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Four Critical Decisions That Make or Break the Deal: Mastering the Merger
by David Harding Sam RovitUltimately, the success or failure of a merger grows out of the decisions made by executives at critical junctures throughout the transaction. Using the case of Kellogg, this chapter illustrates that the better people are at handling the four imperatives of a business combination, the more successful the merger is likely to be.
Four Days a Week: The Life-Changing Solution for Reducing Employee Stress, Improving Well-Being, and Working Smarter
by Juliet Schor ProfessorBestselling author, leading sociologist and economist Juliet Schor makes the case for a four-day work week, persuasively showing how this model can address major challenges such as burnout, AI and the climate crisis, and how employees, companies, and governments can work together to make it a reality. Around the world, long hours and intense pressure are taking their toll. When the pandemic hit in 2020, work-induced stress and burnout skyrocketed. Many reached a breaking point. Now, three-quarters of the world’s employees are disengaged and struggling, including in the US and Canada, where half are experiencing high levels of daily stress.Our current work culture ,the five-day, forty-hours-a-week model—which has gone unchanged for nearly a century—is failing. But a remedial countertrend has emerged: the four-day work week. Kickstarter, Bolt, Basecamp, ThredUp, and hundreds of other employers have eliminated the fifth day of work, successfully figuring out how to maintain productivity while seeing remarkable improvements in employee well-being. Hiring is easier and fewer people are quitting. These results are global. Working a four-day week, people feel energized, capable, and more optimistic about their lives—and their jobs.Four Days a Week is the first large-scale study of this trend. Juliet Schor—an expert who has researched and written about work for more than four decades, beginning with her New York Times bestseller The Overworked American in 1992—shares her pioneering analysis of the benefits of a shorter work week, how companies can achieve them, why the concept has taken so long to emerge and gain acceptance, and why doing so will help a company’s employees and its bottom line. The book is a blueprint for implementing a change that once seemed radical, but is now within reach.
Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China: Drivers, Insights for the World, and the Way Ahead
by World Bank;Development Research Center of the State Council, the People's Republic of ChinaRegardless of the poverty line used, the speed and scale of China’s poverty reduction is historically unprecedented. Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below US$1.90 per day—the international poverty line as defined by the World Bank to track global extreme poverty—has fallen by close to 800 million, accounting for almost three-quarters of the global reduction in extreme poverty. In 2021, China declared that it had eradicated extreme poverty according to its national poverty threshold, and that it had built a “moderately prosperous society in all respects.†? However, a significant number of people remain vulnerable, with incomes below a threshold more typically used to define poverty in upper-middle-income countries. China has set a new goal of approaching common prosperity by 2035, which can help keep the policy focus on the vulnerable population. Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China: Drivers, Insights for the World, and the Way Ahead explores the key drivers of China’s poverty alleviation achievements and considers the lessons of China’s experience for other developing countries. The report also makes suggestions for China’s future policies. China’s approach to poverty reduction was based on two pillars. The first aimed for broad-based economic transformation to open new economic opportunities and raise average incomes. The second was the recognition that targeted support was needed to alleviate persistent poverty; this support was initially provided to disadvantaged areas and later to individual households. The success of China’s economic development and the associated reduction of poverty also benefited from effective governance, which helped coordinate multiple government agencies and induce cooperation from nongovernment stakeholders. To illustrate the role of broad-based economic transformation for poverty alleviation, separate sections of the report analyze growing agricultural productivity, incremental industrialization, managed urbanization and rural-to-urban migration, and the role of infrastructure.
Four Degrees of Global Warming: Australia in a Hot World
by Peter ChristoffAt Copenhagen in December 2009, the international community agreed to limit global warming to below two degrees Celsius to avoid the worst impacts of human-induced climate change. However climate scientists agree that current national emissions targets collectively will still not achieve this goal. Instead, the ‘ambition gap’ between climate science and climate policy is likely to lead to average global warming of around four degrees Celsius by or before 2100. If a ‘Four Degree World’ is the de facto goal of policy, we urgently need to understand what this world might look like. Four Degrees of Global Warming: Australia in a Hot World outlines the expected consequences of this world for Australia and its region. Its contributors include many of Australia’s most eminent and internationally recognized climate scientists, climate policy makers and policy analysts. They provide an accessible, detailed, dramatic, and disturbing examination of the likely impacts of a Four Degree World on Australia’s social, economic and ecological systems. The book offers policy makers, politicians, students, and anyone interested climate change, access to the most recent research on potential Australian impacts of global warming, and possible responses.
