The Theory of the Business (Harvard Business Review Classics)


Book Description

Peter F. Drucker argues that what underlies the current malaise of so many large and successful organizations worldwide is that their theory of the business no longer works. The story is a familiar one: a company that was a superstar only yesterday finds itself stagnating and frustrated, in trouble and, often, in a seemingly unmanageable crisis. The root cause of nearly every one of these crises is not that things are being done poorly. It is not even that the wrong things are being done. Indeed, in most cases, the right things are being done—but fruitlessly. What accounts for this apparent paradox? The assumptions on which the organization has been built and is being run no longer fit reality. These are the assumptions that shape any organization's behavior, dictate its decisions about what to do and what not to do, and define what an organization considers meaningful results. These assumptions are what Drucker calls a company's theory of the business. The Harvard Business Review Classics series offers you the opportunity to make seminal Harvard Business Review articles a part of your permanent management library. Each highly readable volume contains a groundbreaking idea that continues to shape best practices and inspire countless managers around the world—and will have a direct impact on you today and for years to come.




Moral Emotion, Moral Cognition, and (Im)Moral Behavior in the Workplace


Book Description

Moral behavior is subject to socially accepted moral norms and also has a pervasive influence on organizational performance. With the emergence of ethical issues found in organizations, practitioners and scholars pay increasing attention to ethics management. Therefore, workplace moral behavior (e.g., pro-social behavior and organizational citizenship behavior - OCB) and immoral behavior (e.g., interpersonal abusive behavior, deviant/counterproductive behavior, and unethical pro-organizational behavior) have also received substantial research interests over the past decades. To date, the most common framework used to study moral behavior has been the cognitive approach, with abundant evidence demonstrating that emotion and cognition are the two core elements in generating and influencing workplace (im)moral behavior. However, limited studies have been conducted to explore the emotional/cognitive processes or integrative moral emotion-cognition system relevant to workplace moral behavior. Despite our knowledge of the antecedents and consequences of workplace (im)moral behaviors, more research on the generating mechanism, influencing mechanism, transformation mechanism, and governance strategies is needed. For example, it is unclear how exhibiting (im)moral behavior in the workplace would impact the actor’s and the third-party observer’s emotions, thoughts, feelings, and subsequent behavior. Besides, the question of whether ethical/unethical leader behavior would trigger a “trickle-down effect” is underdeveloped, which refers to the fact that how the behavior or perception of the top leaders affects employees from top to bottom along the formal vertical power chain. In addition, we have little knowledge on when, how, and why the ethical employees (the so-called “good soldiers”) would engage in workplace immoral behavior, and vice-versa.




Business Persons


Book Description

Business firms are ubiquitous in modern society, but an appreciation of how they are formed and for what purposes requires an understanding of their legal foundations. This book provides a scholarly and yet accessible introduction to the legal framework of modern business enterprises. It explains how the legal ideas allow for the construction and recognition of business firms as persons having rights and responsibilities. It also shows how law sets the boundariesof firms. Specific applications include contributions to debates about executive compensation and political free-speech rights of corporations. Anyone who wishes to have a deeper understanding of thenature of business firms and their role in modern society will benefit from reading this book.




Intellectual Property, Competition Law and Economics in Asia


Book Description

This book results from a conference held in Singapore in September 2009 that brought together distinguished lawyers and economists to examine the differences and similarities in the intersection between intellectual property and competition laws in Asia. The prime focus was how best to balance these laws to improve economic welfare. Countries in Asia have different levels of development and experience with intellectual property and competition laws. Japan has the longest experience and now vigorously enforces both competition and intellectual property laws. Most other countries in Asia have only recently introduced intellectual property laws (due to the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement) and competition laws (sometimes due to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund or free trade agreements). It would be naïve to think that laws, even if similar on the surface, have the same goals or can be enforced similarly. Countries have differing degrees of acceptance of these laws, different economic circumstances and differing legal and political institutions. To set the scene, Judge Doug Ginsburg, Greg Sidak, David Teece and Bill Kovacic look at the intersection of intellectual property and competition laws in the United States. Next are country chapters on Asia, each jointly authored by a lawyer and an economist. The country chapters outline the institutional background to the intersection in each country, discuss the policy underpinnings (theoretically as well as describing actual policy initiatives), analyse the case law in the area, and make policy prescriptions.




