The Democratic Corporation: A Radical Prescription for Recreating Corporate America and Rediscovering Success

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personally his writing style needs help

Are democracy and free market good organization principles?

The Democratic Corporation: A Radical Prescription for Recreating Corporate America and Rediscovering Success
Russell L. Ackoff
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0195087275

Book Description

We all know that American business needs fixing, and there is no shortage of prescriptions: imitate the Japanese, or follow the example of successful firms, or practice right-sizing. But these approaches do not work very well, says Russell Ackoff, because they only attack the problem piecemeal--and it is the entire system of American business that is flawed. In this revolutionary new book by a widely respected business thinker and pioneer in the fields of operations research and systems thinking, Ackoff underscores the urgent need to overhaul the kinds of systems found in America, from our business schools to our boardrooms. And he shows how firms can break out of the mold--and leapfrog the competition in today's volatile economy. To give managers insight into the concept of organizations, Ackoff shows how they have been viewed since the Renaissance: first as machines, later as organisms, and today as social systems. As social systems, companies produce and distribute wealth and raise our standard of living. They are also responsible for facilitating and encouraging the development of the larger systems that contain them and all their stakeholders. The quality of worklife within an organization is key. Work has to be challenging and enjoyable if workers are to give it their full commitment, and Ackoff outlines major ways to achieve this goal. Along the way, Ackoff explodes a number of fashionable business notions. He asserts that firms that try to imitate successful competitors are doomed to play catch-up forever. He attacks the idea of continuous improvement, showing that it has failed to make quantum leaps in quality, and he demonstrates how to re-orient the pursuit of quality. After revealing the weakness in many current practices, Ackoff describes three organizational schemes that will lead to success. In the Circular Organization, a democratic hierarchy, everyone participates directly or indirectly in decisions that affect their work. In the Internal Market Economy, organizations treat their different parts like a collection of firms doing business with each other--which promotes cooperation and eliminates wasteful internal competition. And with the Multidimensional Organization, a company becomes so powerful and flexible that continuous adaptation can happen without reorganization. Ackoff caps off the book with an incisive critique of business schools, describing how they must be transformed to turn out the leaders we need for the competitive American organization of the 21st century. Enabling managers to understand the profound interrelationships in the American economy and to tap into them for success, The Democratic Corporation is a major work by an innovative thinker that is certain to cause ripples throughout the business community.

Customer Reviews:

personally his writing style needs help.......1999-04-01

to be quite frank, he could have done better, the content was informative but his explanation were too wordy and repetative. he could have explained his system thinking theory's in half as much time by sticking to the point, not adding paraphrases that were confusing and misleading. question is "does he get paid by the number of words he uses or the content?".

Are democracy and free market good organization principles?.......1997-06-19

Ackoff presents his organization design based on democracy and free market as organization principles. Most people generally believe democracy and free market are good principles for societies, while most business and government organizations have internal organizations based on autocratic authority and monopoly of services, resources and markets. Why does this happen? Ackoff is very objective in his view of the corporations as social systems, which must satisfy their stakeholders. He presents very objective solutions for the problems of quality of working life, power and authority distribution, performance evaluation and control and structure design. The title of this book promises a radical prescription, and that is a very good description of the contents. The book is dense with well thought, well developed ideas, with examples of their successful application! If you have a position about democracy and free market you should carefully read this book, even if you don't agree with everything Ackoff proposes.

Book Description

This is the authoritative collection of the writings of Dr. Edward I. Altman, the world's leading authority on bankruptcy, corporate distress, and defaults, and creator of the widely-used Z-Score model. This book contains both classic and never-before-published articles, along with Altman's comprehensive introduction that places all the articles in context.The four major and related themes explored here are:Distress Prediction Models.Credit Risk Management.High Yield Junk Bonds and Distressed Securities.Bankruptcy and Firm Valuation.These articles span more than 30 years of contributions to scholarly and professional publications and for government regulatory and policy considerations. Altman's pioneering works have formed the basis for modern credit risk management procedures and policies by practitioners and regulators, and have motivated and guided works from other scholars around the globe.

Customer Reviews:

Old it might be but still surprisingly accurate.......2004-08-13

I have written software based on Altman's original work and it still comes up with surprisingöy accurate results however there are still many issues about how modern companies are structured and the shift to a services based economy where people are one of the main assets of many corporations.