Four Faces of Mass Customization
by James H. Gilmore B. Joseph Pine IIVirtually all executives today recognize the need to provide outstanding service to customers. Focusing on the customer, however, is both an imperative and a potential curse. Companies around the world have embraced mass customization in an attempt to avoid pitfalls. But many managers have discovered that mass customization itself can produce unnecessary cost and complexity. They are realizing that they did not examine thoroughly enough what kind of customization their customers would value before they plunged ahead. In this article, the authors provide a framework to help managers determine the type of customization they should pursue.
Four Factors of Effective Leadership: Revised & Updated
by David RendallThis book combines the wisdom of ancient philosophers, successful executives and leadership gurus into a clear roadmap for leadership success. Using stories of famous leaders and infamous failures, the author illustrates the importance of the four factors: Influence, Integrity, Inspiration, and Improvement. These factors are contrasted with the pitfalls of ineffective leadership: Power, Position, Popularity, and Personality.
Four Futures: Life After Capitalism (Jacobin)
by Peter FraseCapitalism is going to endPeter Frase argues that increasing automation and a growing scarcity of resources, thanks to climate change, will bring it all tumbling down. In Four Futures, Frase imagines how this post-capitalist world might look, deploying the tools of both social science and speculative fiction to explore what communism, rentism, socialism and exterminism might actually entail.Could the current rise of real-life robocops usher in a world that resembles Ender's Game? And sure, communism will bring an end to material scarcities and inequalities of wealth--but there's no guarantee that social hierarchies, governed by an economy of "likes," wouldn't rise to take their place. A whirlwind tour through science fiction, social theory and the new technologies already shaping our lives, Four Futures is a balance sheet of the socialisms we may reach if a resurgent Left is successful, and the barbarisms we may be consigned to if those movements fail.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Four Green Houses and a Red Hotel: New strategies for creating wealth through property
by Pete WargentFour Green Houses, and a Red Hotel provides new and experienced investors with a specific state by state guide to the best property investments for future wealth. Successful investment often mirrors a game of Monopoly – winners keep their expenses low and continue to acquire prime investments over time. Financial expert and author Pete Wargent, provides simple and effective strategies for acquiring wealth through property and a holistic financial plan, which includes share investment. The economic instability since the financial crisis and the volatility of investment markets have made investment a daunting prospect for many Australians. With interest rates cut to record lows, consumer confidence is growing and investors are coming back to the market in droves; albeit with a thirst for information on new property strategies and markets. Four Green Houses, and a Red Hotel is an up-to-date look at each of the capital cities in Australia and the best investments in property and shares in each state.
Four Key Concepts: Your Starting Points
by Harvard Business Review PressAny successful negotiation must have a fundamental framework based on four key concepts: BATNA (best alternative to negotiated agreement), reservation price, ZOPA (zone of possible agreement), and value creation through trade. This chapter develops these four concepts with examples that help you become a skilled negotiator.
Four Mothers: An Intimate Journey through the First Year of Parenthood in Four Countries
by Abigail LeonardAbigail Leonard's page-turning narrative of four real women—Anna from Finland, Tsukasa from Japan, Sarah from the U.S., and Chelsea from Kenya—is a "deeply personal look at women worldwide grappling with the best and worst moments of their first year... eye-opening and cathartic, this is a love letter to parents and a clarion call for better policy.&” (Eve Rodsky, New York Times-bestselling author of Fair Play) Tsukasa in Japan grapples with memories of a difficult childhood as she tries to chart a new, healthier path for her own daughter while balancing onerous cultural expectations. Chelsea in Kenya endures a devastating loss just before she gives birth and finds that without the traditional support of previous generations, motherhood can be grueling – but it can also provide emotional healing. Anna in Finland navigates a complicated relationship with her child&’s father, but the country&’s robust family policies allow her to still pursue the kind of parenthood that she envisioned. Sarah in the US leaves the religious community that raised her in order to create a less traditional family of her own only to find she&’s largely confronting motherhood alone. Utterly moving and propulsively readable from page one, Leonard interweaves these stories with a critically researched exploration of how parental support programs evolved in each country—and why some provide more help than others. As nations around the world debate programs like paid leave, universal daycare, reproductive healthcare, and family tax incentives, Four Mothers offers a uniquely intimate, moving portrait of what those policies mean for parents on the ground—and considers what modern families really want.