Energy Law and the Sustainable Company


Book Description

What kind of decision-making should multinationals engage in to create a sustainable company? There is substantial debate over why CEOs, senior management and Boards of Directors make the wrong decisions by not asking the right questions, with the result that not only is the company itself damaged, but all of the stakeholders find themselves at a detriment. Focusing on innovation, technology transfer and the use of intangible assets, Energy Law and the Sustainable Company features case studies from the oil and gas sector, to illustrate how to develop a sustainable business. Considering corporate social responsibility from the perspective of international and national law, the book demonstrates how companies can be both profitable and ethical using the influences of psychology to encourage senior decision makers to make the right decisions. It was revealed that reputation was the main principle influencing decision-making. The book also discusses how companies have reported on their sustainability strategy and considers how technology transfer and intangible assets may play a part in addressing global sustainability. This book should be invaluable reading to students and scholars of Sustainable Business, Business Law, Corporate Social Responsibility, Environmental and Energy Law as well as Environmental and Energy Management.




Advances in Gender and Cultural Research in Business and Economics


Book Description

This volume presents current research on gender and culture from business, management and accounting perspectives with a multidisciplinary approach. Featuring selected contributions presented at the 4th IPAZIA Workshop on Gender Studies held at Niccolò Cusano University in Rome, Italy, this book investigates gender strategies adopted and tested by various companies and assesses the impact of their subsequent dissemination. The contents are structured into four sections each of which addressing a specific theme on gender studies as follows: I) Women in Academia and in the University contexts: A trans-disciplinary approach; II) Gender issues, Corporate Social Responsibility and reporting; III) Woman in business and female entrepreneurship; IV) Women in Family Business. The result is a book that provides an innovative and rigorous analysis of gender issues proposing new challenges and insights in gender studies. IPAZIA Scientific Observatory for Gender Studies defines an updated framework of research, services, and projects, all initiatives related to women and gender relations at the local, national and international. In order to achieve this objective, the Observatory aims to implement the literature on gender studies, to organize and promote scientific significant initiatives (workshops, seminars, conferences, studies, scientific laboratory) on these issues at the national and international level under an interdisciplinary perspective.




Multinational Enterprises and the Global Economy


Book Description

For many years to come this volume. . .is surely going to be the ultimate reference work on international business. . . thanks to Dunning and Lundan, have at their disposal, a wealth of relevant data, as well as theoretical and empirical analyses, which will enable them to assess the capabilities, contributions and challenges posed by the multinational enterprises to the global economy. Seev Hirsch, International Business Review Multinational Enterprises and the Global Economy has become a classic in international business. . . Yet , the book s second edition is even better than the first, in part because of Professor Dunning s wise decision to choose Dr Lundan as his co-author and to draw upon her deep knowledge of various strands of research on business government relations and the societal effects of firm behaviour. . . In addition to being a remarkably useful reference book, Multinational Enterprises and the Global Economy is the first book any IB doctoral student should read to understand the significance and richness of IB scholarship as it has developed over the past 50 years. Alain Verbeke, Journal of International Business Studies The second edition of Multinational Enterprises and the Global Economy provides unparalleled coverage not only of the literature relevant to IB research but also of the evolution of IB in the world economy. Dunning and Lundan offer powerful insights into the societal effects of MNEs and the role of business government relations in the IB context. Journal of International Business Studies This wonderful book offers the definitive synthesis of the modern literature on the economic aspects of international business. It is encyclopedic yet full of incisive insights. It is a creative masterpiece which unbundles the DNA of the multinational enterprise and shows how it is the cornerstone of the field of international business. Alan M. Rugman, University of Reading, UK The rise of the multinational enterprise, and the consequent globalisation of the world economy, was arguably the single most important phenomenon of the second half of the twentieth century. This magisterial book, written by two leading authorities, examines this phenomenon in depth. It explains how foreign investment by multinationals diffused advanced technologies and novel management methods, driving productivity growth in Europe, Asia and North America; however, economic inequalities were reinforced as rich countries attracted more foreign investment than poor ones. This new edition of a classic work is not only an authoritative guide to contemporary multinational business, but a major historical resource for the future. Mark Casson, University of Reading, UK This thoroughly updated and revised edition of a widely acclaimed, classic text will be required reading for academics, policymakers and advanced students of international business worldwide. Employing a distinctive and unified framework, this book draws together research across a range of academic fields to offer a synthesis of the determinants of MNE activity, and its effects on the economic and social well-being of developed and developing countries. Unique to the new edition is its focus on the institutional underpinnings of the resources and capabilities of MNEs, and the role of MNE activity in transmitting and facilitating institutional change. Since the initial publication of this book more than a decade ago, the economic, managerial and social implications of globalisation and technological advancement have become even more varied and prominent. Accompanying these developments, there has been a rise in scholarly interest in interdisciplinary research addressing the important challenges of an ever-changing physical and human environment. Drawing on articles and books from international business and economics, as well as economic geography, political economy and strategic management, a systematic overview of the developments in scholarly thinking is prese




