Doing Business With Africa 2000/1

Book Description

Since it was first published in 1980, Student Services: A Handbook for the Profession has become a classic reference in the field. In the fourth edition of this important resource the contributors'—a stellar panel of student affairs scholars—examine the changing context of the student experience in higher education, the evolution of the role of student affairs professionals, and the philosophies, ethics, and theories that guide the practice of student affairs work. Comprehensive in scope, this book covers a broad range of relevant topics including the development of student affairs, legal and ethical foundations of student affairs practice, student development, learning and retention theories, organizational theory, dynamics of campus environments, strategic planning and finance, information technology in student affairs, managing human resources, multiculturalism, teaching, counseling and helping skills, assessment and evaluation, and new lessons from research on student outcomes.

Customer Reviews:

Must read for student affair professionals.......2000-12-08

This is the textbook of my class in college student development. This is a must read book for all the people who interest in the student services. It does not contain a lot of student develop theories, but it mentions all the aspects of student services from college student development theories, learning theories, to the function of student affairs and human resources in higher education. Even though you may not have time to read through this book, it can be a good handbook for you. You will find this book as a good reference in your professional life. For people who interest in the theory, I suggest you read this book with the other book "Student development in college: Theory, research, and practice" by Nancy J. Evans, Deanna S. Forney, and Florence Guido-DiBrito.

Writing and Publishing Your Thesis, Dissertation, and Research: A Guide for Students in the Helping Professions

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Dissertation prep
Great
Great Book for those just starting to write!
Outstanding resource for all students
Must-have for Psych doctoral students

Writing and Publishing Your Thesis, Dissertation, and Research: A Guide for Students in the Helping Professions
P. Paul Heppner , and Mary J. Heppner
Manufacturer: Wadsworth Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0534559743

Book Description

This book provides masters and doctoral students with an in-depth and comprehensive guide to the process of writing a thesis or dissertation. It breaks down this often foreboding and overwhelming goal into achievable steps, presenting models that prepare readers for each stage of the process. Within each step, the authors supply all the tools and detailed instructions necessary for the successful completion of a thesis or dissertation. Along the way, the book offers readers skills and techniques that can help them cope more effectively with the psychological or emotional blocks that often get in the way of accomplishing their goal.

Customer Reviews:

Dissertation prep.......2007-09-21

A surprisingly enjoyable and easy read for anyone starting a thesis or dissertation! Given the subject, it is really fun.

Great.......2006-03-18

Thanks for the book. It was in great shape, and at a good price.

Great Book for those just starting to write!.......2006-02-24

This book offers practical stratagies to getting started and staying focused. I would definetly resommend it for beginners!

Outstanding resource for all students.......2005-07-11

This book is an oustanding resource for graduate students working on their dissertations or theses as well as for faculty who supervise research. My students have told me repeatedly that this book has greatly helped them in the research process. It is well-written, concepts are clearly explained, and the examples are invaluable. As a Professor, I have recommended this book to almost every doctoral student I meet and have actually given it as a gift to all my students in their first year of graduate school. I most highly recommend it to faculty and students alike. I think it would be especially useful and relevant for a graduate research course.

Must-have for Psych doctoral students.......2005-06-20

My dissertation chair recommended this book because it was written by authors highly involved in APA and gives examples relevant to psych students, who inevitably have to figure out how to deal with all those articles they read and review. I found the book comprehensive and extremely helpful. It breaks down each section of the dissertation and walks you through it, then gives a "quiz" at the end of each chapter that will be very helpful when revising that first draft. I would also recommend "Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day" as a moral support companion text. It isn't specifically for psych, but it's great if you're scared to write or angry about having to write. Best of luck to my fellow ABD's!

Blackstone's Student Police Officer Handbook (Blackstones)

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Blackstone's Student Police Officer Handbook (Blackstones)

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

The Student Police Officer Handbook is a key text for new student police officers undergoing their initial police training and provides all the underpinning subject matter and skills development materials for the Initial Police Learning and Development Programme (IPLDP). The book is very
practical and contains many useful examples and learning aids including flowcharts and checklists. The content of each chapter is linked closely to the 22 National Occupational Standards for Initial Policing and the IPLDP curriculum. A must for all student police officers.

STUDENT SERVICES: A HANDBOOK FOR THE PROFESSION

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STUDENT SERVICES: A HANDBOOK FOR THE PROFESSION
Ursala, et al Delworthy
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000IOTZKE

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Student Services: A Handbook for the Profession
Ursula; Hanson, Gary R. Delworth
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000QJFKCS

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Student Services: a Handbook for the Profession.
Ursula, Gary R. Hanson and Associates. Delworth
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass Pub.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000RUY3D8

The allied health professions opportunities for minority students : career guidebook (SuDoc HE 20.9308:2001034971)

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The allied health professions opportunities for minority students : career guidebook (SuDoc HE 20.9308:2001034971)
U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services
Manufacturer: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Bureau of Health Professions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B000114QXA

Native Hawaiian health scholarship program : applicant information bulletin for native Hawaiian students of selected primary health care professions (SuDoc HE 20.9102:N 21)

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Native Hawaiian health scholarship program : applicant information bulletin for native Hawaiian students of selected primary health care professions (SuDoc HE 20.9102:N 21)
U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services
Manufacturer: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Health Resources and Services Administration, Bureau of Primary Health Care
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B00010VDF0

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Student Services, A Handbook for the Profession
Ursula, Gary R. Hanson & Associates Delworth
Manufacturer: San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1981
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NVAM22

Book Description

Complexity and Creativity in Organizations is the most comprehensive and thorough book yet written on how the new science of complexity can be applied to organizations. In it, Ralph Stacey invites you to explore how this new science might provide us with more useful frameworks for making sense of life in organizations than the approaches that currently dominate our thinking.