Four Practical Revolutions in Management: Systems for Creating Unique Organizational Capability
by Shoji Shiba David WaldenShiba and Walden have significantly revised their classic, A New American TQM. With new methodologies and case studies, this work is one of the most comprehensive studies of management theory and business success. The authors identify a comprehensive approach to management that goes beyond operations improvement to help executives and manage
Four Products: Predicting Diffusion (2011)
by John T. GourvilleAn updated "Four Products" case. This 2011 version includes; sliced peanut butter, artificial dirt for thoroughbred race tracks, interactive tombstones, and stride-changing running shoes. These four products form the basis to assess the drivers of new product adoption. In particular, one of the critical tasks in marketing new innovations is predicting demand and rates of diffusion for those products. And while one can speculate on the scope and rate of diffusion for any given product, it's helpful to compare and contrast diffusion across products. Doing so allows one to focus on the drivers or product characteristics that influence product diffusion, making one product a star and another a dog. Specifically, looking across products allows one to pick up on things that get lost in discussing a single product. Note that this case often gets used with HBS No. 505-075, "Note on Innovation Diffusion; Rogers' Five Factors," which can be distributed along with the case or after the case has been taught.
Four Products: Predicting Diffusion (2019)
by John GourvilleOne job of product managers, marketers, strategic planners, and other corporate executives is to predict what the demand will be for a new product. This task is easier for certain classes of new products than for others. For new consumer package goods, for instance, one can look at past product rollouts, one can look at similar products currently in the marketplace, or one can do test markets-selling the product in a small section of the country to assess consumer acceptance. Quite often, for new products that represent incremental variations or improvements over existing products, marketers do a pretty good job of understanding how that product will be adopted in the marketplace. This is not to say that managers always get it right, as has been made evidently clear in the case of New Coke, dry beers, and the Edsel. However, more often than not, managers of incremental new products predict demand within the right order of magnitude.
Four Seasons Goes to Paris:
by Carin-Isabel Knoop Roger Hallowell David BowenIllustrates how Four Seasons manages hotels in countries with strong and distinct national cultures. Focuses on how the chain meets its exacting service standards in a variety of settings worldwide, with special attention on France.
Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts
by Roger HallowellFour Seasons has a love/hate relationship with technology, including the best Web site in the industry. This case examines how a leading service delivers high-tech/high-touch, and looks at its progressive human resource strategy.
Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy
by Isadore SharpThe founder of Four Seasons Hotels shares the philosophy and values that have made his legendary brandHow did a child of immigrants, starting with no background in the hotel business, create the world's most admired and successful hotel chain? And how has Four Seasons grown dramatically, over nearly a half century, without losing its focus on exceptional quality and unparalleled service? Isadore Sharp answers these questions in his engaging memoir, which doubles as a powerful guide for leaders in any field. He recalls the surprising history of his company, starting with its roots in his father's small construction business, which Sharp joined after getting a degree in architecture. Shifting into hotels wasn't easy, and he learned by trial and error. His breakthrough was a vision for a new kind of hotel, featuring superior design, top-quality amenities, and, above all, a deep commitment to service. Sharp realized that customers would gladly pay extra for a "home away from home" experience. But that would be possible only if everyone-from managers and supervisors to bellmen, servers, and housekeepers-was fully engaged. The front-line staff, who have the most contact with guests, can make or break a five-star reputation. Readers will be fascinated to learn how Four Seasons does it, year after year, in more than thirty countries around the world.
