From Predators To Icons

Author : Michel Villette
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801475665
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.6X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book From Predators to Icons written by Michel Villette and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the popular imagination, the business media, and the schools of business and management that train new generations of entrepreneurs and executives, achieving extraordinary success in business is attributed to far-sighted individuals who have taken bold risks, provided innovative leadership, and introduced new products, services, or ideas superior to those of the competition. Amid the growing skepticism about the means by which vast amounts of wealth are accumulated and its consequences, however, this belief is long overdue for reevaluation. In From Predators to Icons, Michel Villette, a sociologist, and Catherine Vuillermot, a business historian, examine the careers of thirty-two of today's wealthiest global executives--including Warren Buffett, Ingvar Kamprad, Bernard Arnault, Jim Clark, and Richard Branson--in order to challenge the conventional explanations for their extreme success and come to a better understanding of modern business practices. In contrast to the familiar image of the entrepreneur as a visionary with a plan, Villette and Vuillermot instead discover a far less dramatic process of improvised adaptations gradually assembled into a coherent course of conduct. And rather than being risk-takers, those who are most successful in business are risk-minimizers. Huge gains, these case studies reveal, are most reliably obtained in circumstances where the entrepreneur has established careful provisions for risk reduction. As for the view that innovation makes success possible, the authors find that because innovation is an expensive process that takes a long time to produce profits, innovators first of all require capital; success makes innovation possible. The necessary resources, they show, are most often derived from what they provocatively term "predation" ruthlessly taking advantage of imperfections, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities within the market or among competitors. Finally, From Predator to Icon considers the "practical ethics" implemented during the phase in which capital is most rapidly accumulated, as well as the social consequences of these activities. Drawing on interviews with some of their subjects and, crucially, close readings of the authorized biographies and other hagiographic accounts of these figures, which eliminates the bias of malicious interpretations, Villette and Vuillermot provide revelatory insights about the creation and maintenance of business wealth that will be profitably read by both the captains and the critics of contemporary capitalism.

Author : Mark S. Ferrara
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1498590233
Total Pages : 171 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

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Download or read book New Seeds of Profit written by Mark S. Ferrara and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-04-19 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Captain Christopher Newport and his crew landed on the muddy banks of the James River in 1607, after four months at sea, they aimed to establish a new colony not for God, or the greater good of humanity—but for the sake of profit. The Pilgrims who settled in Cape Cod in 1620 as agents of Plymouth Company found evidence of divine election in the fortunes they accumulated from a lucrative system of town-founding in the New World. The innovative and often ruthless entrepreneurs who followed these colonists carved out the immense North American frontier wilderness from the Atlantic Ocean to the golden sands of the California coast, and they forged industrial and technological revolutions that shook the world. New Seeds of Profit examines the role of business leaders, from George Washington to Donald Trump, in shaping the United States into a business nation unlike any other in world history. By tracing the influence of industry and commerce on American society through portraits of successful entrepreneurs, this book sheds light on the esteemed place Americans reserve for their wealthiest business leaders—and it measures the true cost of that adulation by demonstrating how enterprise driven solely by the bottom line imperils people and the environment. In a story teeming with the heroes and villains of enterprise, New Seeds of Profit offers an innovative business model that provides meaningful work to employees and socially responsible returns to investors, while encouraging sustainable stewardship of the earth and advancing the common good.

Author : National Geographic
Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 142631406X
Total Pages : 132 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Predators Collection written by National Geographic and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2013 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some have enormous teeth, others the deadly skill to catch their prey without making a sound! National Geographic Kidsbrings readers some of their favorite deadly and carnivorous animals in one convenient package with National Geographic Readers: Predators Collection. Howling wolves, chomping sharks, sneaky spiders, and toothy tigers all have the need to feed, and have developed amazing ways to catch their prey. Fascinating animal information is accompanied by wonderful photographs to ensure that kids' natural curiosity is both satisfied AND inspired.

