Swans, Swine, and Swindlers addresses a core, contemporary question: What steps can we take to better anticipate and manage mega-crises, such as Haiti, Katrina, and 9/11?This book explores the concept of "messes." A mess is a web of complex and dynamically interacting, ill-defined, and/or wicked problems; their solutions; and our conscious and unconscious assumptions, beliefs, emotions, and values. The roots of messes can be classified as Swans (the inability to s...

Swans, Swine, and Swindlers addresses a core, contemporary question: What steps can we take to better anticipate and manage mega-crises, such as Haiti, Katrina, and 9/11?This book explores the concept of "messes." A mess is a web of complex and dynamically interacting, ill-defined, and/or wicked problems; their solutions; and our conscious and unconscious assumptions, beliefs, emotions, and values. The roots of messes can be classified as Swans (the inability to s...

Managers, organizations, and even whole societies repeatedly get trapped into solving the wrong problems. Their errors can be traced to one fundamental flaw: misdirected thinking. Leading business professor Ian Mitroff asserts that the ability to spot the right problems, frame them correctly, and implement appropriate solutions is the true competitive edge of a successful and prosperous organization.In Smart Thinking for Crazy Times, Mitroff shows how to identify a genuine...

In February of 2008, amid the looming global financial crisis, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France asked Nobel Prize-winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, along with the distinguished French economist Jean Paul Fitoussi, to establish a commission of leading economists to study whether Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—the most widely used measure of economic activity—is a reliable indicator of economic and social progress. The Commission was given the further task of laying out an...

Business revolves around making decisions, often risky decisions, usually with incomplete information and too often in less time than we need. Executives at every level, in every industry, are confronted with information overload, less leeway for mistakes, and a business environment that changes rapidly. In light of this increased pressure and volatility, the old-fashioned ways of making decisions–depending on intuition, common sense, and specialized expertise–are simply no longer sufficie...

This innovative textbook covers the most important challenges facing family businesses. Practice-inspired and research-based, it emphasizes both practice and theory along with concepts, cases and reflection questions to illustrate key topics.This text discusses the relevance of family firms across the globe, their unique strengths and weaknesses, their governance, strategic management, the succession process, drivers of long-term success and interpersonal dynamics. Taking a holisti...

Why are group decisions so hard?Since the beginning of human history, people have made decisions in groups—first in families and villages, and now as part of companies, governments, school boards, religious organizations, or any one of countless other groups. And having more than one person to help decide is good because the group benefits from the collective knowledge of all of its members, and this results in better decisions. Right?Back to reality. We’ve...

When negotiation fails, mediation avails other moves for an amicable resolution. Whether you are a current or future mediator or a party to a conflict, this is your essential companion to the theory, concepts, and best practices of mediation.In a world ridden by social divisions, responsible resolution of conflicts is more timely than ever. What happens when parties are unable to negotiate an agreement together? The next move is to invite a third party to reset the...

Strategic decisions deal with the long-term direction of the firm and its main activities, usually the responsibility of the top managers in an organization. Because the firm is the critical unit of analysis in strategy, we need to define what firms are, how they create value, and what their organizational boundaries are in order to understand their overall performance. However, this must be done in a manner that is most useful for strategic analysis and decision making. In other words, we...

The definitive introduction to organizational economics, with contributions by leaders in the fieldIn even the most market-oriented economies, most economic transactions occur not in markets but inside managed organizations, particularly business firms. Organizational economics seeks to understand the nature and workings of such organizations and their impact on economic performance. This landmark book assembles the leading figures in organizational economics to pr...

Presents new methods in scenario thinking, based on a mix of high-level research and top-level consultancy experience. The authors describe the logical bases of a range of scenario methods and provide detailed 'road maps' on how to implement them - together with practical examples of their application.

This is the first book of its kind to bring together the microeconomic insights on the functioning of non-profit organizations, complementing the wide range of books on the management of non-profit organizations by instead focusing on both theoretical and empirical work. Jegers begins by considering definitions of non-profit organizations before ex