Four Seconds
by Peter BregmanAll too often our best efforts to accomplish the things we want most--to do our jobs well, to make meaningful contributions at home and at work, to have satisfying relationships with loved ones, friends, neighbors, and coworkers--are built on bad habits that sabotage us. We feel overwhelmed by our increasingly large to-do list, so we automatically multitask to get more done--and end up more stressed and more overloaded. We say something with the hopes of impressing the other person, but instead of end them--then spend days trying to repair the damage. We give what we think is a pep talk to our team-- but they walk away demotivated.How can we be most effective and productive in a world that moves too fast and demands so much of us?In Four Seconds, Peter Bregman shows that the answer is to pause for as few as four seconds--the length of a deep breath--to replace bad habits and reactions with more productive behaviors. In his trademark style of blending personal anecdotes with practical advice, Bregman reveals some of our most common counter-productive tendencies and describes counter-intuitive strategies for acting more intentionally, including: Why setting goals can actually harm your performance How to use strategic disengagement to recover focus and willpower Why listening--not arguing--is the best strategy for changing someone's mind How taking responsibility for someone else's failure can actually help you succeedDrawn from Bregman's hugely popular Harvard Business Review blog, this engaging and wise book provides simple solutions to create the results you want without the stress.
Four Shades of Gray: The Amazon Kindle Platform (Platform Studies)
by Simon Peter RowberryThis first book-length analysis of Amazon&’s Kindle explores the platform&’s technological, bibliographical, and social impact on publishing.Four Shades of Gray offers the first book-length analysis of Amazon&’s Kindle and its impact on publishing. Simon Peter Rowberry recounts how Amazon built the infrastructure for a new generation of digital publications, then considers the consequences of having a single company control the direction of the publishing industry. Exploring the platform from the perspectives of technology, texts, and uses, he shows how the Kindle challenges traditional notions of platforms as discrete entities. He argues that Amazon&’s influence extends beyond &“disruptive technology&” to embed itself in all aspects of the publishing trade; yet despite industry pushback, he says, the Kindle has had a positive influence on publishing. Rowberry documents the first decade of the Kindle with case studies of Kindle Popular Highlights, an account of the digitization of books published after 1922, and a discussion of how Amazon&’s patent filings reflect a shift in priorities. Rowberry argues that while it was initially convenient for the book trade to outsource ebook development to Amazon, doing so has had adverse consequences for publishers in the mid- and long term, limiting opportunities for developing an inclusive and forward-thinking digital platform. While it has forced publishers to embrace digital forms, the Kindle has also empowered some previously marginalized readerships. Although it is still too early to judge the long-term impact of ebooks compared with that of the older technologies of clay tablets, the printing press, and offset printing, the shockwaves of the Kindle continue to shape publishing.
Four Steps to Forecast Total Market Demand
by William P. BarnettForecasting total market demand can be crucial to creating a smart marketing strategy. Some companies--and even whole industries--have learned the hard way that a product's historical demand curve doesn't necessarily predict future demand. An accurate total market demand forecast can yield clues about future product performance. Here are the four steps to creating one: 1) define the market, 2) divide total industry demand into segments, 3) find out what drives demand in each segment and project how those drivers might change, and 4) assess the risks to the forecast and decide which assumptions are most critical to success. Just going through this process can help managers better understand the real world in which they operate.
Four Studies on the Economic Development of Turkey
by Dankwart A. Rustow John F. Kolars Frederic C. Shorter Oktay YenaiFirst Published in 1967. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Four Walls and a Roof: The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession
by Reinier De GraafArchitects, we like to believe, shape the world as they please. Reinier de Graaf draws on his own tragicomic experiences to present a candid account of what it is really like to work as an architect. To achieve anything, he notes, architects must serve the powers they strive to critique, finding themselves in a perpetual conflict of interest.
Four Worlds of the Welfare State in Latin America
by Ilán BizbergThis book explores the trajectories and structures of Latin American welfare states using a typology developed through conceptual and historical analyses of social protection systems in Latin America. It argues that social protection can be accomplished by different actors in distinct societies, be that the State, civil society, the market, or families. This work defines four types of welfare worlds based on who administers and allocates resources: the socio-corporatist, the statist, the commodified, and the familial. Author Ilan Bizberg delves on the historical trajectories of ten Latin American countries, each with a unique analysis of the corresponding social protection system: Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador The book begins with a meaningful discussion on the welfare state as a necessity of modern capitalist societies. Then, it counters the consequences of the disembeddedness of the economy from societyand the way the social protection system protects the society against this rupture. Chapters focus on the health system, pensions, and assistance programs of these countries, with diverse case studies that include analyzing the performance of the health systems during the pandemic. The book closes with a discussion on gender and the situations women face and encounter under and within different social-protection regimes.
