Smart Globalization: Designing Global Strategies, Creating Global Networks (The MIT Sloan Management Review Series)

Book Description

Smart Globalization is a compendium of leading-edge thinking on global strategy first published in the acclaimed MIT Sloan Management Review. The central premise underlying this book is that globalization can be a double-edged sword. The global or globalizing firm has the potential to reap several types of benefits such as the vast potential of a much larger market arena, opportunities to capture scale- and location-based cost efficiencies, and exposure to a multiplicity of new product and process ideas. However, globalization also exposes the firm to numerous strategic and organizational challenges emanating from a dramatic increase in diversity, complexity, and uncertainty - external as well as internal to the firm. How managers address these challenges determines whether globalization yields competitive advantage or disadvantage and makes the company stronger or weaker. "Smart" globalization is the ability to capture the benefits and minimize the costs and risks.
Smart Globalizations expert contributors?leaders in the design of winning global strategies and in the creation of effective global networks?include: David J. Arnold, Christopher A. Bartlett, Julian M. Birkeinshaw, J. Stewart Black, Joseph N. Fry, Sumantra Ghoshal, Vijay Govindarajan, Hal B. Gregersen, Anil K. Gupta, Stuart L. Hart, W. Chan Kim, Bruce Kogut, David L. Levy, Renée A. Mauborgne, Allen J. Morrison, Mark B. Milstein, Das Narayandas, John A. Quelch, Gordon Swartz, Stephen E. Weiss, and George S. Yip.

Book Description

This book provides human resource managers with the information necessary to cope with the ethical, legal, and financial issues surrounding AIDS--a disease that will eventually affect almost every workplace in the world. Masi offers a comprehensive Program Integration Model approach to managing the disease and shows how to develop effective policies, implement educational programs, and adapt existing Employee Assistance Programs to provide the most cost-effective and comprehensive service to employees dealing with AIDS. Unlike other books on the subject, AIDS Issues in the Workplace addresses the particular concerns of all populations affected by the disease including health-care workers, police and fire workers, persons in the arts, restaurant and hotel employees, and employees overseas. Women and minorities, substance-abusers, and the families of those afflicted with AIDS are addressed specifically. The author provides current legal information to help the employer avoid costly litigation and reviews actual policies employed by major corporations in both the public and private sectors. The result is the most comprehensive presentation of the issues related to AIDS in the workplace yet available in book form. Masi begins by examining the latest medical information on AIDS and its transmission as well as the legal issues involved. She then turns to a discussion of company policy development, demonstrating both why a clearly stated policy is important and what it should cover. Subsequent chapters point to the critical importance of continuous education in the workplace, discuss why EAPs have so far failed to be substantially involved in AIDS, and suggest roles that EAPs could serve. Three chapters address the needs and concerns of special populations and how employers can best serve these needs without appearing discriminatory. A separate chapter includes interviews with individuals who have experienced a range of AIDS-related issues in the workplace. The volume concludes with a list of resources and an appendix containing original documents from such sources as the Centers for Disease Control's Universal Precautions, their Recommendations for Health Care Settings, and handicapped legislation. Anyone confronted with the challenge of developing appropriate human resource strategies to deal with AIDS will find this book an indispensable resource.

Book Description

Twilight in Arcadia features an essay by Susan Neville, professor of English at Butler University, and the photography of Tyagan Miller. This documentary publication examines tobacco farming in Indiana and the recent changes this industry has experienced.

Customer Reviews:

Topical.......2006-04-18

As the country debates immigration, here's a book that gives you an inside look at the complexities of this issue on so many different levels: from the farmer's point of view to the recent immigrants', the photographs in this book will give you insight that reaches beyond the headlines.

Book Description

The great Russian psychologist L. S. Vygotsky has long been recognized as a pioneer in developmental psychology. But somewhat ironically, his theory of development has never been well understood in the West. Mind in Society should correct much of this misunderstanding. Carefully edited by a group of outstanding Vygotsky scholars, the book presents a unique selection of Vygotsky's important essays, most of which have previously been unavailable in English.

The Vygotsky who emerges from these pages can no longer be glibly included among the neobehaviorists. In these essays he outlines a dialectical-materialist theory of cognitive development that anticipates much recent work in American social science. The mind, Vygotsky argues, cannot be understood in isolation from the surrounding society. Man is the only animal who uses tools to alter his own inner world as well as the world around him. From the handkerchief knotted as a simple mnemonic device to the complexities of symbolic language, society provides the individual with technology that can be used to shape the private processes of mind. In Mind in Society Vygotsky applies this theoretical framework to the development of perception, attention, memory, language, and play, and he examines its implications for education. The result is a remarkably interesting book that is bound to renew Vygotsky's relevance to modem psychological thought.

