Recommending Books for Purchase (Bulletin 98 - Aug 2020): Business and Management

What has ethics got to do with my job? How can I take on ethical responsibility and help to make my company more successful at the same time? Although 'ethical responsibility' has become something of a catchphrase these days, most people only have a vague idea what it means and how it can be demonstrated in actual practice.Disasters like the Volkswagen's emission scandal, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the nuclear meltdown of Fukushima, the global financial crisis, and countless lesser-known cases of damage to human beings and the environment are the result of unethically irresponsible business practices. Efforts to maximize profits frequently lead to reckless behavior, as those in charge focus on short-term benefits and ignore social and environmental risks. Their actions have negative consequences, not only for the victims but, in many cases, for the perpetrators themselves too. Aggrieved interest groups or disadvantaged stakeholders may react with strikes, public protests, or boycotts, jeopardizing their reputation and profitability.This textbook, Applied Business Ethics, is the result of many years of research work and lecturing, and is an attempt to present the most important principles and the latest approaches in business ethics to students, teachers, and business practitioners alike, and help them to make business decisions that everyone concerned will benefit from, rather than just a few fortunate stakeholders.The author illustrates his theoretical subject matter with practical examples of real-life situations and provides numerous exercises to help the reader grasp complex issues, moral dilemmas, and business risks better. In clear, accessible, and easily understandable terms, he demonstrates how ways of finding satisfactory solutions can be found in a systematic way thanks to interdisciplinary research and philosophical reflection.

eBook Price : $98

It takes more than just talent and luck to succeed in the arts industry and, crucially, to maintain that success. It also takes far more than talent to succeed in any business or commercial endeavour.This book provides a fresh, practical roadmap for succeeding in all artistic, creative or commercial environments. It presents three crucial roles (and corresponding skillsets) that every individual in any creative industry needs to take on -- Manager, Artist, and Person, and explains how to healthily conduct yourself, sustainably empower yourself and others, and achieve excellence on all levels.This book's succinct and rational approach will teach readers to leverage on their instincts and innate traits, at will and on-demand. It is an essential read for actors, artists, teachers and educators of the performing arts, directors, technical artists, agents, casting directors, managers, and associated industry practitioners to succeed in their creative aspirations. It is also an insightful read for parents, leaders, and corporate managers.

eBook Price : $28

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you would be breaching a law or policy if you help a person in need? Do you stand aside when someone needs assistance, thinking you have no obligation to lift a finger? Is there a way to deal with an ethical dilemma without fear of being mired in the consequences? How would you answer an inconvenient question?Courage and Conviction deals with the subject of ethical dilemmas in personal and work life. It opens with a discussion on the nature of ethical dilemmas and then discusses moral reasoning and what it takes for effective decision-making in an ethical dilemma. It provides a guide for resolving an ethical dilemma with a step-by-step resolution framework and a tactical approach. Several chapters look at ethical dilemmas in the context of professional work, running corporations and public service. The book concludes by discussing a common ethical dilemma, namely, facing an inconvenient question, and providing a set of rules for decision making by a person exercising authority.Written in a readable and accessible style and peppered with cases and stories to illustrate concepts the chapters in the book end with a bullet-point summary, and one or two questions for readers to reflect on to deepen their understanding of concepts and their application.

eBook Price : $28

A key tool in creating a destination experience is the experience economy. This is even more true for cultural tourism experiences since culture's intrinsic values are inherently linked to experiences.The book Creating and Managing Experiences in Cultural Tourism aims to provide theoretical and practical background on the experience economy applied in sustainable cultural tourism. This entails a wide range of subjects addressing cultural heritage, creative industries and contemporary culture. Theoretical approaches to experience creation are presented to offer the 'rules' of designing the cultural tourism experiences. With inspirational and innovative examples, it provides an insight into the field of cultural tourism from prominent editors, authors and contributors in their respective fields.

eBook Price : $128

The Strategy, Process, Organization and Technologies (SPOT) framework helps businesses develop goods and services which provide improved customer value and profits. Analysis includes investigation into the behavior of hundreds of enterprises reported by thousands of employees globally, while multiple performance indicators validate the best practices of world renowned corporations.The SPOT framework is an inter-dependent system leveraging synergies to create high value per unit of input. The framework is applicable along the entire value stream from research inventions to innovations in customer service. Numerous case studies document how enterprises use the SPOT framework to improve performance, and real-life examples detail how practices are deployed to add greater value for less per unit of effort. A transformation-assurance process provides readers with methods to improve system-wide capabilities for cost-effective innovation. This book is essential reading for stakeholders seeking to create value by innovating and cutting costs simultaneously.

eBook Price : $138

The Emerging Business Models describes current issues that the business leaders and professionals are facing, as well as developments in digitalization. This book consisting of 10 chapters introduces the new technology trends and challenges that businesses today face. The authors cover several increasingly important new areas such as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Internet of Things (IoT), financial technology (FinTech), social media, platform strategy, analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and many other forces of disruption and innovation that shape today's realities of the world.These digital transformations are taking place at an exponential rate. The speed of innovations and breakthroughs is disrupting the traditional businesses. A better understanding of the changing environment in the new economy can enable business professionals and leaders to recognize realities, embrace changes, and create new opportunities -- locally and globally -- in this inevitable digital age.