Sustainable Tourism Dialogues in Africa


Book Description

Focusing on the future of tourism, Sustainable Tourism Dialogues in Africa is inclusive of experienced and emerging researchers, as well as incorporating local stakeholders in the tourism industry: architects, tourism operators, sustainable tourism lobbyists, policy makers, archaeologists, and geographers. The editors are frontline sustainable tourism advocates in Africa, and the book’s thematic content is derived from 30 inter-university seminars on sustainable tourism hosted by Sustainable Travel & Tourism Agenda Kenya from 2017 to November 2019. These seminars involved the participation of 17 universities in Kenya, tourism operators, conservationists, developmentalists, investors, policy makers, and students. Every chapter is a voice projecting aspirations for the responsible management of tourism in Africa and promoting the ideals of sustainable tourism that young people in Africa advocate for the industry’s future. In so doing, the authors pinpoint the necessary actions for bringing about transformations in sustainable development of tourism. The book thus seeks to encourage debate, while facilitating the development of both theoretical and practical foundations for managing tourism sustainably in Africa.




Proceedings of the 2022 International Conference on Mathematical Statistics and Economic Analysis (MSEA 2022)


Book Description

This is an open access book. 2022 International Conference on Mathematical Statistics and Economic Analysis(MSEA 2022) will be held in Dalian, China from May 27 to 29, 2022. Based on probability theory, mathematical statistics studies the statistical regularity of a large number of random phenomena, and infers and forecasts the whole. Economic development is very important to people's life and the country. Through data statistics and analysis, we can quickly understand the law of economic development. This conference combines mathematical statistics and economic analysis for the first time to explore the relationship between them, so as to provide a platform for experts and scholars in the field of mathematical statistics and economic analysis to exchange and discuss.




Being Human in a Consumer Society


Book Description

This book offers a new perspective on sociological studies of the consumer society, introducing neglected normative questions relating to the good life and human flourishing - subjects more commonly discussed in fields of moral, political, and social philosophy. With attention to a wide range of subjects, including postemotional law and responsibility, dehumanised consumption and prosumerism, fashion, embodiment, conspicuous consumption, and sustainability, this book analyzes the structural and cultural transformations that can be identified in consumer society. It also offers a critical - but not pessimistic - view of the important question of whether consumption is leading to an increasing isolation, individualization or commodification of human beings, suggesting an analytical framework for understanding consumer culture and human praxis. Bringing together work from across disciplines by scholars in the US, Europe, and the UK to engage with questions concerning our globalized and globalizing world, where consumerism is a keystone for understanding our contemporary culture and its social structures, Being Human in a Consumer Society will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, social theory, and contemporary philosophy.