A Practical Guide to Educating for Responsibility in Management and Business

$21.99

What does it mean to ‘educate for responsibility’? The author of this book will teach you about the new way of engaging young people with the challenge of changing their world for the better. Designed for application in any educational context dealing with ethics, responsibility, or human development, this book explains in detail how to facilitate anyone’s ability to think and act in more fully responsible ways. In contrast to the predominant model of teaching, which is almost exclusively an intellectual education about responsibility, educating for responsibility integrates emotion, insight, observation, and action so anyone can learn the true dynamics of exercising this resilient capacity. Inside, educating for responsibility is explained and a template offered for a creative way of teaching that has proven to be extremely effective in practice. Written particularly for those offering courses or training in social responsibility, sustainability, or business ethics, it offers a new way of thinking about how we might better serve the interests of a generation of young people entering a rapidly changing, and by all accounts, rapidly destabilizing world.

Economic Decision Making Using Cost Data: A Guide for Managers

$21.99

A firm maximizes profits if each decision adds more to the firm’s revenue than to its costs. Although the concept sounds rather simple, it is difficult to do in practice. To ease this difficulty, the authors are giving you the inside knowledge to ‘economic theory.’ This book will help you understand economic theory and much more to accurately infer changes in revenues that may be associated with a decision. And since economic theory suggests that the costs reported by accountants rarely reflect the true cost associated with the decision, this book will help you understand how to assess the changes in revenues and costs. Demand and price sensitivity analysis allow you to infer revenue changes, and this book helps you reconcile the economic theory of cost with common accounting practices so the differences can be reconciled and better decisions can be made.

Designing Supply Chains for New Product Development

$21.99

Because supply chains themselves in recent years have become a source of sustainable competitive advantage, they are a topic of great interest to business professionals. While the literature on supply-chain management is extensive, the same cannot be said for supply-chain design in general and R&D supply chains in particular.
Research and development (R&D) supply chains are often designed without the process discipline and rigor that typically characterize the development of products emerging from R&D programs. This book should help everyday supply chain practitioners involved in research and new product development, who are migrating their products to full commercialization. The book should also aid decision makers looking to improve the overall effectiveness and efficiency of their supply chain. When new products are developed, a significant divide typically emerges in trying to commercialize the product while attempting to meet project demands for cost, schedule, and quality. Simply put, in many cases the supply chains developed to accomplish R&D functions are usually woefully inadequate to meet the demands of large-scale commercial applications. This book recounts the real-world work efforts, rigor, and discipline used to transition from a supply chain supporting R&D functions to a world-class supply chain capable of supporting a multibillion-dollar hydrocarbon recovery project.

Sourcing to Support the Green Initiative

$21.99

The ‘green’ or environmental sustainability movement has taken hold throughout the world. Its staying power is confirmed by that fact that environmental emphasis in organizations did not decrease during the recent global recession, but rather increased. However, since most organizations rely heavily on their supply base for providing components, materials, and services that become part of their final products, organizations must revisit their sourcing processes and choices to have a real impact on the environment. This book begins with an introduction to the idea of sustainability and to the concept of what it means to source to support an organization’s green initiatives, and why this is important from a holistic, lifecycle perspective. The initial chapters will also provide a point of view of how green sourcing fits into the organization’s entire portfolio of sustainability initiatives. Examples of industries and associations that lead the way in green sourcing will be presented. In addition, best practices in green sourcing will be discussed. The book also provides a perspective on how organizations can encourage and support their suppliers in pursuing green initiatives, and what types of initiatives provide a good starting point.

The Fundamentals of Money and Financial Systems

$21.99

It is impossible to comprehend what policies the government should undertake to face the economic reality of the country. Every day we are exposed to a barrage of recommendations and mandates from the left and the right concerning what would be the appropriate course of action (or lack thereof) in order to nullify economic ills or to bring prosperity to the country. But what you and everyone needs is a fundamental basic knowledge of money. This book provides just that. It provides the necessary understanding of money and many of its functions, roles, and uses in economic theories. These theories are essential for the formulation of fiscal and monetary policies. And it is important to understand the meaning of money and be able to differentiate between basic concepts such as consumption, savings, capital, and investment. Would it make any difference, to the overall function of the economy, earnings, employment, etc., if a given sum of money is spent by an individual, a small business, a corporation, or the government? Is it good for the country if people spend money or is it better if they save it? Would it make a difference if spending originates from printing money or citizens’ savings? The answer to these and many other economic questions are at the heart of the fiscal and monetary policy that every government grapples with every day. After reading this book you will be ready to understand fiscal and monetary policies, tools, and their effectiveness.