Customer Reviews:

Highly Recommended!.......2001-08-04

Organizations are adaptive structures that respond creatively to changing circumstances. This responsive evolution takes place on an official, surface level, and also on a deeper, personal level composed of interactions between people. So says Ralph D. Stacey, who combines insights from psychoanalysis, behavioral research, the new science of complexity and other disciplines to suggest ways for your organization to become better at learning and adapting. While the basic concepts of complexity theory presented in this book are steadily gaining popularity, the actual complexity of the book's content might make it difficult for non-experts to follow. Although the book's tight organization keeps chaos at bay, some of the language might leave you at "the edge of disintegration." Nevertheless, we at [...] strongly recommend this book to executives and managers looking to build a theoretical foundation for their organizational approach, in addition to the many academics who will appreciate its systematic explanation of the organizational consequences of systems thinking.

Great application of chaos theory to organizations.......2001-03-24

Stacey did a good job applying chaos theory to business in this book. He develops a very convincing and interesting conceptual framework for organizations in the future. Although the book mainly focuses on theory, he does provide some practical guidelines and case studies. He repeats the theories quite often and thus, the book is especially appropriate for students who really want to get the jist of the theory. If you read it for fun, all these repetitions might become tedious. All in all, a great book!

Save your money..........1998-04-27

While the content should have some value, the cost to the reader to extract the information is so high that the author should pay the reader to read his book. In the first 25 pages of "At Home in the Universe", Stuart Kauffman sucessfully introduces more than Stacey stumbled over in 282 pages. If it's an organizational perspective you want, buy Margaret Wheatley's stuff.

Disappointing in light of Stacey's other work in this field........1997-01-03

Ralph D. Stacey (strategic management, U. of Hertfordshire, England, and management consultant) has contributed for years to our knowledge related to organizations and management. His previous publications primarily served to illuminate the relevance of applying strategic approaches and complexity theory to organization and management in a rapidly growing environment (see for example, Stacey, 1991, 1992, 1993). His latest installment, Complexity and Creativity in Organizations, represents a significant step forward in his thinking by reviving systems theory and integrating insights from a variety of disciplines to create, he proposes, an original perspective. More precisely, Stacey combines his acquired acumen from the fields of chaos and complexity, organizational behavior, biology, and psychoanalysis to demonstrate how complexity concepts may be used to create a framework for understanding organizational processes and learning. During the course of his presentation, Stacey reviews current knowledge in the nature of human networks and complexity theory. He explores the place of complexity in individuals, groups and organizations. He also discusses the implications of applying the complexity paradigm for management research and practice. Complexity and Creativity in Organizations is aimed at "consultants, and managers, those concerned with life in organizations, to new efforts being undertaken to understand life in nature." It is organized into ten chapters divided into four parts: Part I: The Complex Nature of Human Networks, attempts to demonstrate "that human systems are indeed the kind of system that the science of complexity deals with." Part II: The Science of Complexity, reviews literature on "the dynamics of deterministic feedback networks," and explores how some "scientists have come to understand adaptive feedback networks." Part III: Mapping the Science of Complexity onto Organizations, "seeks to locate the space for novelty in human systems and explore the process of evolution in that space." Part IV: Implications of Complexity Theory for Organizations, attempts to illustrate that by adopting the complexity perspective, our understanding of organizational life is "completely different from today's dominant frame of reference." It includes a brief glossary; some expected references; and an index appropriate to the depth of this work. This book is well intended, but falls short of stated goals and purpose. This reviewer was unable to discover sufficient value in Stacey's recent contribution to merit its recommendation. A genuine disappointment considering his earlier, value-adding writings. Stacey's Complexity and Creativity in Organizations fails in areas ranging from the timeliness of his information--it is out dated; to lack of contribution--it's an unfortunate attempt to repackage existing knowledge; to coverage and depth of his subject; to the tone and presentation of the work. His writing style and tone are that of lecturer dealing with elementary school students as he avidly invokes the royal "we" to connect with his readers. He offers paragraphs of immoderate length, some consisting of one sentence. (This reviewer became discouraged trying to decipher some sentences ranging from seventy to ninety-five words. She had to edit them into four or five sentences so she could follow his points. Points which, when understood, were not worth the editorial effort.) As a combined example of "we"-ness in a two sentence paragraph beginning with a ninety-five word sentence advancing too many concepts at once, "let us" consider the following. We have now mapped the novelty onto organizations, and we have found . . . nonlinear feedback system: . . . phase transition . . . stable and unstable zones . . . control parameters . . . at a critical point . . . the edge of system disintegration in which paradox is sustained . . . archetypical behaviors are actualized . . . creative destruction. This is followed by a 33 word sentence which includes two "we"s and the phrases "peculiarity of human dynamics of anxiety-inspiration," "individuation-conformity," "leadership-followership," and "participation-observation render mapping invalid (page 183)." This reviewer places part of the blame for Stacey's presentation on the publisher who seems to have been remiss in the discharging of editorial responsibilities. Stacey may also confuse some by not offering comparable terms from different fields. Those less inter-disciplinarily trained may not recognize, for example, that the term "Shadow system" (to which he has apparently developed a fondness owing to its usage every few pages), is not discernibly different from the concept of "Informal organization" which he does not mention, but is often speaking about. While his book is presented as inter-disciplinary in nature, me thinks and "feels" that Stacey's study of psychology and psychoanalysis have overly influenced his writing. He frequently discusses "how we feel" or "feelings" in relationship to how consultants might analyze a complex organizational situation. His current writing is rich in banality and incomparable comparisons. My personal favorite is when he compares schools of psychology. In one paragraph, he discusses with equal fervor the work of Berne, Freud and Jung. Specifically, he discusses Transactional Analysis (TA) brought to you by Berne in Games People Play. TA was never much more than a popular 1960s parlor game. And Games People Play primarily served as the textual reference to inform the Friday night pop-psychological critiques bandied about by those who had one too many beers. Stacey then proceeds to Freud as relates to anal retentive, anal explusive and orally fixated scripts; and to Jung as it relates to personal archetypes and personal behaviors activated by specific experiences. There are many other problems with this book which "we" do not have the space to discuss. Those deeply interested in chaos and complexity theories as applied to management and organizations are better served by examining earlier, and in my opinion, more informed writing on these topics. See, for example, works by Gleick, 1988; Waldrop, 1992; and Wheatley, 1992. Moreover, a search on the internet concerning chaos and complexity will yield much information on current states of theories, research and practice, as well as discussion groups and detailed bibliographies. Bottom line, this reviewer gained little from this book, but did have a few chuckles. Read Complexity and Creativity in Organizations at your own risk. REFERENCES: Berne, E. (1964). Games people play. New York: Grove Press. Gleick, J. (1988). Chaos: The making of a new science. London: Heinemann. Stacey, RD. (1991). The chaos frontier: Creative strategic control for business. Oxford, England: Butterworth-Heinemann. Stacey, RD. (1992). Managing the unknowable: Strategic boundaries between order and chaos in organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Stacey, RD. (1993). Strategic management and organizational dynamics. London: Pitman. Waldrop, MM. (1992). Complexity: The emerging science at the edge of chaos. New York: Simon & Schuster. Wheatley, MJ. (1992). Leadership and the New Science: Learning about organization from an orderly universe. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler. [Note: the above was excerpted from review by Susan Phelps that appears in "Personnel Psychology