Customer Reviews:

Vygotsky, Mind in Society.......2005-08-12

This is a good start to understanding the researh and theories of Lev Vygotsky.

A MUST READ for parents, preschool through elem educators........2002-03-23

While the book is full of theory that might discourage someone from reading it, it has an absolutly fantastic practical implacation worth the effort! The second half of this book, "Educational Implications" discusses the Zone of Proximal Development. Learning about this "Zone" plus the discussion regarding how children learn to read and write, tells those of us who really want to help children learn, ways to set-up an environment and activities to do it!!
Don't let the theory scare you away, this is a MUST READ!

Socio-historical psychology.......1999-07-24

This is one of the earliest and still one of the best introductions to socio-historical psychology, the study of how individual human intelligence develops in interaction with people and the environment. In concert with many contemporary approaches in cognitive science today, Lev Vygotsky, A.R. Luria and A.N. Leontiev argued that human intelligence is characteristically mediated through objects and social activity. Humans think through tools. Talking to oneself, for example, is not an irrelevant activity. Putting one's actions into speech is a way of focusing one's consciousness on the problem. This kind of speech is not pointless, but rather a cognitive tool that gives one a greater awareness of one's own actions and makes it easier to modify these actions--a point that Vygotsky proved with research on how children solved problems. Much of human activity involves making use of tools, signs, and activities, the kinetic melodies of action and conceptualization that make us smart, and through which we are able to accomplish the uniquely human feats of complex intellectual action. This is an excellent place to begin studying Vygotsky and activity theory. If you like this you will also like A.R. Luria's *The Making of Mind*, and the classics *The Man With A Shattered World* and *The Mind of a Mnemonist*, the books that inspired Oliver Sacks' writing.

Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes

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Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes
Lev Semenovich (1896-1934) Vygotsky
Manufacturer: Publisher Unknown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000V00OS2

Average customer rating:

Mind in Society. The Development of Higher Psychological Processes.

Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000I2YWE0

Book Description

Ram Verma has assembled ten distinguished contributors to survey what is currently known about the relationship of the structure of DNA to its role in the function and expression of genes. The crucial role of heterochromatin in the organization of chromosomes is thoroughly explored in this resulting landmark edited volume. Cytogeneticists and other geneticists, molecular biologists, cytologists, biochemists and their advanced students will also find this an invaluable reference source.

Book Description

Running Injury-FreeDo you run more than 15 miles a week?Are you working on increasing your mileage or speed?Are you ignoring minor twinges and strains so you can keep training?If so, you're a serious runner. Problem is, sooner or later, you're bound to get injured-unless you follow Dr. Joe Ellis's advice in RUNNING INJURY-FREE.

Customer Reviews:

great book for any runner.......2004-09-29

If you are a runner for nontrivial amount of time, you are very likely to experience some sort of injury already. I did. And I hope I could have bought and read this book before I started running.

The book covers many common forms of injuries experienced by runners, and gives several treatments you can practice in home. Even if you do see a doctor later, the book is an excellent introduction to what happens to your injury so you can coordinate with your doctor in a more helpful way.

The book is written in a very plain and easy to follow way which is a big plus for non-medical background person like me.

I recommend this book to any runner. If you just start running or plan to run, buy and read this book. You won't regret it and could avoid many possible painful results.

My favorite "Injury" book to date!.......2003-03-28

Not only did this book manage to supply the info I needed in enough detail to be meaningful, particularly with the case studies, it was actually an entertaining page-turner. The author had such a human voice and managed to entirely avoid the tone of smarmy condescension that seems to be rampant in books of this sort. I was particularly won over by his willingness to even poke fun at himself as a case study. I certainly came away with a new respect for the field of podiatry in sports medicine.

Very helpful.......2003-01-26

I find that this book has been very helpful in my running and triathlon training. The first few chapters are very good, replete with some basic theory about running and remaining injury free.
The second third of the book is very informative regarding injuries and their treatment.
The last part of the book has great stretching exercises, and good information about how to stay injury free.
My only criticism of the book is based on a comment that my physical therapist had. I've recently had big problems with sprained ankles in both feet and receive physical therapy from a PT specializing in runners. I discussed the book and the chapter on ankles with her and she mentioned that the chapter only describes the author's success and that for every successful treatment outcome, there are lots of not-so-total successes. It would be helpful to understand both.
But overall, a worthy book to buy and read and re-read as the need arises.