Four-Cornered Leadership: A Framework for Making Decisions
by John Roland SchultzW. Edwards Deming once stated that the job of management is not supervision but leadership. He also concluded that capable leaders were those who understood and applied the system of profound knowledge.Four-Cornered Leadership: A Framework for Making Decisions examines the system of profound knowledge and identifies the competencies that set the st
Four-Stage Model for Designing Cost and Performance Measurement Systems
by Robert S. Kaplan Robin CooperManagers can view the development of their integrated cost and performance measurement systems as a journey through four sequential stages, from broken systems to integrated systems that serve both external and internal constituencies. This chapter describes a four-step model of cost system migration, walking you through the four stages, and providing a roadmap to help your organization navigate migration from one step to the next.
Four: El ADN secreto de Amazon, Apple, Facebook y Goggle
by Scott GallowayAmazon, Apple, Facebook y Google son las cuatro empresas más influyentes del mundo. Casi todo el mundo cree saber cómo lo han logrado. Y casi todo el mundo se equivoca. Conoce su ADN secreto. Las four (Amazon, Apple, Facebook y Google), cuyas valoraciones se aproximan ya a la escalofriante cifra del billón de dólares, son los cuatro gigantes de la economía mundial. ¿Cómo han logrado esas compañías infiltrarse tan profundamente en nuestras vidas que ya es imposible evitarlas (o incluso boicotearlas)? ¿Por qué los mercados bursátiles les perdonan pecados que destruirían a cualquier otra empresa? ¿Puede alguien desafiarlas? Con el estilo fresco y desenfadado que le ha convertido en uno de los más célebres profesores de negocios, Scott Galloway disecciona las estrategias ocultas bajo la deslumbrante apariencia de estos cuatro gigantes y muestra cómo apelan a las necesidades básicas que han movido a la humanidad desde tiempos ancestrales: Amazon, a la de cazar y recolectar; Apple, a la de procrear; Facebook, a la de amar; y Google, a la de creer en un Dios. Y, tanto si queremos competir como si queremos hacer negocios con ellas o simplemente sobrevivir en el mundo que dominan, resulta imprescindible conocer el ADN secreto de esos cuatro jinetes de la economía mundial. Escrito con rigor y amenidad, el libro de Galloway ofrece un pormenorizado panorama de la economía del mundo actual y del futuro que se avecina que no dejará indiferente a ningún lector, y revela con ingenio cómo podemos aplicar las lecciones del ascenso de Amazon, Apple, Facebook y Google a nuestro propio negocio o carrera profesional. Reseñas:«Una visión incisiva y estratégica de cómo unas pocas empresas están cambiando el mundo. Ante nuestros ojospero fuera del radar. Lo que aquí se descubre es inquietante, pero es mejor saberlo ahora que cuando sea demasiado tarde.»Seth Godin, autor de ¡Hazlo! «Un libro magnífico y provocador sobre dónde estamos y hacia dónde nos encaminamos.»Phil Simon, huffingtonpost.com «Nunca volverás a mirar a estas cuatro empresas de la misma manera.»Jonah Berger, autor de Contagioso «Scott Galloway es claro, provocador y subversivo. La lectura de este libro desencadena una reacción de lucha o huida y estimula a pensar de otra manera.»Calvin Mcdonald, CEO de Sephora «Igual que hace en sus legendarias clases de MBA, en este libro Galloway también dice las cosas como son y no se muerde la lengua a la hora de criticar a los titanes de la economía o a las grandes corporaciones. Un libro de obligada lectura.»Adam Alter, autor de Irresistible «Scott Galloway cabalga a lomos de los cuatro caballos del apocalipsis económico: Apple, Amazon, Facebook y Google. Su libro es una imprescindible exposición de la naturaleza y de la concentración del poder en el mundo hoy y, por ello, mucho más que un libro de empresa.»Tom Upchurch, Wired