Complexity and Creativity in Organizations

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Complexity and Creativity in Organizations
Ralph Stacey
Manufacturer: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000PS15WE

Average customer rating:

Business and management coverage, but little that's concrete

Long checklist of questions and practical ideas you can use

A few good ideas

If you want to be an active trendwatcher, this is the BOOK!

If you want to be an active trendwatcher, this is the BOOK!

Invent Business Opportunities No One Else Can Imagine
Art Turock
Manufacturer: Career Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant

ASIN: 1564145786

Book Description

Designed for business strategists, top sales producers, small business entrepreneurs and dedicated professionals; here is a unique and practical book that brings together four key elements for achieving enduring success.
* How to create a strategy that makes your competitors' jaws drop in envy.
* How to systematically recognize your customers' needs before they even ask for something.
* How to transcend conventional thinking and create something unique.
* How to create a relentless "spirit of the entrepreneurial garage" even as your start-up matures and grows.

Art Turock writes from first-hand experience. An authority in the field of "breakthrough performance," his ideas have been featured in USA Today, The One Minute Manager series, Reader's Digest, Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work and Success magazine. A master at turning theoretical concepts into hard-hitting practicality, he has presented to hundreds of major professional organizations and Fortune 500 companies.

Customer Reviews:

Business and management coverage, but little that's concrete.......2004-02-27

There's some excellent information about how to manage your teams, making sure that you and your people keep an eye on trends in the industry, and also good cautionary tales about not getting too wrapped up in your current success.

Unfortunately, history has proven parts of this book to be risky if taken literally. For instance, Enron is given as an example of a great, innovative company. I know that it's hard to have seen the failure coming, but still, it points out some risks in getting too caught up in broad ideas without properly estimating the real business opportunity. There's a lot of talk in the book about how to brainstorm markets and user needs, but very little about what to do with it. The implication is that you should just run off and go with an idea as soon as you imagine a trend; however, it's worth thinking about how you should transform your business and whether you could actually be profitable in your new venture. There are a lot of other great books in this space; I'd look at least at _Innovator's Solution_ to get more information about running your company without getting too stuck on your successes.

Long checklist of questions and practical ideas you can use.......2003-01-03

The author provides a long list of thoughts, questions, recommendations and ideas that you can use to generate new products and services for your business.

The book is easy to read and the recommendations are explained very well.

One reviewer said this book didn't match up to Drucker's book on Innovation. And, most would certainly agree. But using that criteria perhaps only 0.1 % of the business books would be comparable to Drucker, the sage of business management. Drucker's book might be a 8 or 9 on a 5 point scale (i.e. home run out of the ball park), while this one is one of the top 20 business books for the year it was published - what I would call a solid 5 star ranking.

