Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2006

Business, Management & Labor Top

In recent years, issues of business ethics, social responsibility, and accountability have been at the forefront of corporate, policymaking, and public concerns. Dramatic stories of abuse of stakeholder trust and outright criminal behavior at companies like Enron, Global Crossing, and Tyco have triggered a reexamination of the role of corporations in society and the responsibilities of executives and managers, board members, and the accountants who are supposed to watch over them. This landmark set of essays brings new clarity to the issues, as societies around the world begin to hold corporations and their leaders to higher standards of conduct. Covering a huge array of topics-from white collar crime to community partnerships, whistle blowing to corporate philanthropy-and featuring insights from the world's leading academics, business leaders, and consultants, including strategy guru Michael Porter, Enron whistleblower Sherron Watkins, and famed international corporate attorney, Ira Milllstein, The Accountable Corporation provides provocative analysis, cultural and historical context, and emerging solutions from the public, private, and non-profit sectors toward more responsible, ethical, and accountable business.

Written in an accessible style, Advertising Strategy: Creative Tactics From the Outside/In gets right to the point of advertising by stressing key principles, illustrating them, and then providing practical information students and working professionals can use. Unlike many books that focus only on advertising created for large consumer accounts, this text also covers business-to-business, in-house, and small agency advertising.nbsp; Authors Tom Altstiel and Jean Grow provide students with a unique blend of real world and academic perspectives through their own personal experience as an actively teaching professor at one of the top advertising programs in the country and a working creative director and agency principle.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Key Features: Media Writing. nbsp; nbsp;Covers the role of a contemporary copywriter to show students how to get started and create more effective concepts for all media, including the Internet Sample Campaigns. nbsp;Contains current examples of promotional campaigns to illustrate key points of advertising Student Creativity. nbsp; Provides exemplary work done by students to demonstrate high levels of creativity at the college level Diversity. nbsp;nbsp; Incorporates examples and case histories related to issues of diversity throughout the text to show the affects of advertising on today’s diverse world Real World Experience. nbsp; Includes real-life anecdotes, or “War Stories,” from some of the hottest professionals in the business that are part case history, part lessons-to-be-learned Words of Wisdom. nbsp; Uses timely quotes from some of the most influential people in the business, past and present, to bring key points to life in every chapter Who’s Who in the Industry. nbsp; nbsp;Provides students with short biographies ofnbsp; professionals mentioned in the booknbsp;nbsp; Advertising Strategy is an excellent textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying advertising, public relations, or marketing in courses such as Advertising Copywriting, Advertising Strategies, Creative Strategy and Tactics, Advertising Campaigns, Marketing Communications, and Media Writing. It is also an ideal resource for entry-level professionals in advertising and marketing. nbsp;

The Wal-Mart Effect: The overwhelming impact of the world's largest company¿due to its relentless pursuit of low prices¿on retailers and manufacturers, wages and jobs, the culture of shopping, the shape of our communities, and the environment; a global force of unprecedented nature. Wal-Mart is not only the world's largest company; it is also the largest company in the history of the world. Americans spend $25 million every hour at Wal-Mart, twenty-four hours of every day, every day of the year. Is the company a good thing or a bad thing? On the one hand, market guru Warren Buffett estimates that the company's low prices save American consumers $10 billion a year. On the other, the behemoth is the #1 employer in thirty-seven of the fifty states yet has never let a union in the door. Though 70 per cent of Americans now live within a fifteen-minute drive of a Wal-Mart store, we have not even begun to understand the true power of the company and the many ways it is shaping American life. We know about the lawsuits and the labour protests, but what we don't know is how profoundly the "Wal-Mart effect" is shaping our lives. Fast Company senior editor Fishman, whose revelatory cover story on Wal-Mart generated the strongest reader response in the history of the magazine, takes us on an unprecedented behind-the-scenes investigative exp deep inside the many worlds of Wal-Mart. He reveals the radical ways in which the company is transforming America's economy, our workforce, our communities, and our environment. Fishman penetrated the secrecy of Wal-Mart headquarters, interviewing twenty-five high-level ex-executives; he journeyed into the world of a host of Wal-Mart's suppliers to uncover how the company strong-arms even the most established brands; and journeyed to the ports and factories, the fields and forests where Wal-Mart's power is warping the very structure of the world's market for goods. Wal-Mart is not just a retailer anymore, Fishman argues. It has become a kind of economic ecosystem, and anyone who wants to understand the forces shaping our world today must understand the company's hidden reach.