Recycled and Outdated.......2002-07-18

Reading this guy's work is a real testimony to the staying power generated by doing something first. His 1967 paper on bankruptcy was the first to estimate a multivariate default prediction model. THAT'S 35 YEARS AGO. Things like computers and more data make both his estimation algorithm and parameter estimates relics of little significance, and his inability to recognize this is symptomatic of a more cluelessness exhibited in his discussion of other matters (he doesn't simply reference the old model; it's now irrelevant structure is examined and built upon throughout the book).

Very little of what is here is new, and what's new isn't that good either. Freshmen looking for succinct references to someone their professor has heard of but not read will appreciate this volume. I suggest reading S&P or Moody's research instead.

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Traditional water harvesting systems: An ecological economic appraisal

Manufacturer: New Age International
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Agricultural Sciences | Professional Science | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 8122408397

Book Description

MATLAB is used in a wide range of applications in geosciences, such as image processing in remote sensing, generation and processing of digital elevation models and the analysis of time series. This book introduces basic methods of data analysis in geosciences using MATLAB. The text includes a brief description of each method and numerous examples demonstrating how MATLAB can be used on data sets from earth sciences. All MATLAB recipes can be easily modified in order to analyse the reader's own data sets. The book comes with a CD containing exemplary data sets and a digital version of the MATLAB recipes.

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The effort to build machines that are able to learn and undertake tasks such as datamining, image processing and pattern recognition has led to the development of artificial neural networks in which learning from examples may be described and understood. The contribution to this subject made over the past decade by researchers applying the techniques of statistical mechanics is the subject of this book. The authors provide a coherent account of various important concepts and techniques that are currently only found scattered in papers, supplement this with background material in mathematics and physics, and include many examples and exercises.

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Learning is one of the things that humans do naturally, and it has always been a challenge for us to understand the process. Nowadays this challenge has another dimension as we try to build machines that are able to learn and to undertake tasks such as datamining, image processing and pattern recognition. We can formulate a simple framework, artificial neural networks, in which learning from examples may be described and understood. The contribution to this subject made over the last decade by researchers applying the techniques of statistical mechanics is the subject of this book. The authors provide a coherent account of various important concepts and techniques that are currently only found scattered in papers, supplement this with background material in mathematics and physics and include many examples and exercises to make a book that can be used with courses, or for self-teaching, or as a handy reference.

Structural Reliability: Statistical Learning Perspectives (Lecture Notes in Applied and Computational Mechanics)

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Structural Reliability: Statistical Learning Perspectives (Lecture Notes in Applied and Computational Mechanics)
Jorge E. Hurtado
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3540219633

Book Description

This monograph presents an original approach to structural reliability from the perspective of statistical learning theory. It proposes new methods for solving the reliability problem utilizing the recent developments in computational learning theory, such as neural networks and support vector machines. It also demonstrates important issues on the management of samples in Monte Carlo simulation for structural reliability analysis purposes and examines the treatment of the structural reliability problem as a pattern recognition or classification task. This carefully written monograph is aiming at researchers and students in civil and mechanical engineering, especially in reliability engineering, structural analysis, or statistical learning.

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Statistical Mechanics of Learning.
A. And C. Van Den Broeck Engel
Manufacturer: Cambridge U. Pr.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000N67CSY

Book Description

“The Lost World and Other Thrilling Tales” comprises of two novels and two short stories. In this mesmerizing collection, a blend of imagination and reality is apparent. The author bases his ideas on scientific facts and creates an extra-ordinary world of fantasy. An interesting array of escapades and expeditions. Engrossing!

The Lost World and Other Thrilling Tales (Penguin Classics)

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"There Are Heroisms All Around Us!" Classic Adventure Tales
don't publish this, its not a review
Well written and exciting

The Lost World and Other Thrilling Tales (Penguin Classics)
Arthur Conan Doyle
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0140437657

Book Description

In a tradition that stretches from Gulliver's Travels to Jurassic Park, The Lost World is the first of Conan Doyle's stories to feature Professor Challenger.

Customer Reviews:

"There Are Heroisms All Around Us!" Classic Adventure Tales.......2004-03-24

Penguin edition of Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World and Other Thrilling Tales" comes with four tales: "The Lost World," "The Poison Belt," "The Terror of Blue John Gap" and "The Horror of Heights."