Although he offers lots of great advice, I found his questions the most useful - particularly in the product innovation area. He covers many of the newer concepts on innovation by other authors, and integrates them into a nice package.

John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX

A few good ideas.......2002-11-18

This book is written by a business seminar leader and, not surprisingly, has the ring of an Anthony Robbins seminar.

Turock offers some good suggestions for looking at markets and customers in a way that may bring out opportunities for innovation in your business. He also provides a strategic planning process based on causing revolutionary innovation - as opposed to incremental change of the status quo.

My criticism of Turock is that he makes vague and often trite generalizations that trivialize the difficult process of developing and implementing effective innovations - as though he had never managed a company himself (which I do not think he has).

The book is a quick read and probably worthwhile because it just might prompt that one innovative thought that turns out to be a haymaker.

I recommend Innovation and Entrepreneurship - Practice and Principles by Peter F. Drucker for a more structured and comprehensive methodology for innovation and competitive strategy.

If you want to be an active trendwatcher, this is the BOOK!.......2002-02-09

Over the years, I have come across only a handful of very good books touching on the subject of opportunity seeking and trend watching. I am very glad I found this one.

Just as the inside cover says: "Art Turock writes from first-hand experience. An authority in the field of 'breakthrough performance'...", this book did not disappoint me at all.

To me, looking from the angle of business development, there are four key exciting - and useful - ideas in the book, although the author has organised his book into nine chapters,:

- Latent Customer Needs Analysis;
- Fresh Eyes Perspectives;
- Power of Questions;
- Strategic Planning for Innovators;

His "Fresh Eyes Perspectives" are the most insightful I have ever come across. He offers seven very fresh approaches. Wow! Once you really understand - and apply - these approaches, no trends - or changes in the marketplace - can escape from your environmental scanning.

I also like his Turock 29: 29 questions to stir up your thinking cap. These are the field-tested questions that will help you to turn your observations into practical insights, from which you can then generate workable ideas, and eventually create your marketable opportunities. To paraphrase the author, questions are seeds for innovation.

His Past-Present-Future Matrix on page 42 is a gem for planners.

The Strategic Planning for Innovators is best summed up by what the author says : "Strategy is best seen as a 'work in progress'."

My only "complaint" about the book is that the author did not provide any annotated bibliography at the end of the book. However, within the pages, he mentioned casually a handful of excellent books e.g. Art of the Long View, Visionary Handbook, All the Right Moves, which I would strongly recommend readers to pursue them, if you have not read them.

If you have read - and have enjoyed - Edward de Bono's 'Opportunities', Peter Drucker's 'Innovation & Entrepreneurship' and Michel Robert's 'The Innovation Formula', you must read this book. This is also the most current. I can guarantee you will not be disappointed.

If you want to be an active trendwatcher, this is the BOOK!.......2002-02-09

Over the years, I have come across only a handful of very good books touching on the subject of opportunity seeking and trend watching. I am very glad I found this one.

Just as the inside cover says: "Art Turock writes from first-hand experience. An authority in the field of 'breakthrough performance'...", this book did not disappoint me at all.

To me, looking from the angle of business development, there are four key exciting - and useful - ideas in the book, although the author has organised his book into nine chapters,:

- Latent Customer Needs Analysis;
- Fresh Eyes Perspectives;
- Power of Questions;
- Strategic Planning for Innovators;

His Past-Present-Future Matrix on page 42 is a gem for planners.

The Strategic Planning for Innovators is best summed up by what the author says : "Strategy is best seen as a 'work in progress'."

If you have read - and have enjoyed - Edward de Bono's 'Opportunities', Peter Drucker's 'Innovation & Entrpreneurship' and Michel Robert's 'The Innovation Formula', you must read this book. This is also the most current. I can guarantee you will not be disappointed.

Book Description

In a world of supercomputers, genetic engineering, and fiber optics, technological creativity is ever more the key to economic success. But why are some nations more creative than others, and why do some highly innovative societies--such as ancient China, or Britain in the industrial revolution--pass into stagnation? Beginning with a fascinating, concise history of technological progress, Mokyr sets the background for his analysis by tracing the major inventions and innovations that have transformed society since ancient Greece and Rome. What emerges from this survey is often surprising: the classical world, for instance, was largely barren of new technology, the relatively backward society of medieval Europe bristled with inventions, and the period between the Reformation and the Industrial Revolution was one of slow and unspectacular progress in technology, despite the tumultuous developments associated with the Voyages of Discovery and the Scientific Revolution. What were the causes of technological creativity? Mokyr distinguishes between the relationship of inventors and their physical environment--which determined their willingness to challenge nature--and the social environment, which determined the openness to new ideas. He discusses a long list of such factors, showing how they interact to help or hinder a nation's creativity, and then illustrates them by a number of detailed comparative studies, examining the differences between Europe and China, between classical antiquity and medieval Europe, and between Britain and the rest of Europe during the industrial revolution. He examines such aspects as the role of the state (the Chinese gave up a millennium-wide lead in shipping to the Europeans, for example, when an Emperor banned large ocean-going vessels), the impact of science, as well as religion, politics, and even nutrition. He questions the importance of such commonly-cited factors as the spill-over benefits of war, the abundance of natural resources, life expectancy, and labor costs. Today, an ever greater number of industrial economies are competing in the global market, locked in a struggle that revolves around technological ingenuity. The Lever of Riches, with its keen analysis derived from a sweeping survey of creativity throughout history, offers telling insights into the question of how Western economies can maintain, and developing nations can unlock, their creative potential.

