Download or read book Revolt in the Boardroom written by Alan Murray and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the 20th century, American corporations were governed by autocratic, almost unaccountable chief executives. Their word was law and the only check on their power was a board of directors composed of their friends and allies. Then, in a stunning reversal, a momentous series of firings deposed the heads of some of the world's best-known companies: AIG, Morgan Stanley, Boeing, Hewlett-Packard and Pfizer, just to name a few. Formerly unchallenged CEOs found themselves under fire, often from their own handpicked boards. The number of deposed executives is astonishing. In 2004, the leaders of 600 companies were asked to leave. That number more than doubled in 2005 and reached 1,400 companies in 2006. Flexing new muscles, directors are assuming new and unfamiliar responsibilities. In Revolt in the Boardroom, Alan Murray reveals the inner workings of the new seat of power. Using the access afforded to him by his influential Wall Street Journal column, Murray tells the story of three seminal board revolts—the now-famous Hewlett-Packard drama, the ousting of Boeing's Harry Stonecipher and the end of the reign one of the world's most autocratic executives, Hank Greenberg at AIG. Murray goes further to chart the history of the corporation, the rise of governance and the effects of the new power gained by outside institutions like hedge funds and interest groups. Through it all, Murray shows how the job of chief executive has rapidly and permanently changed. Leaders like A. G. Lafley and Jeff Immelt govern instead of rule, build alliances and support instead of dictating direction and pay careful attention to a broader range of stakeholders than ever before. Revolt in the Boardroom is the first look at the new world of corporate power and the last word on the transformational events of the last two years.
Download or read book Rethinking Capitalism written by Rogene Buchholz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given the recent financial meltdown and continuing economic problems the country and the world are facing, Rethinking Capitalism is particularly relevant. With the government having bailed out banks and other financial institutions as well as automobile companies, and anger over the compensation and severance packages provided to the managers of failed institutions in light of growing inequalities and continued high unemployment in American society, many are wondering if self-interest driven free-market capitalism is still viable. While there is some support for more active government regulation of financial and other institutions, there is also significant opposition to such an approach as new political movements gain strength. Are there other alternatives to create a more responsible capitalism that serves the entire society? Rethinking Capitalism questions the individualistic assumptions of a capitalist society and offers a new way to understand capitalism that entails a new role for business based on community and responsibility. Using classical American Pragmatism as a philosophical framework for capitalism, Professor Buchholz analyzes the history of capitalistic thought and proposes that we recast management as a profession akin to law and medicine oriented toward serving the public rather than just maximization of shareholder wealth. Buchholz challenges the way we understand capitalism with its emphasis on the creation of economic wealth and growth to the exclusion of other important goals and champions a new approach to the creation of a more sustainable and responsible functioning of the capitalistic system, the corporate organization, and its management.
Download or read book The Rise of the Working Class Shareholder written by David Webber and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-02 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Steven Burd, CEO of the supermarket chain Safeway, cut wages and benefits, starting a five-month strike by 59,000 unionized workers, he was confident he would win. But where traditional labor action failed, a novel approach was more successful. With the aid of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, a $300 billion pension fund, workers led a shareholder revolt that unseated three of Burd’s boardroom allies. In The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor's Last Best Weapon, David Webber uses cases such as Safeway’s to shine a light on labor’s most potent remaining weapon: its multitrillion-dollar pension funds. Outmaneuvered at the bargaining table and under constant assault in Washington, state houses, and the courts, worker organizations are beginning to exercise muscle through markets. Shareholder activism has been used to divest from anti-labor companies, gun makers, and tobacco; diversify corporate boards; support Occupy Wall Street; force global warming onto the corporate agenda; create jobs; and challenge outlandish CEO pay. Webber argues that workers have found in labor’s capital a potent strategy against their exploiters. He explains the tactic’s surmountable difficulties even as he cautions that corporate interests are already working to deny labor’s access to this powerful and underused tool. The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder is a rare good-news story for American workers, an opportunity hiding in plain sight. Combining legal rigor with inspiring narratives of labor victory, Webber shows how workers can wield their own capital to reclaim their strength.