eBook Price : $48

Fundamentals of Sustainable Business begins by briefly outlining the legacy of environmental and social failures that have arisen as a result of conventional business practices, and then describes the coalescence of a broad-based contemporary redesign of business that has been called 'The Next Industrial Revolution'. Championing the long-term interests of business, community, and the natural world, the book's vision of intelligent reformation is unlike any previous human endeavor.The book synthesizes a diverse collection of movement components, including some original concepts, and provides a comprehensive and definitive source for understanding the emerging and complex phenomenon of sustainable business. This work challenges many long-held assumptions involving the relationship of the natural world and humankind as well as the fundamental approaches to business. Several current real-world business ventures that embody many of the proposed revisions are described. Without political bias, the second edition critiques the various emerging brands of sustainable business practices and provides the reader with a clear understanding of the essential design components that would provide the conceptual framework for a prosperous and healthy world for all generations of all species for all time.

eBook Price : $78

There has been an increasing movement to place results at the heart of the agenda for social investments and development. Though development has a compelling value proposition -- a year of life can often be saved for a few hundred dollars -- there is skepticism to its ability to measure and manage programs for results. It is this skepticism which is at the heart of debates on the future of development.Managing Development for Results describes the results agenda in development, measurement and management approaches, and challenges on the ground. It is an easily accessible book which provides a comprehensive view on the innovative approach used to demonstrate compelling development results. The first section of the book covers the history and key components of the results agenda. The second section assesses how this is put into practice with innovative examples from global initiatives, foundations, civil society, private sector and country case studies.Finally, the book assesses the future role of the results-based agenda for a wide variety of development actors. It argues that results provide a "common currency" to coordinate and focus increasingly diverse partners on the core value of development, and communicate this to a wider audience. How results are built into development programs and the future development agenda will be illustrated as well.This book aims to target a wide audience in development, practitioners internationally and locally, management, business and philanthropy and those interested in international relations. It would also aim to appeal to a general audience interested in the future of development and whether it can achieve compelling results.

eBook Price : $138

In the last century, we have witnessed the rise of a new kind of company, one that leverages on a new business model -- the platform.Though platform companies are very common, they can take extremely diverse forms in today's business landscape. People use the term 'platform' to mean many different things. Managers are often confused about which is platform business and which is not. When it comes to platform strategy, things become even more complicated.Using real world examples, this book acts as a primer for platform strategy, discussing the underlying mechanism of various types of platform models to help people understand what platform business is and what they can do with it. Theories and frameworks appropriate for understanding platform business are introduced and related cases follow to support readers' understanding. The diverse and international case studies analysed range from IBM's horizontal production platform, to the digital platform of China's breakout smartphone star, Xiaomi.This book will not only enable readers to understand platform business, but also teach them how to harness these frameworks to build effective strategies for their own platform business pursuits.

eBook Price : $68

Globalisation opens new frontiers of research that require advanced research methods. While quantitative methods are ideal in some situations, qualitative methods are more appropriate for responding to 'how' questions in new contexts. They aim to understand and provide a holistic picture via interaction -- a unique advantage over quantitative methods. This textbook for graduate students introduces qualitative research and covers major qualitative methodologies and data collection methods.The choice of methodologies in this book is based on their actual applicability in management research. This approach provides a hands-on emphasis while maintaining both scientific rigour and rooting, and a high practicality level with respect to problem analysis, the collection of data, and the way this data should be analysed.Students and researchers will benefit from features including explanations of the advantages and disadvantages of methodological choices, and elaborated examples of good articles. The reader will acquire an overview of current methodologies, which will facilitate the choice process with respect to research approaches, and is also encouraged to bring personal research skills to a higher level.

eBook Price : $98

Sustainability is a concept that unifies the environment, economy, and society, and has spread as a key concept in enterprise management. The United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, which require worldwide efforts to reach a sustainable society, and also applies to private enterprises.Sustainability should be developed in connection with management strategy, and Asia's role, including that of Japan, is important to improve global sustainability. This book addresses how sustainability management in the Asian context is currently practised and proposes practices for the future.Investigation of the effect of business domain characteristics on the integration of sustainability and management, and elucidation of the process and features of EMCS (Environmental Management Control System) inside and outside of companies have been indicated. The book points that companies need to use and design Sustainability Management Control Systems in order to implement a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) strategy and match employees' behavior to CSR activities.MFCA (Material Flow Cost Accounting) has started to expand rapidly into other Asian industries from Japan as a method of Environmental Management Control. The fundamental idea and procedure of MFCA and many case examples of Japanese MFCA have been reported. These findings help us to consider a policy for continuous use of MFCA. Moreover, the relationship between Toyota Production System and MFCA has been explained and 'Material Flow Time Costing' as a new management accounting concept is proposed.Based on the literature review, the study has made recommendations for Asian companies' strategic management and governmental policy-making to improve both quality and quantity of sustainability disclosure in Asia. One of the papers has identified the development and implementation of social and environmental accounting by Indonesian state-owned enterprises and their determining factors. In a Japanese manufacture, the effect of smoothed production has been analyzed as an example of environmental management. This led to an increase in production quality without additional capital spending.

eBook Price : $98