Customer Reviews:

The Economics of Progress.......2006-03-30

This is an important book about the historical process that not so long ago was unashamedly called "progress." Mokyr is professor of economics at Northwestern and author of The Economics of the Industrial Revolution. The present work undertakes a systematic cross-cultural, longitudinal study of the causes and conditions of economic growth. A central contention is that contemporary microeconomics lacks the conceptual equipment to elucidate the increment to economic growth supplied by technological change. This is a startling claim: can a science founded in industrialising Scotland to explain the causes of the wealth of nations fail to explicate what everyone knows is the mainspring of economic growth? Mokyr aligns with economists who believe that this is so. They call their heterodoxy "Schumpeterian economics." In the Theory of Economic Development (1912), Joseph Schumpeter emphasized that innovation is the fundamental impulse of capitalist production. Innovation is all-sided. Production, product, resource procurement, efficiency, and marketing are all drawn into the kinetic performance. The key to this dynamism was the relentless, aggressive drive of entrepreneurs. His contemporary heirs replace the entrepreneur by the inventor as the chief wealth-producing agent. While this assessment of the critical role of technology may seem obvious to the layman, it's scandalous in microeconomics.

Readers are alerted to heterodoxy on the first page when Mokyr signals that his findings are at odds with "one of the most pervasive half-truths that economists teach their students, . . . that there is no such thing as a free lunch." We are apprised that it is the specific achievement of technology to deliver banquets for millions. It does so thanks to transactions between creative minds and nature that result in tapping natural powers and harnessing them to productive output. The wheel, the sail, the water mill, the wind mill (a wheel-sail), and the steam engine exemplify ways by which ingenuity coaxes nature into delivering disposable power at a precise point. These transactions occur outside the domain of market exchange, although they may and often do intersect with exchange. But it is not obvious to orthodox economics, whose doctrine is that technological innovation can be calculated as a response to market demand or else as a production cost. Mokyr answers that technological input is supply-led in the double sense that technology creates products and services unimagined by consumers, and that technology creates the incomes that make a demand for technology possible.

Mokyr's strategy for supplementing economics with a theory of technological innovation is to accept the half-truth that growth can be understood within economics of commercial expansion, size and scale effects, and investment. This will capture "microinnovation," that is, efficiency improvements and other changes that are made more or less spontaneously in the course of production. But then he passes on to macroinnovationm, which "involves an attack . . . on a constraint that everyone else takes as given" (9). Macroinnovators are mavericks who would change the givens. Market reward doesn't come easy. The strategy is to focus micro- and macroinnovation simultaneously in selected time-slices, and to examine their cross-fertilisation as well as the intersections between macroinnovation and the market.

The study is divided into historical narrative and systematics. The narrative covers classical antiquity, the middle ages, and the development of technology in western Europe from 1500 to 1914. The systematics is assisted by three comparative studies, of classical antiquity and medieval Europe, of China and Europe, and of Britain and Europe. Each study develops a theme meant to elucidate why macroinnovations occur and the circumstances that influence their uptake into production. They illustrate of the book's centrepiece, an analytical chapter entitled "Understanding Technological Progress." The second part of the author's systematics attempts to forge links between the dynamics of technological change and the Darwinian analysis of evolutionary change. This is a very ambitious undertaking, not easily understandable without specialist knowledge of evolutionary thought.

Here are some of Mokyr's results:

* Opposition to technological innovation is culturally pandemic. Often it's income- and market-related. Labour combinations and tariffs, over many centuries, document attempts to protect inefficient productive methods. There's also a syndrome of technology aversion. Islam and China after 1400 A.D. exhibit this syndrome after having passed through a long period of technology development. These cultures became progressively more risk-averse and xenophobic to the point of stigmatizing the imitation of foreign innovations. His description of the closure of these cultures helps understand the values and institutional prescriptions that arrest innovation; but what occasioned this turn-about? Mokyr believes that it expressed conservatism or risk-aversion at the power centers of society, that is, anxiety about loss of social control.

* Status values and the structure of preferences in a culture may assign low status to commerce or technology or both. This well-known diagnosis of Greek and Roman antiquity is confirmed by the author's investigations. He reminds us that this preference structure was nuanced. The Greeks discovered the science of mechanics and developed metallurgy and machine construction to a high pitch. But in the Greco-Roman world machines of war and building construction were the only areas in which sustained applications were made.

* Governments do not figure in Mokyr's study as significant promoters of technological innovation. The positive role of the mandarins prior to the onset of risk-aversion is emphasised, as is the strong affirmation of technology development in revolutionary and Bonapartist France. But these are exceptions; the author is more impressed by the tendency of governments to discourage innovation. The optimum recipe was the circumstance of early modern Europe, where a diversity of competing states and domestic institutions removed the option of risk-aversion taken in China and Islam. This diagnosis is confirmed by those cases where monarchs successfully imposed risk-aversion-Spain and Hapsburg went into economic decline. Since the author's history stops at 1914, we are left wondering whether the strong involvement of governments in R & D since 1945 marks a fundamental enhancement of the institutional capacity to promote technological innovation. The Soviet Union developed its technology entirely under government auspices, with mixed success. Perhaps Mokyr will explore this experience in a subsequent publication.

