Dynasties and Democracy
Dynasties and Democracy

Author: Daniel M. Smith

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2018-07-03

Total Pages: 501

ISBN-13: 1503606406

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Although democracy is, in principle, the antithesis of dynastic rule, families with multiple members in elective office continue to be common around the world. In most democracies, the proportion of such "democratic dynasties" declines over time, and rarely exceeds ten percent of all legislators. Japan is a startling exception, with over a quarter of all legislators in recent years being dynastic. In Dynasties and Democracy, Daniel M. Smith sets out to explain when and why dynasties persist in democracies, and why their numbers are only now beginning to wane in Japan—questions that have long perplexed regional experts. Smith introduces a compelling comparative theory to explain variation in the presence of dynasties across democracies and political parties. Drawing on extensive legislator-level data from twelve democracies and detailed candidate-level data from Japan, he examines the inherited advantage that members of dynasties reap throughout their political careers—from candidate selection, to election, to promotion into cabinet. Smith shows how the nature and extent of this advantage, as well as its consequences for representation, vary significantly with the institutional context of electoral rules and features of party organization. His findings extend far beyond Japan, shedding light on the causes and consequences of dynastic politics for democracies around the world.

The Unfair Advantage
The Unfair Advantage

Author: Ash Ali

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2022-06-07

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1250280532

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The winner of the UK's Business Book of the Year Award for 2021, this is a groundbreaking exposé of the myths behind startup success and a blueprint for harnessing the things that really matter. What is the difference between a startup that makes it, and one that crashes and burns? Behind every story of success is an unfair advantage. But an Unfair Advantage is not just about your parents' wealth or who you know: anyone can have one. An Unfair Advantage is the element that gives you an edge over your competition. This groundbreaking book shows how to identify your own Unfair Advantages and apply them to any project. Drawing on over two decades of hands-on experience, Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba offer a unique framework for assessing your external circumstances in addition to your internal strengths. Hard work and grit aren't enough, so they explore the importance of money, intelligence, location, education, expertise, status, and luck in the journey to success. From starting your company, to gaining traction, raising funds, and growth hacking, The Unfair Advantage helps you look at yourself and find the ingredients you didn't realize you already had, to succeed in the cut-throat world of business.

The Essential Advantage
The Essential Advantage

Author: Paul Leinwand

Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1422136515

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Conventional wisdom on strategy is no longer a reliable guide. In Essential Advantage, Booz & Company's Cesare Mainardi and Paul Leinwand maintain that success in any market accrues to firms with coherence: a tight match between their strategic direction and the capabilities that make them unique. Achieving this clarity takes a sharpness of focus that only exceptional companies have mastered. This book helps you identify your firm's blend of strategic direction and distinctive capabilities that give it the "right to win" in its chosen markets. Based on extensive research and filled with company examples--including Amazon.com, Johnson & Johnson, Tata Sons, and Procter & Gamble--Essential Advantage helps you construct a coherent company in which the pieces reinforce each other instead of working at cross-purposes. The authors reveal: · Why you should focus on a system of a few aligned capabilities · How to identify the "way to play" in your market · How to design a strategy for well-modulated growth · How to align a portfolio of businesses behind your capability system · How your strategy clarifies growth, costs, and people decisions Few companies achieve a capability-driven "right to win" in their market. This book helps you position your firm to be among them.

The Business Reinvention of Japan
The Business Reinvention of Japan

Author: Ulrike Schaede

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2020-06-16

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1503612368

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After two decades of reinvention, Japanese companies are re-emerging as major players in the new digital economy. They have responded to the rise of China and new global competition by moving upstream into critical deep-tech inputs and advanced materials and components. This new "aggregate niche strategy" has made Japan the technology anchor for many global supply chains. Although the end products do not carry a "Japan Inside" label, Japan plays a pivotal role in our everyday lives across many critical industries. This book is an in-depth exploration of current Japanese business strategies that make Japan the world's third-largest economy and an economic leader in Asia. To accomplish their reinvention, Japan's largest companies are building new processes of breakthrough innovation. Central to this book is how they are addressing the necessary changes in organizational design, internal management processes, employment, and corporate governance. Because Japan values social stability and economic equality, this reinvention is happening slowly and methodically, and has gone largely unnoticed by Western observers. Yet, Japan's more balanced model of "caring capitalism" is both competitive and transformative, and more socially responsible than the unbridled growth approach of the United States.

The Automation Advantage: Embrace the Future of Productivity and Improve Speed, Quality, and Customer Experience Through AI
The Automation Advantage: Embrace the Future of Productivity and Improve Speed, Quality, and Customer Experience Through AI

