critique is bracing, all the more so because it comes from a right-leaning thinker normally hostile to the ministrations of government bureaucrats. –Paul M. Barrett, Washington Post Book World

Before seeking political asylum in free-market Hong Kong, consider reading a new book that critiques what went wrong with capitalism, written in order to save it. Judge Richard Posner's A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent into Depression is noteworthy. As a longtime University of Chicago professor and father of the free-market-based law-and-economics movement, Judge Posner makes an unlikely critic of capitalism. But as author of some 40 books and as the most frequently cited federal appeals court jurist, he is also one of our most original and clearheaded thinkers. –L. Gordon Crovitz, Wall Street Journal

Business Agility: Sustainable Prosperity in a Relentlessly Competitive World (BOOK): by Michael Hugos

The relentless pursuit of industrial efficiency no longer yields the profits it once did because it requires a level of business predictability that no longer exists. Instead, the Internet and global video and telecom systems provide a massive and continuous flow of data that causes the whole world to behave like a giant stock market, with all the volatility and uncertainty that goes along with such markets. Responsiveness now trumps efficiency.

By being responsive to the evolving needs and desires of specific groups of customers, companies can wrap their products and services in a tailored blanket of value-added services to consistently earn an additional four percent or more gross margin than they would otherwise earn for the product or service alone. This customer and market specialization is the most promising and the most sustainable source of profits in our fluid, real-time economy.

Invitation to Economics: Understanding Argument and Policy (BOOK): by Thomas Mayer

“This well-written, clearly organized book presents a nontechnical, overarching view of economic theory and how it gets applied and interpreted”—Choice Reviews, June 2009

"I wish I had read a book of this kind when I started studying economics. It is more than an introduction to economics--it is an introduction to economic thinking."–Facundo Albornoz-Crespo, University of Birmingham

“Mayer’s work is a timely discussion of behavioral economics and other movements within the field. His comments on the subprime mortgage crisis in particular provide the book with an up-to-date flavor.”–Brandon Dupont, Western Washington University

Economics 2.0: What the Best Minds in Economics can Teach You about Business and Life (Okonomie 2.0. English translation) (BOOK): by Norbert Haring and Olaf Storbeck

"Economics 2.0 is a very readable and timely collection by two of Europe's best economic journalists, covering topics that range from the nature of happiness to the origins of the current financial crisis. Each chapter seamlessly blends field research in the Freakonomics tradition with laboratory research, and entertains while it enlightens." –Daniel Friedman, Professor of Economics, US Santa Cruz and author: Moral and Markets

"The nature of economic research has changed drastically over the last years, revoking the mantra of rationality, exploring creative new data sources, and venturig into topics far from the classical bundle of themes. This book provides a very entertaining and insightful overview of where modern economic stands today." --Ulrike Malmendier, Associate Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley

The Crash of 2008 and What it Means: The New Paradigm for Financial Markets (BOOK): by George Soros

"Totally compelling. They're wrong about oil, by George. In short, the standard economic assumption that supply and demand drive prices is only a starting point for understanding financial markets. In boom-bust cycles, the textbook theory is not just slightly inaccurate but totally wrong. This is the main argument made by George Soros in his fascinating book on the credit crunch, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets, launched at an LSE lecture last night." — BBC Business editor Robert Peston

"The next generation of economists will have to understand financial bubbles rather than ignore them, as Greenspan and his fellow central bankers have done. They would be well advised to give Soros's theory of reflexivity serious consideration."—the Times

The Making of Modern Economics: The Lives and Ideas of the Great Thinkers (BOOK): by Mark Skousen

A candid, irreverent, passionate, sometimes humorous and often highly opinionated account of the lives and theories of famous economists from Adam Smith and Karl Marx to John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman. The author's unique view compares the development of economic thought to the construction of a building, designating Adam Smith's 1776 Wealth of Nations as the foundation. He contends that Smith's philosophy of natural liberty and the invisible hand was a sound foundation that created a new era of wealth and economic growth spanning two centuries. With the inclusion of photographs, diagrams, commentaries, and even appropriate music selections, each chapter is devoted to a major economist and his theories, showing how he added to or detracted from Smith's positions. Skousen ends on an optimistic note even as fighting continues over which economic policies to pursue in times of crisis, uncertainty, and globalization. –Mary Whaley, American Library Association

The Making of Modern Economics is a reference bible. What an absolutely ideal gift for college students. –The National Review

Business, Marketing and Economics: Discovering How to Influence Performance, Learning the Ins and Outs of Institutional Investment...