* The influence of ambient attitudes is discussed episodically throughout the study. The prevailing thought is that technological development is fostered best by an environment open to new ideas and new practices, which is not risk-averse and not intolerant, and which accords dignity to inventors and inventions. Religions are reckoned to be endogenous variables expressing a society's preference structure; Mokyr observes wryly that "every society . . . gets the religion it deserves" (171). The social rigidity of the Hindu religion strongly discouraged innovation, whereas the Judeo-Christian affirmation of man's dominion over nature provided support for technological intervention. Lynn White's fine studies of the Benedictine order are cited to substantiate this claim. The Protestant ethic is not mentioned as a relevant consideration.

Coming now to innovation and invention themselves, Mokyr treats them as aggregates and seeks to discern their properties. He stipulates that growth through invention and innovation is "any change in the application of information to the production process in such a way as to increase efficiency, resulting either in the production of a given output with fewer resources (i.e., lower costs) or the production of better or new products" (6). An invention is an increment in the set of total knowledge of a society, which is in turn the union of sets of individual technical knowledge. Since an invention that isn't utilized is without economic effect, the on-going synchronization of invention and innovation are critical to sustaining economic growth. The absence of this synchronisation is the reason why few societies have been technologically creative.

Space doesn't permit a discussion of Mokyr's extended analogy between organic evolution and the cultural evolution of technology. Let it be said that he endorses the punctuated equilibrium model of evolution because it incorporates macroevolution. As for the underlying psychology that microeconomics never elucidates, Mokyr's thinking is convergence with my own elucidation of "polytechnic rationality" which I developed in The Politics of Progress: The Origins and Development of the Commercial Republic.

Great Information -- And Read the Reviews Too.......2004-12-28

This is a scholarly and fact-focused treatment of a subject that has often been treated in a way that is meant to support a particular author's theoretical framework. The subject is complicated, and the book does a good job of dealing with the facts. As is so often the case, the most valuable part of the book is the commentary it elicits, so if you're going to go to the effort of reading the book, take the extra ten minutes to read whatever commentaries/reviews it gets, too. Just the ones on Amazon are pretty helpful for putting it in context.

dgc

Understanding the history of wealth.......2004-11-07

Understanding topics of human achievement often means understanding their history. Such is the case when we investigate the creation of unprecedented wealth during the last centuries of our existence. The result is as we see it, but it could have been very different. An indeed, many examples of similar initial conditions exist, which did not translate into an industrial revolution, and hence a "lever of riches".

And so, this is a book of history. Indeed, the creation of wealth is more than the economic decision to put so many people with so many tools at work, in order to produce so much output. After history went its course, it turns out that some people can produce many, many times over what other people can do during a similar period of time.

The question is why, and that answer is easy: technology. Having, and being able to use it, technology is the difference between eking out a living at the margin of subsistence, or breaking through age-old Malthusian constraints. The hard question is why some people do, and others do not, have the use of this technology.

The history part shows in a very clear way, and into some modest detail, how many societies of the past at some point stagnated, while a few, including medieval Europe did not. But apart from learning history, we also learn to think *about* history. What influence have factors like, say, climate? Or religion? Can we learn something by borrowing models from evolutionary theory?

Apart from theoretical considerations, there is also a good deal of more practical history. How does Roman Europe compare with medieval Europe? Why did Europe see progress at an age and a stage where China did not, or at least much less? And why did England take off in a way that turned the rest of Europe into a bunch of followers?

The picture that emerges is one where a multitude of necessary conditions have to combine into a long story of increasing capability and efficiency. Only if and when those conditions are met, societies make the kind of progress that allows them to follow the road to improving material life. And though the book thereby confirms this road is not necessarily an easy one for those who didn't find it yet, it also yields some thoughts about how to hand over our own lever of riches to those who still need it so much.

As I would reserve 5 stars for those truly outstanding books you should read as a masterpiece of art, even if you couldn't care less about the topic, I will quote this book four stars. Highly recommended if you're interested in this subject.

Good overview of technological progress.......2004-04-23

It is a good book and surprisingly maligned by a couple of the other reviewers.

h0td0gsh0p complains that Mokyr does not understand physics. However, the passage he quotes is entirely correct. The verge-and-foliot escapement mechanism was invented precisely because a falling object exerted a variable force on clock mechanisms due to differences in temperature, humidity, etc, which made earlier clocks highly imprecise.

The reader from Bath complains that Mokry says that waterwheels were invented in Medival Europe. However, what Mokry actually says is that, "The waterwheel may NOT have been invented in Medieval Europe, but it was there that its use spread far beyond anything seen in earlier times." He points out that in 1086, the Domesday Book lists roughly 1 waterwheel for every 50 households! The Romans were capable of producing fairly advanced overshot waterwheels (as the one near Arles France), but there are very few examples (about 3 places?) that are known.

Overall, I found the book very well researched.

Rather dry and dull........2003-05-29

I found this book made a fascinating subject really boring. I had a tough time finnishing it.

