Unconventional Wisdom

Author: Tom Standage
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1782837515
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Book Description
The world can be an amazing place if you know the right questions to ask: How much does a ghost reduce a house's value? How are winemakers responding to climate change? How much should you tip your Uber driver? Should your dog fear Easter more than fireworks? The keen minds of The Economist love to look beyond everyday appearances to find out what really makes things tick. In this latest collection of The Economist Explains, they have gathered the weirdest and most counter-intuitive answers they've found in their endless quest to explain our bizarre world. Take a peek at some Unconventional Wisdom - and pass it on! The world only gets more amazing when discoveries are shared.

Unconventional Wisdom

Author: John Ward
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
Family businesses prosper by pursuing unconventional strategies. Because they are values-driven and think very long-term, they take approaches not popular with current management fashion or most companies. That is the key to their competitive advantage. Family businesses must find ways to simultaneously serve business needs and family goals, to safeguard economic interests and strengthen personal relationships. Both are equally important, yet they require very different priorities and principles. As a result, successful families in business must think paradoxically. They must find insights that single-purpose enterprises need not contemplate. They must dare to be different. Family business is very personal and very culture-particular. As such, two fundamental insights have emerged from IMD’s research and teaching experience with enduring family firms: 1. Individual responsibility is the most important ally to change; 2. Best practices are less important than fitting solutions to the specific family business context. Family business requires a different governance system, but one that can nonetheless be controlled. Building on insights from the world’s premier family business executive education course, this book offers the Unconventional Wisdom needed to leverage the strategic and cultural uniqueness of a family business for enduring success.

What Were They Thinking?

Author: Jeffrey Pfeffer
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 1422103129
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 253

Book Description
The question of how to improve organizational effectiveness through better people management is always top of mind. This book challenges incorrect and oversimplified assumptions and much conventional management wisdom - delivering business commentary that helps business leaders make smarter decisions.

Unconventional Wisdom

Author: June Boyce-Tillman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134936486
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Book Description
Early Christianity saw women in positions of authority and a fluid theology that included feminine figures in the notion of the Divine. However, for centuries a male trinity has dominated theology with the characteristics of triumphalism, clarity, order, eternality and unity. Unconventional Wisdom examines the attempt within the last half of the twentieth century to unearth the hidden theological tradition of feminine Wisdom. The book presents the work of influential theorists, notably Foucault, Belenky and Dorothy Smith. The recovery of the feminine in the divine is linked with the rediscovery of subjugated value systems and what this might mean for ecclesiology.

American Urbanist

Author: Richard K. Rein
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1642831700
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
"William H. Whyte's curiosity compelled him to question the status quo--whether helping to make Fortune Magazine essential reading for business leaders, warning of "groupthink" in his bestseller The Organization Man, or standing up for Jane Jacobs as she advocated for the vitality of city life and public space. This compelling biography sheds light on Whyte's bold way of thinking, ripe for rediscovery at a time when we are reshaping our communities into places of opportunity and empowerment for all citizens" -- Backcover.

What's Next?

Author: David Hale
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300170319
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
The world spins in economic turmoil, and who can tell what will happen next? Cold numbers and simple statistical projections don't take into account social, financial, or political factors that can dramatically alter the economic course of a nation or a region. In this unique book, more than twenty leading economists and experts render thorough, rigorously researched prognoses for the world's major economies over the next five years. Factoring in such varied issues as the price of oil, the strength of the U.S. dollar, geopolitics, tax policies, and new developments in investment decision making, the contributors ground their predictions in the realities of current events, political conditions, and the health of financial institutions in each national economy. The most comprehensive volume on the global economy available today, this book presents up-to-date research on Russia, Australia, Europe, sub-Saharan and South Africa, the major Asian economies, North America, and the largest economies of Latin America. With unsurpassed expertise, the authors explain what's going on in individual countries, how important current global issues will impact them, and what economic scenarios they most likely will face in upcoming years.

Inequality And Global Supra-surplus Capitalism

Author: E Ray Canterbery
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9813200847
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 379

Book Description
This book is written as a sequel to John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society, and provides a theoretical framework, for the first time, for surpra-surplus capitalism.Conventional economics has the income and wealth distributions as 'givens'. This assumption immediately excludes such distributions from economic and social concern. Occasionally, economists such as Kenneth Boulding and even earlier, Michal Kalecki, have attempted to develop alternative perspectives in which such distributions are integral to the story and therefore have implications for public policy. At the same time, conventional microeconomics is a theory of price only in which economic efficiency (in an engineering sense) is the only value to be optimized. The income or wealth distributions are given as constraints. Mathematically, the constraints thereafter become invisible; they have no further role to play. The choices that are presumed to be made are neither inhibited nor facilitated by a household's position in the income or wealth distributions.This volume will explore problems with conventional theory and policy, but its main thrust comprises a theory of supra-surplus capitalism, applicable to both developed and developing countries, and its relation to inequalities worldwide.