Marketing Calculator: Measuring and Managing Return on Marketing Investment (BOOK): by Guy R. Powell

Marketing Calculator - Measuring and Managing Return on Marketing Investment describes the steps necessary to make data-driven marketing decision to improve results for your company, and your career.

Written with the right- and left-brained marketer in mind, this book demystifies marketing effectiveness for marketers and the rest of the executive team.

Money, Markets and Sovereignty (BOOK): by Benn Steil and Manuel Hinds

"Stimulating reading. Thoughtful and well written, bringing new perspectives."--Otmar Issing, first Chief Economist, European Central Bank

"Money, Markets, and Sovereignty offers an unusually wide-ranging and historically informed examination of contemporary controversies over globalization, and provides a searching exploration of the tensions between money as an emblem of national sovereignty and its role as a fundamental tool of individual choice."--Jerry Z. Muller, author of The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought

"Money, Markets, and Sovereignty presents an extremely timely and valuable examination of the pros and cons of modern globalization, set against a background of illuminating historical precedents and debates." --William H. Donaldson, twenty-seventh chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission

Pensions, Social Security and the Privatization of Risk (BOOK): edited by Mitchell A. Orenstein

As Social Security, workplace pensions, and individual retirement accounts become more insecure, America's pension system is in serious need of rehabilitation. This timely volume argues that any reform of the U.S. pension system must address both future imbalances in the Social Security program and weaknesses in the workplace and individual retirement systems on which a growing number of Americans now rely. Weighing what is gained against what is lost as new proposals surface, this book offers a clear account and reasoned analysis of the looming crisis, as well as our collective alternatives both domestically and abroad.

Pioneering Portfolio Management:An Unconventional Approach to Institutional Investment (BOOK): by David F. Swensen

David Swensen's creative and disciplined approach to investment has given Yale the resources it needs to augment its capacity for excellence in scholarship and teaching. Those who absorb the wisdom in this book will likewise strengthen the institutions they serve. --Beinecke Professor of Economics and President, Yale University

Primal Management: Unraveling the Secrets of Human Nature to Drive High Performance (BOOK): by Paul Herr

"The biological approach lends a fresh aspect to the subject of employee performance enhancement, and the well-researched, entertaining presentation should make this is an appealing reference for progressive business leaders."-- Publishers Weekly

Taming the Search-and-Switch Customer: Earning Customer Loyalty in a Compulsion-to-Compare World (BOOK): by Jill Griffin
"What an excellent wake-up call! Your company's most valuable asset (your loyal customers) have more tools than ever to compare you to competitors and switch. Griffin does an excellent job identifying the risks to customer loyalty in an environment of immediate and abundant information, and defines a path to earn loyalty through delivery of enhanced value in the eyes of your customers. A truly important premise to building and maintaining a successful business."—Gerald Evans, president, Hanes Brands Supply Chain and Asia Business Development

"In this dynamic treatise on customer retention, Jill Griffin, The Loyalty Maker, provides updated solutions to meet today's challenge of changing consumer shopping habits. A must-read for all retailers and wholesalers."—Britt Jenkins, chairman of the board, Tandy Brand Accessories, Inc.