Download or read book The Activist Director written by Ira M. Millstein and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-20 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some of the worst corporate meltdowns over the past sixty years can be traced to passive directors who favored operational shortcuts over quality growth strategies. Thinking primarily about placating institutional investors, selective stockholders, proxy advisors, and corporate management, these inattentive and deferential board members have relied on short-term share price increases to sustain their companies long term. Driven by a desire for prosperity, not posterity, these actions can doom any company. In The Activist Director, attorney Ira M. Millstein looks back at fifty years of counseling companies, nonprofits, and governments to actively govern their corporations and constituencies. From the threat of bankruptcy and the ConEd blackout of 1970s New York City, to the meltdown of Drexel Burnham Lambert in the late 1980s, to the turnaround of General Motors in the mid-1990s, Millstein takes readers into the boardrooms of several of the greatest catastrophes and success stories of America's best-known corporations. His solution lies at the top: a new breed of activist directors who partner with management and reject short-term outlooks, plan a future based on growth and innovation, and take responsibility for corporate organization, strategy, and efficiency. What questions should we ask of potential board members and how do we know they'll be active? Millstein offers pragmatic suggestions for recruiting activist directors to the boardroom to secure the future of the corporation.
Download or read book The Public Company Transformed written by Brian Cheffins and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-28 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades, the public company has played a dominant role in the American economy. Since the middle of the 20th century, the nature of the public company has changed considerably. The transformation has been a fascinating one, marked by scandals, political controversy, wide swings in investor and public sentiment, mismanagement, entrepreneurial verve, noisy corporate "raiders" and various other larger-than-life personalities. Nevertheless, amidst a voluminous literature on corporations, a systematic historical analysis of the changes that have occurred is lacking. The Public Company Transformed correspondingly analyzes how the public company has been recast from the mid-20th century through to the present day, with particular emphasis on senior corporate executives and the constraints affecting the choices available to them. The chronological point of departure is the managerial capitalism era, which prevailed in large American corporations following World War II. The book explores managerial capitalism's rise, its 1950s and 1960s heyday, and its fall in the 1970s and 1980s. It describes the American public companies and executives that enjoyed prosperity during the 1990s, and the reversal of fortunes in the 2000s precipitated by corporate scandals and the financial crisis of 2008. The book also considers the regulation of public companies in detail, and discusses developments in shareholder activism, company boards, chief executives, and concerns about oligopoly. The volume concludes by offering conjectures on the future of the public corporation, and suggests that predictions of the demise of the public company have been exaggerated.
Download or read book Knowledge Solutions written by Olivier Serrat and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-05-22 with total page 1098 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO license. This book comprehensively covers topics in knowledge management and competence in strategy development, management techniques, collaboration mechanisms, knowledge sharing and learning, as well as knowledge capture and storage. Presented in accessible “chunks,” it includes more than 120 topics that are essential to high-performance organizations. The extensive use of quotes by respected experts juxtaposed with relevant research to counterpoint or lend weight to key concepts; “cheat sheets” that simplify access and reference to individual articles; as well as the grouping of many of these topics under recurrent themes make this book unique. In addition, it provides scalable tried-and-tested tools, method and approaches for improved organizational effectiveness. The research included is particularly useful to knowledge workers engaged in executive leadership; research, analysis and advice; and corporate management and administration. It is a valuable resource for those working in the public, private and third sectors, both in industrialized and developing countries.
Download or read book Talent written by Edward E. Lawler, III and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-12-23 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The source of competitive advantage has shifted in many organizations from reliability to innovation and flexibility. But what does it take for an organization that innovates to then manage effectively? In this follow-up to Built to Change, Ed Lawler argues that it is a combination of the right structure and the right people. First, organizations must decide what structure they are: are you a high-involvement organization that has products and services that require a high level of coordination and cooperation among employees? Or do you have a more global competitor structure in which you are constantly bringing in new talent and technological expertise? Are you a mixture of both? Lawler outlines the unique human capital strategy for each approach, shows what it looks like in action, and provides the foundation and tools for creating competitive and innovative organizations.