Hopefully, the insights gained by this analysis will contribute to a revived confidence in the integrity of corporate accounts, and thereby sustain the vitality of America's capital markets, which are vital to our future economic well-being.

Foreword * Preface * Acknowledgements * Introduction * Barings and Allied Irish Bank: Lessons Ignored * Enron: Paper Profits, Cash Losses * WorldCom: Disconnected * Tyco: Greed, Hubris and the $6000 Shower Curtain * Marconi: Establishment to Wunderkind to Basketcase * Swissair: Crashed and Burned * Royal Ahold: Shopped till he Dropped * Parmalat: Milking the System * Conclusions * Epilogue * List of Abbreviations * Glossary * Index Foreword * Preface * Acknowledgements * Introduction * Barings and Allied Irish Bank: Lessons Ignored * Enron: Paper Profits, Cash Losses * WorldCom: Disconnected * Tyco: Greed, Hubris and the $6000 Shower Curtain * Marconi: Establishment to Wunderkind to Basketcase * Swissair: Crashed and Burned * Royal Ahold: Shopped till he Dropped * Parmalat: Milking the System * Conclusions * Epilogue * List of Abbreviations * Glossary * Index

A new digital phenomenon has altered the face of online communication, media, commentary, and business. Weblogs, or blogs, now number between 20 and 40 million and serve as an outlet for an estimated 32 million readers worldwide—and these figures continue to skyrocket. "Savvy companies that leverage the power of blogging will have a competitive advantage; those that don’t understand the potential of this valuable tool will lag behind," say authors and online communication experts Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulos. In their breakthrough guide, Blogging for Business, Holtz and Demopoulos combine a discussion of blogging strategies and benefits with step-by-step instructions for business professionals to follow. The authors explore the myriad business applications of blogs: customer affinity programs, internal communications, brand building, public relations, product marketing, and cause marketing. Highlights Holtz and Demopoulos unlock the secrets of blogging for executives, managers, and professionals in marketing, advertising, public relations, and sales: bull;How to tap into the power of blogs bull;Why blogs are different from ezines, Web sites, and message boards bull;Why businesses need to monitor blogs that discuss their products and services bull;New forms of blogging such as podcasts and vlogs bull;Legal considerations associated with blogging Shel Holtz is principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, whose clients have included global leaders such as Pepsi, Barclays Global Investors, the World Bank, and Intel. Holtz speaks regularly at the International Association of Business Communicators Conference (IABC) and the Ragan Communications Conference. He is an Accredited Business Communicator (a designation of the IABC), an IABC fellow, and he holds a BA in journalism from California State University in Northridge. Ted Demopoulos has more than 25 years of experience in high technology, including 15 years as an independent consultant and with several startups. He recognized blogging’s potential very early on and has closely followed the development of the blogosphere for years. Through his keynotes, seminars, and consulting services, he helps organizations make informed decisions about technology and business. Among his blue-chip clients are Cisco Systems, the Department of Defense, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Hong Kong Telecom, and the UK Post Office.

* Includes both a client and supplier perspective of market research on customer satisfaction and loyalty * Provides guidance on the practical tasks involved in the creation and running of a research project * Published in association with the Market Research SocietyCustomer satisfaction and loyalty has been one of the largest areas of market research for the past twenty years, and interest in it continues to increase. Organizations today invest heavily in programs designed to retain customers as they recognize the importance of having loyal, committed customers to sustain and increase company profits."Researching Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty" is a vital guide to this expanding area. It examines how to research customer satisfaction from both a client and a supplier perspective, and how to get the best results from that research. The breadth of detail is exhaustive and topics covered include: the development of customer satisfaction and loyalty, management theories about it, qualitative and quantitative research, and how market research projects get commissioned. The book also looks at the factors that both supplier and client need to consider when preparing a research brief and proposal, how interest in this area is changing and what the future holds for research into customer satisfaction.