In all fairness, I learned quite a few interesting things. One of them being that the Greek civilization was not so great after all. This civilization developed great intellect, but no technological innovators. Their technology relied on harnessing the energy of their slaves period. They had no incentive to innovate, that would have caused an idle and restless underclass prone to civil unrest.

I am sure there must be another much more interesting book about the same subject.

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The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress (book reviews): An article from: Journal of Economic Issues
Thomas R. DeGregori
Manufacturer: Association for Evolutionary Economics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B00092I5O2
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Economic Issues, published by Association for Evolutionary Economics on September 1, 1991. The length of the article is 801 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress (book reviews)
Author: Thomas R. DeGregori
Publication: Journal of Economic Issues (Refereed)
Date: September 1, 1991
Publisher: Association for Evolutionary Economics
Volume: v25 Issue: n3 Page: p876(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress.

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Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress.

Manufacturer: 0
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000IBVAZ0

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Basic and Extensive.......2003-05-25

This books covered almost all apsects of retail management (not necessarily e-tail only). The author also provides many exercise/examples, plus one CD-ROM which contains many useful tables. The approach is clear and extensive. The only drawback (or characteristic) is too basic. So if you're looking for more advanced topics, or ways to improve your current operation, you'd better get another book.

Recommend to new retail manager/students.

A must read book for e-retailer.......2001-08-02

I read a lot of e-tail books and "e-Merchant: Retail strategies for e-commerce" is the best one I've read this year. This book doesn't has many "E-related" stuff, instead of that, the authors provide a step-by-step methodologies to explain how to build a successful e-retailer from strategy to implementation. For examply, the book provides the useful concepts about merchandising, inventory management, vendor relations, pricing, promotions and case studies that you'll need, it also included a useful CD-ROM with some useful tables.

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E-merchant: Retail Strategies For E-commerce
Neidorf , Neidorf
Manufacturer: Addison Wesley Longman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OOQKU6

Product Description

This booklet is about procedure of effective rituals, role of the organizers of karma kand, good management and conducive environment, keeping the stream of worship flowing, proper planning for sustaining of energy and enthusiasm, suggestions for organizing a yajna, purpose and form of the yajna, preparation for the yajna, workers and volunteers, construction of mandapa, discipline for participants, protection from fire, articles require for performing yajna, the importance and utility of gayatri yajna, science of yajna, inspiration of yajna and procedure to do yajna in details

Policy Making in Israel: Routines for Simple Problems and Coping With the Complex (Pitt Series in Policy and Institutional Studies)

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Policy Making in Israel: Routines for Simple Problems and Coping With the Complex (Pitt Series in Policy and Institutional Studies)
Ira Sharkansky
Manufacturer: University of Pittsburgh Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Israel | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

Public Affairs & Administration | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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General | Judaism | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0822939843

Routine Decision-making: Future of Bureaucracy (SAGE Library of Social Research)

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Routine Decision-making: Future of Bureaucracy (SAGE Library of Social Research)
Michael Inbar
Manufacturer: Sage Publications, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Social Policy | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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The Routines of Decision Making

Manufacturer: Lawrence Erlbaum
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0805846131

Book Description

Experience is currently a hot theme in decision making. For a long time, decision research was almost exclusively focused on new decisions and neglected the importance of experience. It took the field until the 1990s for a new direction in research and theorizing to become visible in the literature. There are parallel movements happening in sociology, political science, social psychology, and business.

The purpose of this edited book is to provide a balanced and representative overview of what is currently known about the dynamics of experienced-based decision making. The chapters are written by renowned experts in the field and provide the latest theoretical developments, integrative frameworks, and state-of-the-art reviews of research in the laboratory and in the field.

The role of routines in the vacation decision-making process of Dutch vacationers [An article from: Tourism Management]

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The role of routines in the vacation decision-making process of Dutch vacationers [An article from: Tourism Management]
B. Bargeman , and H. van der Poel
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000RR9ADE

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Tourism Management, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
For most Dutch vacationers, going on holiday has become a 'normal' thing in their lives. This study attempts to find what that means for the way they decide on their vacation. If routinization occurs, how does it relate to factors such as the extensiveness of the decision-making process, the search for internal and external information and the (type of) destination selected? This paper presents the results of a qualitative study among 32 Dutch households, which is part of a larger research project on the routinization of vacation choice behavior of Dutch vacationers. It appears that the vacation decision-making processes of the interviewed households are much less extensive and far more routinized than described in the rational choice models. A limited or routine choice process entails a greater emphasis on an internal search for information. Furthermore, the results indicate that a domestic vacation in most cases required a less extensive decision-making process compared to a vacation abroad. The results however appear to be not always consistent, due to the fact that the extensiveness of the vacation choice process is influenced by several interacting factors. Factors related to both the type of vacationer and type of vacation play an important role. Policy makers and marketers can use these results in their communication and provision of services to the Dutch tourist.