"Mandatory reading for anyone who manages customer loyalty. A truly thought-provoking read!"—Timothy Keiningham, global chief strategy officer, executive vice president, IPSOS Loyalty

"Every company is in the service business now, whether they realize it or not. Jill's book is a great start on how to make your service experiences better than they are today."—Robert Stephen, founder, The Geek Squad

"Griffin is pure loyalty genius!"—Kelly Cook, vice president, Customer Engagement/CRM, Waste Management

The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited: Real-Life Lessons in Word-of-Mouth Marketing (BOOK): by Emanuel Rosen

“Emanuel Rosen is to buzz marketing what Peter Drucker is to effective management. This book is the foundation upon which most buzz marketing knowledge is based.”—Guy Kawasaki, cofounder of Alltop.com

“Buzz marketing is bigger and better than ever, which is why it is more important than ever to read this smart, smart book.”—Robert B. Cialdini, author of Influence: Science and Practice, and coauthor of YES! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive

"This is a must-read for marketers and an engaging book for anyone interested in social, digital or online media, or in social phenomena in general. Importantly, while acknowledging the power of the Internet, Rosen refuses to fall into the trap of focusing only on online buzz. Recent research indicates that the vast majority of word of mouth is offline."—Andrea Wojnicki, Financial Post

Economics, Business, Public Relations, and the Greater Scale

A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World (BOOK): by William J. Bernstein

"Entertaining and greatly enlightening . . . Mr. Bernstein is a fine writer and knows how to tell a great story well . . . A Splendid Exchange is a splendid book." -- John Steele Gordon, The New York Times

"Excellent . . . Bernstein is equally at home plumbing the romantic dawn of trade or untwisting the mind-wracking complexity of modern international commerce." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Superb . . . [A] significant contribution . . . A Splendid Exchange is a work of which Adam Smith and Max Weber would have approved." -- Paul Kennedy, Foreign Affairs

"Timely and informative . . . Fascinating and surprisingly exciting . . . A saga of epic proportions." -- Booklist

America's Economic Moralists: A History of Rival Ethics and Economics (BOOK): by Donald E. Frey

Since colonial times, two discernable schools have debated major issues of economic morality in America. The central norm of one morality is the freedom, or autonomy, of the individual and defines virtues, vices, obligations, and rights by how they contribute to that freedom. The other morality is relational and defines economic ethics in terms of behaviors mandated by human connectedness. America's Economic Moralists shows how each morality has been composed of an ethical outlook paired with a compatible economic theory, each supporting the other. Donald E. Frey adopts a multidisciplinary approach, not only drawing upon historical economic thought, American religious thought, and ethics, but also finding threads of economic morality in novels, government policies, and popular writings. He uses the history of these two supported yet very different views to explain the culture of excess that permeates the morality of today's economic landscape.

Brazil as an Economic Superpower?: Understanding Brazil's Changing Role in the Global Economy (BOOK): edited by Lael Brainard, Leonardo Martinez-Diaz

Brazil is once again getting attention in the northern hemisphere. Long seen as an economic backwater, Brazil now occupies key niches in energy, agriculture, service industries, even high technology markets. Yet the nation still struggles with endemic problems of inequality and with a traditional ambivalence toward deep integration with the world economy. The authors' analysis focuses particularly on five key topics: agribusiness, energy, trade, social investment, and multinational corporations. The net result is an invaluable analytical contribution and a provocative look into the future of our global economy and into the workings of one particularly important component of that system.

Built to Win: Creating a World-Class Negotiating Organization (BOOK): by Hallam Movius, Lawrence Susskind

“Take a close look at a complex topic, providing a roadmap to better understanding.” --BizEd Magazine (July/August 2009)

Can Latin America Compete?: Confronting the Challenges of Globalization (BOOK): edited by Jerry Haar and John Price

"[The authors] have edited what is clearly the most extensive, detailed and useful book on competitiveness in Latin America. The book features an impressive roster of experts that analyze the key areas where Latin America needs to improve its competitiveness--ranging from education and labor markets to property rights, legal reform and security."--Latin Business Chronicle

"…a skillful contribution to the ongoing debate over how to achieve competitiveness and how countries in the region can face the challenges presented by globalization."--Luis Alberto Moreno, president, Inter-American Development Bank

"This is an important book for those who track the region’s performance. Using case studies, the authors cogently illustrate many of the issues that weaken the region’s competitiveness."--Roberto Newell G., CEO, Mexican Competitiveness Institute (IMCO)