Against the Grain

Author: Ray Waddle
Publisher: Upper Room Books
ISBN: 0835812448
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 154

Book Description
You won't hear many sermons preached on Ecclesiastes. The plainspoken skepticism and raw weariness expressed in Ecclesiastes make many people of faith uncomfortable. But, as Waddle points out, this book is in the Bible for a reason. The message of this against-the-grain biblical voice offers an emotionally honest view of the meaning of life. "Despite his reputation, Ecclesiastes marks the surprising arrival of consolation and hope," writes Waddle. "This book is about the neglected themes of Ecclesiastes: the goodness of creation; the fingerprints of providence; the frustrations of spirit in a world of affluence and suffering; the beauty of everyday pleasures; the duty to remember the dead; the duty, indeed, to be happy. It's about feeling the wind in your face, the wind of being alive." This poet teaches, toughens, and spans the ages to address very contemporary issues. By giving us permission to admit troubling spiritual moods, Ecclesiastes invites us to grow in wisdom and to accept all of God's gifts including doubt and dissatisfaction. Waddle mixes contemporary reflections with insightful scholarship on Ecclesiastes especially on the topics of biblical authority, politics, grief, wisdom, and spiritual trends in contemporary society. The 12 chapters parallel the 12 chapters of the biblical text. Become better "equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:17) and for the inevitable periods of spiritual doldrums through the renegade-but-faithful realism found in Ecclesiastes.

More Than You Know

Author: Michael J. Mauboussin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231143737
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
Since its first publication, Michael J. Mauboussin's popular guide to wise investing has been translated into eight languages and has been named best business book by BusinessWeek and best economics book by Strategy+Business. Now updated to reflect current research and expanded to include new chapters on investment philosophy, psychology, and strategy and science as they pertain to money management, this volume is more than ever the best chance to know more than the average investor. Offering invaluable tools to better understand the concepts of choice and risk, More Than You Know is a unique blend of practical advice and sound theory, sampling from a wide variety of sources and disciplines. Mauboussin builds on the ideas of visionaries, including Warren Buffett and E. O. Wilson, but also finds wisdom in a broad and deep range of fields, such as casino gambling, horse racing, psychology, and evolutionary biology. He analyzes the strategies of poker experts David Sklansky and Puggy Pearson and pinpoints parallels between mate selection in guppies and stock market booms. For this edition, Mauboussin includes fresh thoughts on human cognition, management assessment, game theory, the role of intuition, and the mechanisms driving the market's mood swings, and explains what these topics tell us about smart investing. More Than You Know is written with the professional investor in mind but extends far beyond the world of economics and finance. Mauboussin groups his essays into four parts-Investment Philosophy, Psychology of Investing, Innovation and Competitive Strategy, and Science and Complexity Theory-and he includes substantial references for further reading. A true eye-opener, More Than You Know shows how a multidisciplinary approach that pays close attention to process and the psychology of decision making offers the best chance for long-term financial results.

More Sex is Safer Sex

Author: Steven E. Landsburg
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1847375987
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Book Description
With his long-running 'Everyday Economics' column in Slate and his popular book, The Armchair Economist, Steven Landsburg has been leading the pack of economists who are transforming their science from a drab meditation on graphs and charts into a fascinating window on human nature. Now he's back and more provocative than ever with surprises on virtually every page. In More Sex is Safer Sex, Professor Landsburg offers readers a series of stimulating discussions that all flow from one unsettling fact. Combining the rational decisions of each of us often produces an irrational result for all of us. Avoiding casual sex can actually encourage the spread of diseases. To solve population pressures, we need more people. In his tantalizing, entertaining narrative, Landsburg guides us through these shocking notions by the light of compelling logic and evidence and makes suggestions along the way: Why not charge juries if a convicted felon is exonerated? Why not let firemen keep the property they rescue? As entertaining as it is inflammatory, More Sex is Safer Sexwill make readers think about their decisions in unforgettable ways -- and spark debate over much that we all take for granted.