Crisis Management in the Age of Social Media

$21.99

Social media has fundamentally changed the contract between institutions and the public. Today, people expect a conversation, not a one-way diatribe. That, combined with the speed of the Internet, changes the game for many companies in anticipating, managing, and ultimately avoiding an ‘instant crisis’–an instant crisis example is when Verizon added a $2 charge for all their customers; one hour later 100,000 signatures appeared on a Twitter petition, and soon Verizon was in the middle of a huge public relations crisis. Inside this book, you’ll learn just how to manage this type of situation and meet the challenges of social media. Each chapter includes a description of a crisis, the timeliness of a good response, the effectiveness of this response, and an assessment of what works and what doesn’t. Some examples of social media crises include Apple Computer, Netflix, JetBlue, Bank of America, Fed Ex, and public figures such as Anthony Weiner, Ashton Kutcher, and Jon Bon Jovi.

Managing Expatriates: A Return on Investment Approach

$21.99

Expatriation is a big topic, and is getting bigger. Over 200 million people worldwide now live and work in a country other than their country of origin. Tens of billions of dollars are spent annually by organizations that move expatriates around the world. Yet, despite the substantial costs involved, expatriation frequently results in an unsatisfactory return on investment (ROI), with little or no knowledge as to how to improve it. Why is this so? Drawing on more than a decade of expertise, research, and publications in top journals, the authors provide you real solutions to achieve more than a satisfactory ROI from expatriates–with rule number one being: Understand expatriates themselves. This book provides a practical ‘insider’s’ guide that reveals why expatriates seek and accept international assignments; how they feel impacted by new forms of remuneration and other working conditions; how international assignments fit in with their longer-term career aspirations; and what complications arise in terms of their families. Whether you’re a manager or consultant, inside you’ll learn what modern-day global mobility is like (based on the authors’ decade-long study with nearly four hundred expatriates and their managers, as well as over a hundred who were interviewed personally), how it is changing, and why now, more than ever, a hard-nosed ROI approach is necessary.

Fostering Spirituality in the Workplace: A Leader’s Guide to Sustainability

$21.99

Today, there are deep and rapid changes on companies, employees, and the global economy that should not be underestimated, and future world leaders must be prepared to lead in a manner that is socially responsible, ethical, and pro_ table. A corporation with a business model that polarizes or operates solely in the interest of its shareholders is unsustainable and current benchmarks can be unrealistic tools for businesses to rely upon as measures of future success. This book explores historical data, analyzes current events from the world stage, and delivers a worldview that challenges some existing paradigms in business. As we are living business history, the book draws from the epic economic, environmental, and cultural shifts in our collective consciousness. It begins a vital conversation by introducing some thought paradigms that will challenge current business practices, create a vision for the future, and provide a road map to navigate this uncharted territory. In the end, the author outlines specific action that you must take now to end the economic and moral decline in this first part of the 21st century.

Value Creation in Management Accounting: Using Information to Capture Customer Value

$21.99

Value creation is at the heart of an economic enterprise, defining its capability to serve customers and generate profits and growth. This fact has led to an ever-increasing set of tools and techniques that start with customers, focusing on serving their preferences from the very inception of a product until its disposal. To date, most of these techniques have been only partially adopted in management accounting. This is unfortunate, because much of the data required to adequately implement a value creation approach has its roots in the Management Accounting System (MAS). The resulting model is called the Value Creation Model (VCM). This book is principally designed for managers who want to take the lessons learned in product development, process management, and marketing and extend it to their MAS. It seeks to make this transformation of the MAS both logical and easy to implement, with a focus on the new types of information that can be garnered when the MAS is modified to fit the value creation approach. After reading this book, a manager or executive will be equipped with the tools and techniques to both implement and use the VCM. The resulting information will allow the company to align its efforts by creating a common language which uses the transformed accounting language to compare, evaluate, and choose the best strategic and tactical options available. After making these choices, the VCM also allows managers to subsequently track how closely actual results come to the projected outcomes. The results and recommendations in this book are based on action field research, where the authors have personally supported the analysis and subsequent use of the data generated. The authors of the book will provide, upon request, a simplified automated data collection template that will ease the implementation process. In total, then, this book provides a unique perspective on the organization and creates an actionable common language that allows the unification of the continuous improvement efforts of managers across an organization.

Production Line Efficiency: A Comprehensive Guide for Managers, Second Edition

$21.99

In today’s production world, many of the lines seem unpaced and unbalanced. Inside this book, you will learn new designs for these lines that can lead to more efficiency by taking advantage of inherent imbalance–for example, operators who work at different speeds–a concept that has traditionally been seen as an obstacle to efficient production. The authors have included a series of experiments that illustrate the issues involved in improving performance through production line imbalance, as well as some surprisingly easy ways to improve performance with low or zero costs. Emphasis is placed on reducing the amount of time production lines lie idle, and on reducing work in process. This is a timely contribution to the field when managers are casting around for new ways to cut waste and reduce their use of natural resources.