China and Globalization: The Social, Economic and Political Transformation of Chinese Society (BOOK): by Doug Guthrie

This is easily one of the most comprehensive, incisive, and readily intelligible introductions to the numerous perplexities of economic, social, and governmental changes in post-Mao China...Given his willingness to confront central issues in Chinas modernization head on, Guthries work remains a superior guidebook to that historic process. Essential.-- Choice, (April 2009)

How to Manage in a Flat World: 10 Strategies to get Connected to Your Team Wherever They Are (BOOK): by Susan Bloch and Philip Whiteley

Manage, motivate, and communicate with teams that span continents while mastering all the resources available to global managers, from technology to travel. How to Manage in a Flat World is based on exclusive interviews with dozens of successful global managers.

Import/Export: How to Take Your Business Across Borders (BOOK): by Carl A. Nelson

Doing business across national borders is more profitable than ever. In the exhaustively revised fourth edition, Import/Export provides step-by-step guidance to show you how to take part in the booming world economy.

Innovation Tournaments: Creating and Selecting Exceptional Opportunities (BOOK): Christian Terwiesch, Karl T. Ulrich

Managers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists all seek to maximize the financial returns from innovation, and profits are driven largely by the quality of the opportunities they pursue. Based on a structured and process-driven approach this book demonstrates how to systematically identify exceptional opportunities for innovation.

Insufficient Funds: Savings, Assets, Credit, and Banking Among Low-Income Households (BOOK): edited by Rebecca M. Blank and Michael S. Barr

One in four American adults doesn't have a bank account. Low-income families lack access to many of the basic financial services middle-class families take for granted and are particularly susceptible to financial emergencies, unemployment, loss of a home, and uninsured medical problems. Insufficient Funds explores how institutional constraints and individual decisions combine to produce this striking disparity and recommends policies to help alleviate the problem.

The authors ultimately argue that if we want to demand financial responsibility from low-income households, we have an obligation to assure that these families have access to the banking, credit, and savings institutions that are readily available to higher-income families. Insufficient Funds highlights where and how access is blocked and shows how government policy and individual decisions could combine to eliminate many of these barriers in the future.

Key Concepts in Marketing (BOOK): by Jim Blythe

--Introduces and examines the key issues, methods, models and debates that define the field of marketing today.

Key Concepts in Public Relations (BOOK): by Bob Franklin

“The plethora of facts and theories is handled skilfully and the erudition worn so lightly that the best compliment a reader can make is that one is barely conscious of the huge amount of ground covered by the book and that it is the work of five different authors… Ultimately, it is the sheer variety of topics covered that impresses, as if the authors are deliberately making a point of the breadth of PR today” - Communication Director

Made in China: Secrets of China's Dynamic Entrepreneurs (BOOK): by Winter Nie, Katherine Xin, Lily Zhang

China's rapid economic growth has made it a vital market for the biggest multinational corporations, most of which have invested heavily in China. Yet those corporations face their toughest competition not from other multinationals, but from China's own homegrown businesses. China's entrepreneur class has grown and their businesses are succeeding primarily due to their knowledge of the domestic market, quick adaptation to market changes, and their resourcefulness. To paraphrase Sun Tzu, it is best to know one's enemy.

Managing Project Delivery: Maintaining Control and Achieving Success (BOOK): by Trish Melton, Peter Iles-Smith

Successful projects are the basis for a successful company, but many professionals lack the basic skills required to manage projects successfully. The Project Management Toolkit guides readers through each of the four key life-cycle stages that lead to effective project management. Focused on successful project delivery in the engineering, industrial and process sectors, the books are aligned to the standard PMP (Project Management Professional) body of knowledge from the PMI and APM project management organizations and develop the PM knowledge that career project managers and those who only intermittently lead projects will be expected to use. The books tailor these tools to meet the particular challenges faced in these sectors, which can vary considerably from the needs of the IT, customer or financial services projects that are routinely covered in other guides. Each book can be used as a standalone guide or be combined to provide a complete and powerful PM resource.