Download or read book Life Stories written by Maureen O'Connor and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-08-23 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Memoirs, autobiographies, and diaries represent the most personal and most intimate of genres, as well as one of the most abundant and popular. Gain new understanding and better serve your readers with this detailed genre guide to nearly 700 titles that also includes notes on more than 2,800 read-alike and other related titles. The popularity of this body of literature has grown in recent years, and it has also diversified in terms of the types of stories being told—and persons telling them. In the past, readers' advisors have depended on access by names or Dewey classifications and subjects to help readers find autobiographies they will enjoy. This guide offers an alternative, organizing the literature according to popular genres, subgenres, and themes that reflect common reading interests. Describing titles that range from travel and adventure classics and celebrity autobiographies to foodie memoirs and environmental reads, Life Stories: A Guide to Reading Interests in Memoirs, Autobiographies, and Diaries presents a unique overview of the genre that specifically addresses the needs of readers' advisors and others who work with readers in finding books.
Download or read book Governance Risk Management and Compliance written by Richard M. Steinberg and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-06-28 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expert's insider secrets to how successful CEOs and directors shape, lead, and oversee their organizations to achieve corporate goals Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance shows senior executives and board members how to ensure that their companies incorporate the necessary processes, organization, and technology to accomplish strategic goals. Examining how and why some major companies failed while others continue to grow and prosper, author and internationally recognized expert Richard Steinberg reveals how to cultivate a culture, leadership process and infrastructure toward achieving business objectives and related growth, profit, and return goals. Explains critical factors that make compliance and ethics programs and risk management processes really work Explores the board's role in overseeing corporate strategy, risk management, CEO compensation, succession planning, crisis planning, performance measures, board composition, and shareholder communications Highlights for CEOs, senior management teams, and board members the pitfalls to avoid and what must go right for success Outlines the future of corporate governance and what's needed for continued effectiveness Written by well-known corporate governance and risk management expert Richard Steinberg Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance lays a sound foundation and provides critical insights for understanding the role of governance, risk management, and compliance and its successful implementation in today's business environment.
Download or read book Perspectives on Corporate Governance written by F. Scott Kieff and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The events that began with the collapse of Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and Adelphia and continued into the financial crisis of 2008 teach us an important lesson: corporate governance matters. Although it is widely acknowledged that good corporate governance is a linchpin of good corporate performance, how can one improve corporate governance and its impact on corporate and overall economic performance. This book offers a diverse and forward-looking set of approaches from experts, covering the major areas of corporate governance reform and analyzing the full range of issues and concerns. Written to be both theoretically rigorous and grounded in the real world, the book is well suited for practicing lawyers, managers, lawmakers, and analysts, as well as academics conducting research or teaching a wide range of courses in law schools, business schools, and economics departments.
Download or read book The Right Leader written by Nat Stoddard and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-02-24 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A trailblazing approach to choosing executives who both match the needs and fit the cultures of the organizations they will lead Leadership failures damage or even destroy companies every day. To reduce the costs of leadership failure, the author has developed a revolutionary process for selecting executives based on his years of consulting for some of America's largest corporations. The Right Leader details this new approach and how it eliminates the leadership failures that plague so many companies around the world today. When executives don't address the right needs, or can't lead the organization because of a poor fit with the corporation's cultures, the company loses competitive advantage, talented people, and momentum. The Right Leader introduces the revolutionary Match-Fit Model and explains how it reduces the risks and costs of executive failure by changing the factors that are considered and by taking into account the cultural dynamics at play in any organization. Nat Stoddard (New York, NY) is Chairman of Crenshaw Associates, a New York-based consulting firm specializing in career and transition management for senior executives. Claire Wyckoff (New York, NY) is an accomplished writer and editor, who has held executive positions in both the corporate and nonprofit sectors.
Download or read book The End of Power written by Moises Naim and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The provocative bestseller explaining the decline of power in the twenty-first century -- in government, business, and beyond. br> Power is shifting -- from large, stable armies to loose bands of insurgents, from corporate leviathans to nimble start-ups, and from presidential palaces to public squares. But power is also changing, becoming harder to use and easier to lose. In The End of Power, award-winning columnist and former Foreign Policy editor MoiséNaíilluminates the struggle between once-dominant megaplayers and the new micropowers challenging them in every field of human endeavor. Drawing on provocative, original research and a lifetime of experience in global affairs, Naíexplains how the end of power is reconfiguring our world. "The End of Power will . . . change the way you look at the world." -- Bill Clinton "Extraordinary." -- George Soros "Compelling and original." -- Arianna Huffington "A fascinating new perspective . . . Naímakes eye-opening connections." -- Francis Fukuyama
Download or read book Showdown at Gucci Gulch written by Alan Murray and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-12-22 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Tax Reform Act of 1986 was the single most sweeping change in the history of America's income tax. It was also the best political and economic story of its time. Here, in the anecdotal style of The Making of the President, two Wall Street Journal reporters provide the first complete picture of how this tax revolution went from an improbable dream to a widely hailed reality.
