South Carolina Business Directory 2000 (South Carolina Business Directory)

Book Description

The Principal’s Guide to Raising Math Achievement is a practical, quick-read resource to help K-12 principals gain the tools they need to lead their schools to mathematics excellence. Readers will learn how students in the United States compare with their international counterparts in math achievement, read about what the experts recommend be done to increase our lagging achievement, gain an understanding of the current debate regarding how mathematics should be taught, discover what important components need to be in place in their schools, and find out what current research is telling us about the best ways to teach mathematics. McEwan presents eight key components of a successful mathematics program, and convinces principals of the power that rests within them and their teachers to eliminate innumeracy among their students.

Customer Reviews:

Helpful to parents as well as principals.......2000-08-26

Having read this book as a parent and a school board member, I am giving it to both the principals in my district. This book explains both many of the things that are done badly in many schools in the country and shows the path for how to do them well. I found the comparisons with the Japanese and Chinese methods of teaching particularly helpful. This book was pleasant to read as well as enlightening in how to promote the effective teaching of mathematics.

Book Description

This practical book for design engineers, maintenance technicians, and manufacturing managers details a systematic approach to the improvement of equipment development and design and product manufacturing. The author analyzes five basic conditions for factory equipment of the future: development, reliability, economics, availability, and maintainability. The book's revolutionary concepts of equipment design and development enables managers to reduce equipment development time, balance maintenance and equipment planning and improvement, and improve quality production equipment.

Book Description

New industries are emerging; others are disrupted; old barriers are crumbling, while new ones are rising. This book seeks to better understand the challenges facing industries, networks, businesses and management during periods of industry structuring and restructuring.Comprising a series of contributions from experts in the field, the book addresses key questions about the opportunities and threats posed by these times of turmoil, including: How do existing industries sustain their competitiveness in such difficult times? How do networks stave off threats from new technologies? How do emerging and incumbent companies survive when growth is not an option? And how should companies be governed during periods of industry structuring and restructuring?In answering these questions, the contributors provide an overview of the strategies that industries, networks, businesses and managers are currently deploying in order to adapt to chaotic conditions and to enhance business profitability. Their responses make a distinctive contribution to scholarly thought and management practice.

Restructuring Strategy: New Networks and Industry Challenges.(Book review): An article from: Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations

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Restructuring Strategy: New Networks and Industry Challenges.(Book review): An article from: Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations
Anthony Gould
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000OT7QN6
Release Date: 2007-03-22

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations, published by Thomson Gale on September 22, 2006. The length of the article is 1132 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: Restructuring Strategy: New Networks and Industry Challenges.(Book review)
Author: Anthony Gould
Publication: Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 61 Issue: 4 Page: 753(3)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

The book develops an inclusive method for economic planning from Gandhi's voluminous writings, a method which addresses many of the concerns of contemporary policy making. With a loss of faith on the part of the policy makers in large ideological models, and a rise in pragmatism, it has become necessary to develop a more systematic method of putting together the knowledge that economists have developed about different components of the economy. In this book, Ganghian ideas are used to put together such a method.

Customer Reviews:

An original idea worth considering.......2002-03-19

This is a really original book. I have never seen Gandhi interpreted in this way. It has helped me understand why Gandhi was ignored when ideology ruled the world. And now that ideology has fallen apart, Gandhian method does look a viable alternative. This book outlines the method in a rigorous and yet accessible fashion.

Economics after ideology.......2002-03-18

Economics today is dominated by pragmatism. And what is considered pragamatic can change all the time. George Bush may have been elected on a platform of smaller government, but that has not stopped him from launching a major expenditure thrust that has converted a stable surplus budget into a major deficit one. If this change is good for America and the world, fine. But how can we be sure that he is not just doing what is expedient?

It is in such situations that a revival of Gandhian method could be useful. Pani manages to bring out a method from Gandhi's writings that can help ensure that pragmatism does not degenerate into expediency. He builds a consistent inclusive method and places it in the context of recent debates on economic methodology. As such an exercise has not been tried out before, some of its elements will surprise Gandhians. And some of the implicit recomendations, like the need to focus on the individual rather than national economies, will surprise mainstream economists. But at a time when ideology has failed, a scientific return to Gandhi does appear promising.