The use of patient reported outcome measures in routine clinical practice: lack of impact or lack of theory? [An article from: Social Science & Medicine]

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The use of patient reported outcome measures in routine clinical practice: lack of impact or lack of theory? [An article from: Social Science & Medicine]
J. Greenhalgh , A.F. Long , and R. Flynn
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000RR3YU4

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Social Science & Medicine, published by Elsevier in 2005. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
This paper applies a theory-driven approach to explore why the use of patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures in clinical practice, in particular, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) instruments, has little or no apparent influence on clinical decision making. A theory-driven approach involves combining knowledge of whether and how an intervention works. It is argued that such an approach is currently lacking within the literature evaluating the effectiveness of feeding back HRQoL information to clinicians. The paper identifies a number of mechanisms that might give rise to the expected outcomes that are currently implicit within the design of the intervention and hypotheses specified within the trials evaluating the use of HRQoL measures in clinical practice. It then examines how far current clinical practice matches these mechanisms and in doing so, a number of possible explanations for the lack of impact of HRQoL on clinical decision making are reviewed. The influence of HRQoL information on clinical decision making depends on a large number of factors related to the design of the intervention, patients' and clinicians' desire to discuss HRQoL issues within the consultation and the legitimacy that clinicians give to HRQoL instruments. To date, knowledge of how the feedback of HRQoL information to clinicians might improve doctor-patient communication or clinical decision making has yet to sufficiently inform an assessment of whether these aspects of patient care are improved. The paper concludes by specifying how the feedback of HRQoL information to clinicians might be modified to maximise its impact on clinical decision making.

Michigan State University. Computer Institute for Social Science Research. Research report

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Michigan State University. Computer Institute for Social Science Research. Research report
Martin Pfaff
Manufacturer: Michigan State University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Non-routine municipal decision-making (Occasional paper)

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Non-routine municipal decision-making (Occasional paper)
Robert C Rickards
Manufacturer: Center for International Studies, University of Missouri, St. Louis
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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Broken Promises..........2001-06-01

A good examination of failure in the USA health market This is a good opportunity to examine market failure in the US health care system. Private insurance schemes are making only very small inroads into universal, free at the point of use state financed welfare systems in Europe. However, I think that most European academics in this field will be alive to the possibility of fraud existing in the health insurance markets - if only because of the awareness raised by John Grisham's best-selling book The Rainmaker, which was published 3 years earlier. A contrast with `The Rainmaker' is not entirely flippant. Broken Promises is introduced with a case study that in some ways mirrors the dealings of Grishams fictitious `Great Benefits' health insurance company. Tillman also writes well and this book may well be considered `an interesting read' by the layperson. Broken Promises is an interesting study of insider health insurance fraud. This book is about white-collar criminals but fundamentally it is also about the conditions which promote their crimes. The author explores the ways in which weak regulatory structures and prevailing market conditions have contributed to the occurrence of insurance frauds. The book analyzes the political and economic environment and demonstrates convincingly how these have `enabled' such fraudulent practices to flourish. He also examines how recent legal and institutional changes have created new demand for insurance but also greater scope for fraud.. Broken Promises is written in six chapters (plus a short conclusion), each around 30 pages in length with reference to numerous case studies. Chapter One describes the structural underpinnings of what Tillman refers to as `the social and political construction' of health insurance fraud. Tillman draws upon documentary evidence to provide numerous examples of the three most prevalent manifestations of fraud: swindles which involve multiple employer welfare relationships, employee leasing schemes, and fictitious labour unions as well as more recent innovations, such as`24-hour plans' and cover offered by some religious organizations. The next 4 chapters discuss numerous case studies involving these different forms of fraud. Chapter 2 discusses fraud resulting from multiple employer welfare arrangements. These arrangements were meant to provide alternative mechanisms for health insurance, but case studies detail what can go wrong, in particular when the trusts funding fails. Chapter 3 examines employee-leasing schemes, which do not, to my knowledge, apply in Europe. This is where small businesses, can take advantages of economies of scale by banding together as a notional `leasing agency' and then `sacking' their staff - on paper - but then hiring them (again on paper) though the leasing firm who then provides health and other employee benefits at reduced rates. The number of US workers involved was around 2.5 million by 1995. It is clear from Tillman's work that a significant number of these leasing agencies had very little, or no, assets with which to fund health care and that `cowboy' operators had moved into the marketplace with disastrous consequences for those insured. Chapter 4 examines frauds involving labour unions and involves description and analysis of what he terms `recombinant fraud' that continually changes in the face of prevailing conditions. This chapter's utilizes a set of related cases in order to track and analyze the processes involved. The fifth chapter examines fraud by companies who claim not to be selling insurance, by claiming to be a religious or a mutual organization rather than an insurance company. Fraud by these forms of organization raise questions for regulators on issues surrounding the definition of insurers and the role of the state in protecting consumers. The final chapter discusses the social and political barriers that are in place, which are hindering a change in legislation to better protect consumers from fraud. Amongst his conclusions Tillman examines the role of the state in regulating the markets providing this core welfare service. The message of the book is clear. The regulation of health insurance, at the time the book was written, was (and may still be) chaotic and the state is failing in its fundamental duty to protect its citizens. There are sections of this book, which cry out for a deeper sociological analysis of risk and the state. For example, in a Focaultian analysis of policy trends in the liberal state the rational individual will wish to become responsible for the self as this will produce the most effective mode of provision for security against risk. Equally the responsible individual will take rational steps to insure against risk in order to be independent rather than dependent upon others. This is backed up by a moral responsibility or duty to the self (Greco, 1993). Here prevention