"Nagging Pain" vs. Serious Injury.......2000-09-26

If you run fewer than 30 miles a week, have never uttered the words "my coach" or "my physiotherapist," have never won more than a goodie bag at a 10k... in short, if you are a committed, non-elite, non-professional runner, this book is a must.

This is not to say that professionals won't benefit - they will. But for those of us who don't receive regular training-level medical attention, the great value of this book lies in its ability to clearly distinguish nagging pains that you can often home-treat from those that - even from the first twinge - signal something more serious. Add it to your running library.

Good Table-format information backed by discussion.......2000-09-23

I am only a recreational runner, but this book certainly applied to me as well as the active competitor. It hleps you understand when you should see a health care practitioner, or when you might be able to alter a factor of your regimen to solve some of your own problems. Even in the event that you must see a physician, the book helps you understand the type of information you should share with your provider to be a partner in your own treatment...not to mention how to be a good consumer of healthcare. One aspect I found irritating was the authors several references to his days in Medical school. With DPM after his name, I would think he went through the rigors of a school of Podiatry rather than Medical school. It's just a semantic, but irritates me.

Born To Kvetch CD: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods
Average customer rating:

Hard to listen

Great book - but reading is hard to bear

very well written

So, what's not to like?

My Turn to Kvetch

Born To Kvetch CD: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods

Manufacturer: HarperAudio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

Yiddish | Instruction | Foreign Languages | Reference | Subjects | Books
General | Foreign Languages | Reference | Subjects | Books
Linguistics | Words & Language | Reference | Subjects | Books
General | Reference | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods (P.S.)

Shlepping the Exile

Yiddish Radio Project (Original Radio Broadcast)

Drek!: The Real Yiddish Your Bubbe Never Taught You

Say It in Yiddish

ASIN: 0061131229
Release Date: 2006-02-28

Book Description

As the main spoken language of the Jews for more than a thousand years, Yiddish has had plenty to lament, plenty to conceal. Its phrases and expressions paint a comprehensive picture of the mind-set that enabled the Jews of Europe to survive persecution: they never stopped kvetching about God, gentiles, children, and everything else.

In Born to Kvetch, Michael Wex looks at the ingredients that went into this buffet of disenchantment and examines how they were mixed together to produce an almost limitless supply of striking idioms and withering curses. Born to Kvetch includes a wealth of material that's never appeared in English before.

This is no bobe mayse (cock-and-bull story) from a khokhem be-layle (idiot, literally a "sage at night" when no one's looking), but a serious yet fun and funny look at a language. From tukhes to goy, meshugener to kvetch, Yiddish words have permeated and transformed English as well. Through the fascinating history of this kvetch-full tongue, Michael Wex gives us a moving and inspiring portrait of a people, and a language, in exile.

Customer Reviews:

Hard to listen.......2007-10-11

I came here just to say what another reviewer just said, about the last sentence in each word is stretched out. It was not so much the accent, as the way the last words is pronounced, that makes this recording painful to listen to for more then a short time. The author also speaks very quickly giving the mind very little time to digest what he just said, before he jumps ahead to another topic.

I got the CD from the library, but it should have been sold with a text copy, so one can stop the recording, and look at the text for clarification.

The whole book is read in a whine, which can be entertaining during the times when he is telling a joke, but for the majority of the book he is discussing complex material about Yiddish. If he varied his voice, and used the whiny voice when it was appropriate to his context the CD would have been much more enjoyable. I also had to give up listening to it, like the reader before.

There are some things on the first CD that are laugh out loud funny in regard to Jesus being described as something that would not fly, and there are a large number of jokes and humorous stories to keep one entertained.

If you are a serious student of Yiddish you may be able to over look the readers voice, but this is not for the casual reader who is just interested in the topic.

Great book - but reading is hard to bear.......2007-07-12

Like most previous reviewers, I loved this book. I did want to mention that the audio version, narrated by the author, is problematic. On the positive front, the author pronounces Yiddish correctly! The problem is in how he pronounces English. He has a very odd way of speaking, with the last word of each sentence articulated very slowly (str-e-e-e-etched out) and about three notes lower than every other word in the sentence. Every sentence ends with a melodic downturn. I found it quite maddening and really had trouble enjoying the book because of it. You may want to be careful if you plan to buy the audio book because his diction is really rather odd.

very well written.......2007-01-12

this is a scholarly, as well as entertaining, book. I always say that if I'm not complaining, check my pulse. Well now I know why.
You'll laugh, and most importantly, you'll gain understanding.
Even my husband the shaygitz enjoyed it.

