C. Neal Johnson offers the first comprehensive guide to business as mission (BAM) for practitioners. He provides conceptual foundationas for understanding BAM's unique place in global mission and prerequisites for engaging in it. Then he offers practical resources for how to do BAM, including strategic planning and step-by-step operational implementation.
This book explores the nature and meaning of doing business and finds it calls for much more than most think. Seattle Pacific School of Business Dean Jeff Van Duzer presents a robust Christian approach that integrates biblical studies with the disciplines of business and displays a vision of business that contributes to the very purposes of God.
This engaging text takes an evenhanded approach to major theoretical paradigms in evaluation and builds a bridge from them to evaluation practice. Featuring helpful checklists, procedural steps, provocative questions that invite readers to explore their own theoretical assumptions, and practical exercises, the book provides concrete guidance for conducting large- and small-scale evaluations. Numerous sample studies—many with reflective commentary from the evaluators—reveal the process through which an evaluator incorporates a paradigm into an actual research project. The book shows how theory informs methodological choices (the specifics of planning, implementing, and using evaluations). It offers balanced coverage of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches. Useful pedagogical features include: *Examples of large- and small-scale evaluations from multiple disciplines. *Beginning-of-chapter reflection questions that set the stage for the material covered. *"Extending your thinking" questions and practical activities that help readers apply particular theoretical paradigms in their own evaluation projects. *Relevant Web links, including pathways to more details about sampling, data collection, and analysis. *Boxes offering a closer look at key evaluation concepts and additional studies. *Checklists for readers to determine if they have followed recommended practice. *A companion website with resources for further learning.
Business as Mission (BAM) is a growing global movement. Christians active in the arena of business, charity and ministry are on a journey to integrate business with holistic mission. But what exactly is BAM? In this book, Gea Gort and Mats Tunehag explain the BAM concept through theory and theology, with stories to show what it looks like in real life. The authors explain that Business as Mission is an expression of a much broader movement. Ideas regarding mission, church, and charity are shifting, and growing number of Christians are aiming for a missional way of living out the whole incarnated gospel in their daily lives where they work and live. The inspiring stories of thirty practitioners active on all continents provide insight into how the gospel can be shared in innovative and practical ways in challenging settings: in developing nations, secularized Western cities, or even closed countries. This book will not only capture your mind and heart as you learn about Business as Mission in theory and praxis, but it will also give you a broad overview of this remarkable movement. This book provides insight into this global movement and is of interest for a broad range of people: pioneers, early adapters and leaders within church, missionaries, and business leaders, as well as for Bible schools and universities. Dr. Gea Gort, a trained journalist, studied Transformational Leadership in the Global Urban Context at Bakke Graduate University in Seattle, where she serves as adjunct faculty and regional board member. She is passionate about innovative mission in an urban and global context. In her hometown of Rotterdam (Holland), she initiated City Prayer, directed a Christian leaders network, and advised the government on multicultural affairs. Gea has authored several books in Dutch and in English. Mats Tunehag is a speaker, writer, and consultant from Sweden. For over twenty years, he has focused on developing the Business as Mission (BAM) concept as well as national, regional, and global strategic alliances of people and BAM initiatives. A global lecturer, he is also a BAM senior leader in the Lausanne Movement and the World Evangelical Alliance.
Offers a collection of essays on philosophies and strategies for defining, leading, and managing projects. This book explains to technical and non-technical readers alike what it takes to get through a large software or web development project. It does not cite specific methods, but focuses on philosophy and strategy.
Business for Transformation focuses on answering the question: “How do you start a business that transforms communities of unreached peoples?” Starting a business cross-culturally involves thousands of decisions. Until now, BAM and B4T practitioners have been lacking a tool that explains how to start a business that engages unreached people for Jesus’ sake. This book draws on years of experience from scores of OPEN workers who are BAM/B4T practitioners. BAM/B4T are among the faster growing segments of the worldwide mission movement. It is written for new workers and coaches who need practical guidance in setting up and doing business in hard, churchless areas.
Duane Elmer offers the tools needed to reduce apprehension, communicate effectively and establish genuine trust and acceptance between cultures while demonstrating how we can avoid being cultural imperialists and instead become authentic ambassadors for Christ.
To succeed in the face of disruptive competition, companies will need to harness the power of a wide range of partners who can bring different skills, experience, capacity, and their own networks to the task. With the advent of new technologies, rapidly changing customer needs, and emerging competitors, companies across more and more industries are seeing their time-honored ways of making money under threat. In this book, Arnoud De Meyer and Peter J. Williamson explain how business can meet these challenges by building a large and dynamic ecosystem of partners that reinforce, strengthen, and encourage innovation in the face of ongoing disruption. While traditional companies know how to assemble and manage supply chains, leading the development of a vibrant ecosystem requires a different set of capabilities. Ecosystem Edge illustrates how executives need to leave notions of command and control behind in favor of strategies that will attract partners, stimulate learning, and promote the overall health of the network. To understand the practical steps executives can take to achieve this, the authors focus on eight core examples that cross industries and continents: Alibaba Group, Amazon.com, ARM, athenahealth, Dassault Systèmes S.E., The Guardian, Rolls-Royce, and Thomson Reuters. By following the principles outlined in this book, leaders can learn how to unlock rapid innovation, tap into new and original sources of value, and practice organizational flexibility. As a result, companies can gain the ecosystem edge, a key advantage in responding to the challenges of disruption that business sees all around it today.
In this landmark book, economist Steve Rundle and missiologist Tom Steffen offer their paradigm for the convergence of business and missions--the Great Commission Company. This revised and expanded edition provides new and updated case studies of Great Commission Companies in diverse contexts around the world.