Author : Ronald J. Burke
Publisher : CRC Press
ISBN 13 : 1317159462
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.69/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Corporate Reputation written by Ronald J. Burke and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2016-05-13 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Increasing media scrutiny, global coverage and communication via the internet means corporate reputation can be damaged quickly, and failing to successfully address challenges to corporate reputation has consequences. Companies generally suffer almost ten times the financial loss from damaged reputations than from whatever fines may be imposed. According to Ernst & Young, the investment community believes up to 50 per cent of a company's value is intangible - based mostly on corporate reputation. So recognizing potential threats, or anticipating risks, emerges as a critical organizational competence. Organizations can regain lost reputations, but recovery takes a long time. Corporate Reputation contains both academic content along with practical contributions, developed by those serving as consultants or working in organizations in the area of corporate reputation and its management or recovery. It covers: why corporate reputation matters, the increase in reputation loss, threats to corporate reputation, monitoring reputation threats online and offline, the key role of leadership in reputation recovery, and making corporate reputation immune from threats. Any book that is going to do justice to a subject that is so complex and intangible needs imagination, depth and range, and this is exactly what the contributors bring with them.

Author : Thomas N. Duening
Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1785363719
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Entrepreneurial Identity written by Thomas N. Duening and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2017-05-26 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Entrepreneurship is an academic discipline that, despite decades of growth in research and teaching activity lacks a traditionally distinct or common theoretical domain. In this book, editors Thomas N. Duening and Matthew Metzger explore entrepreneurial identity, facets of entrepreneurship education in forming and developing this identity and the development of entrepreneurs in general. Chapters focus primarily on macro-level identity issues (i.e., how do these entrepreneurial archetypes form, persist, and sometimes change) or micro-level identity issues (i.e., how can educators and resource providers identify, communicate, and incentivize identity construction among aspiring entrepreneurs), topics that will be of interest to researchers and students alike.

Author : Walter Scheidel
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691184313
Total Pages : 525 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Great Leveler written by Walter Scheidel and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 525 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How only violence and catastrophes have consistently reduced inequality throughout world history Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world. Ever since humans began to farm, herd livestock, and pass on their assets to future generations, economic inequality has been a defining feature of civilization. Over thousands of years, only violent events have significantly lessened inequality. The "Four Horsemen" of leveling—mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues—have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich. Scheidel identifies and examines these processes, from the crises of the earliest civilizations to the cataclysmic world wars and communist revolutions of the twentieth century. Today, the violence that reduced inequality in the past seems to have diminished, and that is a good thing. But it casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future. An essential contribution to the debate about inequality, The Great Leveler provides important new insights about why inequality is so persistent—and why it is unlikely to decline anytime soon.

Author : Ugo Corte
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226820459
Total Pages : 285 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Dangerous Fun written by Ugo Corte and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-06-20 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thrilling ethnography of big wave surfing in Hawaii that explores the sociology of fun. Straight from the beaches of Hawaii comes an exciting new ethnography of a community of big-wave surfers. Oahu’s Waimea Bay attracts the world’s best big wave surfers—men and women who come to test their physical strength, courage, style, knowledge of the water, and love of the ocean. Sociologist Ugo Corte sees their fun as the outcome of social interaction within a community. Both as participant and observer, he examines how mentors, novices, and peers interact to create episodes of collective fun in a dangerous setting; how they push one another’s limits, nourish a lifestyle, advance the sport and, in some cases, make a living based on their passion for the sport. In Dangerous Fun, Corte traces how surfers earn and maintain a reputation within the field, and how, as innovations are introduced, and as they progress, establish themselves and age, they modify their strategies for maximizing performance and limiting chances of failure. Corte argues that fun is a social phenomenon, a pathway to solidarity rooted in the delight in actualizing the self within a social world. It is a form of group cohesion achieved through shared participation in risky interactions with uncertain outcomes. Ultimately, Corte provides an understanding of collective effervescence, emotional energy, and the interaction rituals leading to fateful moments—moments of decision that, once made, transform one’s self-concept irrevocably.

Author : Guido Alfani
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691227128
Total Pages : 440 pages
Book Rating : 4.22/5 ( download)

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Download or read book As Gods Among Men written by Guido Alfani and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-12-05 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the rich and the super-rich throughout Western history accumulated their wealth, behaved (or misbehaved) and helped (or didn’t help) their communities in times of crisis The rich have always fascinated, sometimes in problematic ways. Medieval thinkers feared that the super-rich would act 'as gods among men’; much more recently Thomas Piketty made wealth central to discussions of inequality. In this book, Guido Alfani offers a history of the rich and super-rich in the West, examining who they were, how they accumulated their wealth and what role they played in society. Covering the last thousand years, with frequent incursions into antiquity, and integrating recent research on economic inequality, Alfani finds—despite the different paths to wealth in different eras—fundamental continuities in the behaviour of the rich and public attitudes towards wealth across Western history. His account offers a novel perspective on current debates about wealth and income disparity. Alfani argues that the position of the rich and super-rich in Western society has always been intrinsically fragile; their very presence has inspired social unease. In the Middle Ages, an excessive accumulation of wealth was considered sinful; the rich were expected not to appear to be wealthy. Eventually, the rich were deemed useful when they used their wealth to help their communities in times of crisis. Yet in the twenty-first century, Alfani points out, the rich and the super-rich—their wealth largely preserved through the Great Recession and COVID-19—have been exceptionally reluctant to contribute to the common good in times of crisis, rejecting even such stopgap measures as temporary tax increases. History suggests that this is a troubling development—for the rich, and for everyone else.