So, what's not to like?.......2007-01-01

First of all full disclosure, possible conflict of interest: I know Michael Wex and think he is a genius. I would buy anything he writes, records, I don't care. His shopping lists are probably more exciting than half of the stuff in print today. So, I don't pretend to be neutral.

Recently I spent four days listening to him lecture at the annual Klezkamp get together. I couldn't stop laughing. My sister sat next to me. She was laughing so hard I thought she might need emergency medical care.

The material is potentially beyond dull. Wex's genius is that he makes it dance and makes me beg for more. Granted, I am a Yiddishist and love the language and culture. Also, I come from a similar background having sat in a yeshiva (rabbinical seminary) for several years, so I identify with much of what he discusses. However, as the old commercial for Levy's rye bread went, "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's." Anyone with the least interest in European Jewish culture will find this work to be a gold mine.

Why? Because what he says ( writes in his book) is, as far as I know, totally original. There is so much sentimental nonsense written about Yiddish and European Jewry. This book totally strips that away. Here you get the real, unvarnished thing.

Some people complain about his voice. For me, it is the perfect voice for this book. It is the quintessential Eastern European Jewish voice with a beautiful Canadian undertone. The tone, the flow, the candence are all classic kvetch with a generous contribution from Leonard Cohen. I grew up with many people who spoke this way. I find it totally wonderful that the publisher would have Michael read his own work; it is a stroke of genius. I listened to the entire set in my car. At times I laughed so hard I was afraid the police would pull me over. " Your honor, I was overcome with an eruptive kvetch. What can I say?"

Now I'm listening to it again. And then I'll probably do it again, and again.....

My Turn to Kvetch.......2006-06-30

Publisher's Weekly has it right. I found the author's voice annoying almost to the point to not being able to listen. But I stuck with it because the book is full of valuable information. And then just when I thought I couldn't stand it any more, he came up with a zinger that I found hilarious. So, my advice is if you can ignore or get used to the whiney voice, try to listen for the content and humor.

Born To Kvetch CD : Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods

Average customer rating:

Born To Kvetch CD : Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods
Michael; Michael, Wex Wex
Manufacturer: HarperAudio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OFJVJ2

Book Description

This first-ever collection of Jack Kerouac’s visual art includes nearly every existing full-color painting collected and preserved by the Kerouac estate in Lowell, Massachusetts. Also included are dozens of black-and-white line drawings, sketches, and facsimile reproductions of Kerouac’s notations from his unpublished notebooks. In writing, Kerouac’s restless and relentless experimentation—what he called “spontaneous bop prosody”—pushed language to the boundaries of meaning. In painting and drawing he found a complementary means of expression. A friend and admirer of painters Willem de Kooning, Larry Rivers, Franz Kline, and Dody Muller, Kerouac was an ardent and deliberate student who worked to develop and refine his skills and his conception of the act of painting—a conception related to the spontaneous composition he had pioneered in his books. Ed Adler’s essay offers an unprecedented view of Kerouac, the visual artist. Rich in anecdote and drawing on extensive quotation from Kerouac’s letters, notebooks, and published writings, Adler’s essay demonstrates the biographical and thematic preoccupations common to Kerouac’s writing and painting, especially Kerouac’s struggle to integrate the two spiritual traditions, Catholicism and Buddhism, to which he was devoted. No consideration of Kerouac will be complete without reference to this heretofor- unseen aspect of his life and work.

Customer Reviews:

Pictures of Transient Pain and the World Beyond.......2005-02-01

The text and paintings here are revealing of Keroauc's soul as an artist tho without doubt his greatest paintings were done with words... and the numerous paintings and drawings reflect talent... however, most of the off the cuff pencil drawings are cartoonish and at times viewable for no more than 10 seconds. One thing he could rarily get right was a person's face, particularly the nose...very weird... The writer's pedantic analysis of Kerouac's work is alright at first particularly in setting the historical artistic context for modernist American painting, but begins to wear..and his assessment of Kerouac's work is inflated...There is no doubt Kerouac took his painting seriously. Paintings like The Eagle, the Ghost over Lowell at tenament dusk, the abstract paintings, the Clothesline, the woman with guitar and the pencil drawing of Buddha are all accomplished works..really quite surprising! (I would have liked to have seen his painting of Charlie Parker..but that is not in this collection). This book is recommended because, for once in the last ten years, we have some new insight into the man and his artistic vision.

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