The first two stories (both are long ones) features Doyle's famous creation besides Holmes -- hot-tempered genius Professor Challenger. "The Lost World" is narrated by a newsreporter Edward Malone, who seeks for the chance to show before his love Gladys that he also could show the heroism by doing a great thing. So he grabs the opportunity to accampany the exploration team to prove the theory of Professor Challenger that there is a plateau untouched by the modern civilization deep in the South America where extinct animals are still living.

So, there go four characters -- Challenger, Edward Malone, Lord John Roxton (a nice-guy type of sportsman), and Professor Summerlee, who wants to disprove Challenger's theory by his own hand. The adventures themselves including the encounter with dinosaurs or other creatures are written with vivid touch, even though some parts are clearly dated. And some readers may feel uncomfortable when reading some violent scenes.

This story is filmed many times -- most as early as in 1925 -- but the ending is much different. Interestingly, the dinosaurs are not the main feature of the novel (even though Penguin's cover suggests the terrible havoc they do on the city, which is unashamedly borrowed in Steven Spielberg's film of the same title).

"The Lost World" (1912) was written immediately before WWI, and perhaps was the last romance that could depict the heroism in this way, in a remote country, against the exotic background of the Amazon. If you like it, read "King Solomon's Mines" or "She" by H. Rider Haggard, which were written in the late 19th century.

"The Poison Belt" the second "Professor Challenger" tale sounds more apocalyptic, beginning with the newspaper column of the Professor who predicts the mass destruction of the human beings. The story brings back the four characters of the last adventure, and shows how the world ends as Malone et al. see it. Though the story lacks scientific precision (what's "ether"?, you may say) and the final chapter is a huge letdown, the story is full of impact, describing the fear and terror of the people facing death. Some parts of it still look very modern and immediate, as if the scenes from "Dawn of the Dead" or "28 Days Later."

The last two shorts are comparatively weak, but not bad. "The Terror of Blue John Gap" is, as the title suggests, about the terror of the underground while "The Horror of the Heights" could be rephrased as "the horror seen by a daredevil pilot."

The Penguin edition has Philip Gooden's insightful introduction which also tells us the real-life models of the characters. He also provides useful notes, and the book has the original illustrations (the kind of garish drawings capturing the shocking moments of the story), which are pure delight to see. A good read for holidays.

don't publish this, its not a review.......2003-07-02

hey guys, standards are slipping here.

this is not a mystery book--this is early science fiction.

and, elizabeth peters is not englihs, she's american, and the mitchell book is about a comanche, on a reservation--definitely NOT english.

you need a better editor here.

Well written and exciting.......2002-08-07

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) is now chiefly remembered for his excellent Sherlock Holmes stories. However, Doyle wrote many exciting stories of adventure and mystery. This book contains four such stories.

1) In The Lost world, reporter Edward Malone accepts the challenge to explore a recently discovered South American plateau that allegedly contains dinosaurs. Teamed up with the eccentric Professor Challenger, the dubious Professor Summerlee, and the heroic Lord John Roxton, the heroes of the story find themselves immersed in an adventure beyond their wildest dreams. 2) In The Poison Belt, Malone is summoned by Professor Challenger with a cryptic note. It seems that the Earth is moving towards a poisonous section of space, and Challenger hopes that he can rescue himself and his associates-the last people left on Earth. 3) The Terror of Blue John Gap is a short diary telling the story of one man's confrontation with a monster that any modern man knows could not possibly exist. And finally, 4) The Horror of the Heights is another short diary excerpt that tells the story of a daring aviators discovery that the air also has its jungles and predators.

While somewhat dated, these stories are well written and quite exciting. They reflect a world that is now gone, but is quite interesting to read about. Overall, I must say that if you like adventure stories, then you must read this book!

The Lost World and Other Thrilling Tales [EasyRead Comfort Edition]

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The Lost World and Other Thrilling Tales [EasyRead Comfort Edition]
Arthur Conan Doyle
Manufacturer: ReadHowYouWant.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1425059112
Release Date: 2007-01-01

Book Description

The Lost World and Other Thrilling Tales

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The Lost World and Other Thrilling Tales
Philip Gooden Arthur Conan Doyle
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJG9MA

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