Author : John Curra
Publisher : SAGE Publications
ISBN 13 : 154430921X
Total Pages : 402 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Relativity of Deviance written by John Curra and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2019-10-21 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Relativity of Deviance is a primer on the constructivist perspective on deviance—the idea that deviance cannot be explained in terms of absolutes, nor can it be understood apart from its social setting. The book is frequently used alongside all of the major core deviance textbooks on the market. It answers such questions as: What is deviant? What is deviant behavior? How should the deviant be treated? Why is the same act sometimes praised and sometimes condemned? Readers will see that what qualifies as deviance varies from place to place, time to time, and situation to situation. The book explores some of the most frequent contexts for deviant behavior in ways that challenge definitive or objective judgments. The Fifth Edition has been updated to include the most current developments in American society, including deviance at the highest levels of national politics and corporate life, sex abuse scandals, the opioid crisis, and the growing decriminalization of marijuana.

Author : Laura Maya
Publisher : Estalontech
ISBN 13 : 8829584185
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.85/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Surviving Disruption written by Laura Maya and published by Estalontech. This book was released on 2018-12-28 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Disrupt ,Reinvent , Transform and Innovate.. How is it Possible to stay ahead … or Can we change the Game ! Given this time of rapid global change ,it is important that all individuals works to address new innovation and seize new opportunities happening every day , anywhere . Business in the developed world has progressively move into a new era where new technologies and funding possibilities are driving disruptive trends creating a new look into the sharing economy and revolutionize the ways innovators manage new ideas in implementation and manufacturing . From the popular crowdfunding financial services like Kickstarter, office space sharing through PivotDesk , transport service rendered by Uber , educational services on Skillshare , childcare and household assistance through co-ops such as Taskrabbit and more localized services like Rapid Prototyping incubation centers , F&B delivering platform and even bicycle sharing services , the sharing economy is now very much acceptable to most empowered consumers for many sectors. The new frugal innovative business concept behind the sharing economy provides a way to use an asset less expensively or with frugality than has ever been possible before and yet allow service providers to gain some incremental income from customer’s service purchase and benefits the customers who also gain from being able to access to product and services that they require when they need them without the burden of owning them. This new emergence of peer-to-peer sharing companies such as Airbnb, Mobike and Uber has been one of the more intriguing developments in recent years both for online web development but also in this new sharing economy. They have brought on the overhauling the traditional concept of business versus consumer by enabling users to offer up their assets like their apartments, cars or teaching skills in return for monetary gains . Out with the Old , In with the New But it could mean bad news for most traditional businesses that fail to transform or reinvent to adapt . The sharing economy are creating new economic value and disrupting current established industry players. There is a gradual shift occurring and I believe all industries will be or are already being affected by this change The understanding and practice of disruptive innovation should be taken as a priority –as market leaders must believe newly developed product or services eventually will displaces established competitors–should be under every marketing leader’s agenda. One rule stand above the rest , and if you want to survive , - you must embrace for change to Disrupt , Reinvent , Transform and Innovate Ignoring this basic belief could make your company the next diminishing service provider . Businesses need to rev up their innovation engines quickly because they are losing market share and brand security with each passing day This book will provide a fresh perspective on innovation and change , identifying and gauging how fast innovation model will be adopted and understand the psychology of business disruption and explain just how to reinvent concepts and ideas from the start but ways to continuously meet today’s constantly challenging market’s competitive environment . Beside it will provide insight on Crowdfunding which offer new avenues for funding new products or startups and the ease of using such platforms to getting new business financially sound and readied for their venture which could also be attached with a steep learning curve. Many startup ventures may find themselves caught into unfamiliar territories without the real knowledge of choosing a platform, crafting a pitch and attracting investors