Analysis without paralysis : 10 tools to make better strategic decisions

 by Babette E. Bensoussan and Craig S. Fleischer. Bensoussan (strategic planning/competitive intelligence professional) and Fleisher (Univ. of Windsor, UK) deliver on their promise to provide clear, realistic, and actionable guidelines for conducting strategic analysis. They present a very user-friendly introduction to strategic analysis and then describe ten of the most commonly used strategic analysis techniques (e.g., competitor analysis, scenario analysis, financial ratio and statement analysis) in clear, practical language. Step-by-step instructions make the use of each technique immediately accessible. The authors also offer a balanced evaluation of the context, strengths and weaknesses, and rationales for each of the ten tools. Importantly, they emphasize the need for using several analytical techniques to inform managerial insight with regard to strategic directions. This book provides the means to make the techniques very usable, and in so doing it should be of great value to managers across all types of industries. A chapter is devoted to each of the ten techniques, but there does not appear to be a reason for the order in which they are presented. However, each chapter stands on its own as a very useful description and explanation of a technique for the particular context and situations described. --Choice (Check Catalog)

Crisis management in a complex world

 by Dawn R. Gilpin. Gilpin (Arizona State Univ.) and Murphy (Temple Univ.) ask, "To what extent is it possible to control events and stakeholder responses to them in order to contain escalating crises or safeguard an organization's reputation?" Their book is multidisciplinary (communications, physical sciences, psychology, and business) and strongly theoretical in orientation. They employ tools of complexity theory to suggest a new approach to crisis management for complex systems. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1, "Complexity, Crisis and Control," contains a review of the history of the field of crisis communication, an overview of key principles of complexity theory, and a redefinition of the concept of predictability. Part 2, "The Complexity of Knowledge and Learning," explores and integrates important concepts such as information and assimilation, organizational learning, and sense making in decisions. The last part, "Reconfiguring the Dominant Paradigm," reframes the dominant crisis paradigm in complexity theory terms. Crisis assumptions made before, during, and after a crisis are challenged using the complexity theory lens. For example, complexity-based crisis planning may work better than traditional approaches given uncertainty, lack of control, and emotion. This well-written book is valuable for research and practice. --Choice (Check catalog)

The little book of alternative investments : reaping rewards by daring to be different

 by Benjamin Stein. "Bestselling authors Ben Stein and Phil DeMuth know that investors are bored with their typical 60/40 stock & bond portfolios and curious about whether some of the new variations going around might be right for them. At the same time, many alternative strategies are going down-market and opening to the retail investor. Stein and DeMuth recommend that investors look outside of the box to hedge funds, real estate, gold, commodities, and even art as sources of investment income. Alternative Investments are not just for the rich anymore. But which strategies make sense? Which ones add value and which ones should we take a pass on? How do we integrate them with the rest of our portfolios? How much should we use of which kind, and what kind of results can we expect when we do? Stein and DeMuth interview the leading experts in the industry, take you on a guided tour of this Ripley's museum of new and strange offerings, explain in simple language how they work (or don't work), and tell you how you can use them to manage risk and boost returns in the privacy of your own home. The authors specialize in making the technical seem simple, the esoteric, accessible, and the dry, entertaining." --Publisher (Check Catalog)

Where we worked : a celebration of America's workers and the nation they built

 by Jack Larkin.  Spanning from the 1830s to the 1930s, this presentation of the American world of work also bridges labor's transition from manual to mechanized production. Illustrating toil and toilers with hundreds of photographs, Larkin personalizes history with workers' life stories, such that the text reads in sections like Studs Terkel's oral history Working (1974). That effect arises from Larkin's quotation of testimonies taken by the New Deal's Federal Writers Project and the inclusion of the occupational histories of his streetcar motorman father, farmer grandfather, and machinist father-in-law. Their jobs fall into Larkin's overall organization of labor into agriculture, trades, mining and manufacturing, and office work. Larkin favors posed pictures of people with their implements, a sound decision for helping encapsulate the subjects' attitudes about their work. Pride animates many images, but so do wear, hazard, and tedium, especially in photographs of child workers. Touching just tangentially on economics and unions, Larkin's visually absorbing volume appeals as an individualizing expression of labor history. --Booklist (Check Catalog)