Download or read book The Big Lie written by Anthony Bianco and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2010-05-25 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hewlett Packard is an American icon, the largest information technology company in the world. The bedrock of Silicon Valley, it employs more than 300,000 people, its market capitalization is in excess of 100 billion and its products are in almost every home in the country where there is a printer or computer. In 2003 the company began a transition from the family management style of its founders. It made a bold statement by hiring as its new CEO the most visible female business executive in America: Carly Fiorina. Less than two years later, the board fired her, amid accusations of imperiousness that had begun damagingly to leak into the business media. The board at that time included one of Silicon Valley's most flamboyant venture capitalists and owner of the largest and most expensive yacht in the world, and a former CIA asset who believed he personally channeled the values of the company's founders. Each had a long and complicated history with HP, and each believed he should determine the company's future. They ran up against a corporate governance expert whom they could not roll, and a new CEO whose loyalties on the board were entirely opaque. In this way, the stage was set for a rancorous feud that split the board into implacably distrusting factions. In the middle of the damaging schism, HP introduced the Big Lie. The lie was pinned on the chairman, who was receiving treatment for stage 4 ovarian cancer. And it sizzled through a largely unquestioning media. Anthony Bianco gets to heart of the ethical morass at HP that ended up damning the entire board that created it. Almost every American has an interest in how the country's greatest corporations are run, and the character of the people entrusted with them. The story of Hewlett-Packard reflects power struggles that shape corporate America and is an alarming morality tale for our times.
Download or read book The Roots of Revolt written by Angela Joya and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-02 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A conceptually rich, historically informed, and interdisciplinary study of the contentious politics emerging out of decades of authoritarian neoliberal economic reform, The Roots of Revolt examines the contested political economy of Egypt from Nasser to Mubarak, just prior to the Arab Uprisings of 2010–11. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted across rural and urban Egypt, Angela Joya employs an 'on the ground' approach to critical political economy that challenges the interpretations of Egyptian politics put forward by scholars of both democratization and authoritarianism. By critically reassessing the relationship between democracy and capitalist development, Joya demonstrates how renewed authoritarian politics were required to institutionalize neoliberal reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund, presenting the real-world impact of economic policy on the lives of ordinary Egyptians before the Arab Uprisings.
Download or read book Innovation Corrupted written by Malcolm S. Salter and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In contrast to the time-line narratives of previous books on Enron that offer interesting but largely unsystematic insight into individual actions and organizational processes, Innovation Corrupted pursues a more methodical analysis of the causes and lessons of Enron's collapse.
Download or read book CEO Leadership written by Thomas A. Cole and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-11-20 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Corporate governance for public companies in the United States today is a fragile balance between shareholders, board members, and CEOs. Shareholders, who are focused on profits, put pressure on boards, who are accountable for operations and profitability. Boards, in turn, pressure CEOs, who must answer to the board while building their own larger vision and strategy for the future of the company. In order for this structure to be successful in the long term, it is imperative that boards and CEOs come to understand each other’s roles and how best to work together. Drawing on four decades of experience advising boards and CEOs on how to do just that, Thomas A. Cole offers in CEO Leadership a straightforward and accessible guide to navigating corporate governance today. He explores the recurring question of whose benefit a corporation should be governed for, along with related matters of corporate social responsibility, and he explains the role of laws, market forces, and politics and their influence on the governance of public companies. For corporate directors, he provides a comprehensive examination of the roles, responsibilities, and accountability the role entails, while also offering guidance on how to be as effective as possible in addressing both routine corporate matters and special situations such as mergers and acquisitions, succession, and corporate crises. In addition, he offers practical suggestions for CEOs on leadership and their interactions with boards and shareholders. Cole also mounts a compelling case that a corporate culture that celebrates diversity and inclusion and has zero tolerance for sexual misconduct is critical to long-term business success. Filled with vignettes from Cole’s many years of experience in the board room and C-suite, CEO Leadership is an invaluable resource for current and prospective directors, CEOs, and other senior officers of public companies as well as the next generation of corporate leaders and their business and financial advisors.