Book Description

During the 1990s, corporate governance became a hot issue in all of the advanced economies. For decades, major business corporations had reinvested earnings and developed long-term relations with their labour forces as they expanded the scale and scope of their operations. As a result, these corporations had made themselves central to resource allocation and economic performance in the national economies in which they had evolved. Then, beginning in the 1980s and picking up momentum in the 1990s, came the contests for corporate control. Previously silent stockholders, now empowered by institutional investors, demanded that corporations be run to 'maximize shareholder value'. In the United States many, if not most, top corporate executives have now embraced this ideology. In this highly original book, Mary O'Sullivan provides a critical analysis of the theoretical foundations for the shareholder value principle of corporate governance and for the alternative perspective that corporations should be run in the interests of 'stakeholders'. She embeds her arguments on the relation between corporate governance and economic performance in historical accounts of the dynamics of corporate growth in the United States and Germany over the course of the twentieth century. O'Sullivan explains the emergence and consequences of 'maximizing shareholder value' as a principle of corporate governance in the United States over the past two decades, and provides unique insights into the contests for corporate control that have unfolded in Germany over the past few years.

Customer Reviews:

The downside of shareholder value.......2000-10-02

Current wisdom is that shareholder value should be the guiding light for corporate management. The US is following this lodestar. US companies outperform all other so who can quarrel with this? European companies are following the US example. The author wonders if companies are digging their own graves by doing so. Her arguments may not be watertight but they make you sit up and think. She correctly states that a company's success is dependent on innovation. There is no evidence that concentrating on shareholder value is best for innovation. The blossoming of the electronics industry is not based on the free market or entrepreneurship or shareholder value. The foundation was enlightened procurement by the Department Of Defence. IBM, INTEL and DEC all owe their success to "buy only American" defence orders according to her analysis. She also shows that the stock market only plays a very small role in providing capital for investment. Most funding comes from depreciation and retained earnings. Equity issues are only important to buy out owners and to allow companies to acquire other ones. An interesting analysis shows that the benefit of an acquisition almost always accrues to the shareholders of the acquired company and almost never to the acquiring company. Institutional investors (and raiders) are the only shareholders with influence. Their only interest is share performance. They have aligned their interest with that of top management through stock options and bonus plans depending on share performance. Company managers can now become very rich when increasing the value of the shares. As the average tenure of a CEO is around five years, it leads automatically to a short-term perspective. She believes that there is more to the economic value a company can produce than shareholder value. This point is not dealt with in any detail other than the emphasis on innovation and organisational learning that are long-term processes. One interesting point is the difference between German and Japanese companies on the one hand and US on the other. US companies do not see it as an objective to upgrade the job opportunities for its employees. In the past companies offered good pay for relatively simple jobs. The company attitude is to move these jobs to low cost countries and make the employees redundant. Most of the redundant people have to take lower paid service jobs. She believes that companies can and should follow a different path and enrich the kind of work the company can offer and invest in the education of its employees. She gives no real-life examples of US companies that have successfully done so. The different path taken by German is described very lucidly. Even though German companies have made much greater effort than American companies in upgrading its workforce, they face other problems. Financing pensions is big problem, so is the restructuring of the banks. Getting the "upgraded" specialists at all levels to work as teams across specialist borders is very difficult. This book presents many thought-provoking challenges to readers that believe in shareholder value and the free market without any reservations or concerns.

The downside of shareholder value.......2000-10-02

CONTESTS FOR CORPORATE CONTROL: CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE IN THE UNITED STATES AND GERMANY.(Brief Article)(Review): An article from: Journal of Economic Issues

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CONTESTS FOR CORPORATE CONTROL: CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE IN THE UNITED STATES AND GERMANY.(Brief Article)(Review): An article from: Journal of Economic Issues
William M. Dugger
Manufacturer: Association for Evolutionary Economics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Economic Issues, published by Association for Evolutionary Economics on September 1, 2001. The length of the article is 941 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: CONTESTS FOR CORPORATE CONTROL: CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE IN THE UNITED STATES AND GERMANY.(Brief Article)(Review)
Author: William M. Dugger
Publication: Journal of Economic Issues (Refereed)
Date: September 1, 2001
Publisher: Association for Evolutionary Economics
Volume: 35 Issue: 3 Page: 760

Article Type: Brief Article, Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Contests for Corporate Control : Corporate Governance and Economic Performance in the United States and Germany

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Contests for Corporate Control : Corporate Governance and Economic Performance in the United States and Germany
Mary O'Sullivan
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OKWEIC

Book Description

Updated with increased focus on the effects of globalization, this text presents the timeless principles of information systems in an understandable and memorable context.

Principles of Information Systems, Sixth Edition (MIS)

Average customer rating:

Stair & Reynolds take the middle road
Scary that they allow some of this nonsense to be published!
Informative...but boring
Inforamtion's Review
Unless there's something better out there...

Principles of Information Systems, Sixth Edition (MIS)
Ralph Stair
Manufacturer: Course Technology
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0619064897

Book Description

Updated with increased focus on the effects of globalization, this text presents the timeless principles of information systems in an understandable and memorable context.

Customer Reviews:

Stair & Reynolds take the middle road.......2003-11-30

Having both studied and taught IS, I'll make two separate sets of comments - one for professors and one for students.

Students first... There is a well-done website that accompanies the book, which includes outlines, sample tests & quizzes, and related study materials. The text is about average in terms of readability in comparison to other texts on the subject (IS texts tend to read a little on the dry side). Unless your professor insists on the latest edition, you may be able to get by with a previous edition, since the chapter structures & content haven't been re-arranged much for the last two editions. You must be advised on the issue of using previous editions, though, since Stair and Reynolds do a fair job of keeping the material up-to-date.

For professors... In my experience, IS texts seem to fall into either a highly technical or highly managerial category. Stair and Reynolds do a fair job of plotting a course between the two, although I have found that the "technical" chapters seem to be a little too much for undergraduate business students in their standard "MIS" course (I've never taught engineering students, but the same may hold true for the "managerial" chapters on the other side of the fence). The text is accompanied with ample instructor resources, including a CD and a website with slideshows, notes, outlines, and various other pedagogical tools. The testbank is easy to use, but can be somewhat challenging for an undergraduate business student, adequate for an undergraduate MIS student, and contains enough "difficult" questions that you should be able to use it for a MBA students as well. I would pick something else for a graduate MS/ MIS curriculum. Stair and Reynolds have also done a fair job of keeping the material up-to-date, which has resulted, after six editions, in a pretty decent proiduct. For me, the instructor resources make Stair and Reynolds a good choice by comparison to other IS texts.

Scary that they allow some of this nonsense to be published!.......2003-10-15

Although this book must be commended on the variety of topics and sub topics covered, it is very badly researched. Some sections I doubt were even researched at all, it seemed as if the author is just giving his opinion on how he "thinks" things are, and in the majority of these cases, he is at best only half right. My favorites are his lists like, Consists of..., Divided into the following..., Main elements are... etc. Some of these lists can only have been sucked out of his thumb, because they certainly were not based on any thoroughly researched facts.
IS is actually based on some very simple concepts that have grown and developed into today's seemingly complicated IS infrastructure and not the black and white boxes that Stair tries fit things into. I doubt the authors have much practical experience of IT, because they don't know the difference between marketing concepts and real IT concepts. These are just "selling techniques guys" not IS principles!

I would say that this book is not written for novices, but by novices. If you don't know any better then I think you will enjoy this book, because it will fit in well with a novices false preconceptions of how Information systems work. If you come from a practical IT background of 10 years + like myself and have actually witnessed the development of some of these technologies, this is a scary read.

One last note, colleges and universities that use this book as a reference are simply displaying their absolute ignorance about the subject that they profess to teach.

Informative...but boring.......2003-06-21

When I began this course, I felt lucky that I had already had a lot of experience in the world of e-commerce, just because I had problems paying attention to the book when I was reading it. I found myself doing two things at the same time in order to retain any of the information in it. It has a lot of information - but it's presented in an extremely boring manner. I put off reading quite a few chapters until the day before my final exam. The only thing of any interest were the case studies at the beginning of each chapter.

Inforamtion's Review.......2003-01-28

It was an informational book, discussing the importance of information systems.

Unless there's something better out there..........2001-03-17

mmm... If I didn't have to have this book as a course text, I would have soon discarded it. Maybe I'm missing the point of what PRINCIPLES of Information Systems are all about, but I get the distinct impression from this particular book that Principles of Information Systems is simply an exercise in 'reading someone's watch, then telling them the time'. The authors formalize with great diagrams, case histories and explanations, how Information Systems are structured in business today. However they only lightly touch on what principles (good logic if you wish), should be employed in designing a 'quality' Information System. The closest they really get to this is sometimes posing the issue in the question sections (answers not provided!). I know Information Systems is a lot more than simply knowing how existing ones structured but if you want to know more beyond this, don't expect to find answers in this book.

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