Author: Bhaskar Ghosh

Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional

Published: 2021-12-07

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1260473309

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From the global automation leaders at Accenture—the first-ever comprehensive blueprint for how to use and scale AI-powered intelligent automation in the enterprise to gain competitive advantage through faster speed to market, improved product quality, higher efficiency, and an elevated customer experience. Many companies were already implementing limited levels of automation when the pandemic hit. But the need to rapidly change business processes and how organizations work resulted in the compression of a decade’s worth of digital transformation into a matter of months. Technology suddenly became the essential element for rapid organizational change and the creation of 360-degree value benefiting all stakeholders. Businesses are faced with the imperative to embrace that change or risk being left behind. In The Automation Advantage, global enterprise technology and automation veterans Bhaskar Ghosh, Rajendra Prasad, and Gayathri Pallail give business leaders and managers the action plan they need to execute a strategic agenda that enables them to quickly and confidently scale their automation and AI initiatives. This practical and highly accessible implementation guide answers leaders’ burning questions, such as: How do I identify and prioritize automation opportunities? How do I assess my legacy systems and data issues? How do I derive full value out of my technology investments and automation efforts? How can I inspire my employees to embrace change and the new opportunities presented by automation? The Automation Advantage goes beyond optimizing process to using AI to transform almost any business activity in any industry to make it faster, more streamlined, cost efficient, and customer-focused—vastly improving overall productivity and performance. Featuring case studies of successful automation solutions, this indispensable road map includes guiding principles for technology, governance, culture, and leadership change. It offers a human-centric approach to AI and automation that leads to sustainable transformation and measurable business results.

China's Next Strategic Advantage
China's Next Strategic Advantage

Author: George S. Yip

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2017-09-15

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 0262534754

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A book for everyone who does business with China or in China. The history-making development of the Chinese economy has entered a new phase. China is moving aggressively from a strategy of imitation to one of innovation. Driven both by domestic needs and by global ambition, China is establishing itself at the forefront of technological innovation. Western businesses need to prepare for a tidal wave of innovation from China that is about to hit Western markets, and Chinese businesses need to understand the critical importance of innovation in their future. Experts George Yip and Bruce McKern explain this epic transformation and propose strategies for both Western and Chinese companies. This book is for everyone who does business with China or in China, or is interested in the development of the world's fastest-growing economy. Western CEOs can learn from Chinese companies and can create an effective innovation process in China, for China and the world. Chinese CEOs can benefit from understanding the strategies of their peers as they strive to enter foreign markets. And all Western businesses should prepare for disruption from their new competitors. Yip and McKern provide case studies of successful firms, outline ten ways in which the managerial and innovative capabilities of these firms differ from those of Western firms, and describe how multinationals doing business in China can become part of the Chinese ecosystem of new knowledge and technology. Yip and McKern argue that these innovation capabilities will be the basis for creating world-class products and services to meet the challenges of a new era of global competition.

The Advantage
The Advantage

Author: Patrick M. Lencioni

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2012-03-14

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 1118266102

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There is a competitive advantage out there, arguably more powerful than any other. Is it superior strategy? Faster innovation? Smarter employees? No, New York Times best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, argues that the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre ones has little to do with what they know and how smart they are and more to do with how healthy they are. In this book, Lencioni brings together his vast experience and many of the themes cultivated in his other best-selling books and delivers a first: a cohesive and comprehensive exploration of the unique advantage organizational health provides. Simply put, an organization is healthy when it is whole, consistent and complete, when its management, operations and culture are unified. Healthy organizations outperform their counterparts, are free of politics and confusion and provide an environment where star performers never want to leave. Lencioni’s first non-fiction book provides leaders with a groundbreaking, approachable model for achieving organizational health—complete with stories, tips and anecdotes from his experiences consulting to some of the nation’s leading organizations. In this age of informational ubiquity and nano-second change, it is no longer enough to build a competitive advantage based on intelligence alone. The Advantage provides a foundational construct for conducting business in a new way—one that maximizes human potential and aligns the organization around a common set of principles.

The Integrity Advantage
The Integrity Advantage

Author: Adrian Robert Gostick

Publisher: Gibbs Smith

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13: 9781586852467

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With The Integrity Advantage, Adrian Gostick and Dana Telford establish a burning platform-that personal integrity is a proven competitive advantage in business. Prominent business leaders from some of North America's most respected companies-including Don Graham of the Washington Post, former Johnson & Johnson CEO James Burke, and Hank Paulson, Jr. of Goldman Sachs-discuss the role integrity has played in their successes, and offer examples of the importance of integrity in business today. Not merely a collection of essays, the authors also share an effective system of decision-making designed to help anyone implement integrity into every action. The importance of trust and credibility within business relationships is examined and discussed, as Telford and Gostick illustrate how to juggle wealth, power, and responsibility-and be a person of character. Given the recent uncertainty fostered by questionable corporate tactics, however, now is the time to examine whatrole integrity actually plays in business today, and whether employees are naturally compelled to practice these values-particularly when the leaders they follow lack integrity in their own professional behavior.Dana Telford holds an MBA from Harvard University and has advised business leaders in the consumer banking, healthcare, publishing, retail, manufacturing, and real estate industries. He has developed and implemented strategies for client companies based all over the world. Helives in Morgan, Utah. Adrian Gostick is director of marketing and corporate communications with the O.C. Tanner Recognition Company. His previous books include Managing with Carrots and The 24-Carrot Manager, co-authored with Chester Elton. He lives in Salt Lake City.

Home Field Advantage
Home Field Advantage

Author: Dahlia Adler

Publisher: Wednesday Books

Published: 2022-06-07

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 1250765854

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In Dahlia Adler's Home Field Advantage, a sweet and funny f/f romance from the author of Cool for the Summer, a cheerleader and the school's newest quarterback are playing to win, but might lose their hearts in the process. Amber McCloud’s dream is to become cheer captain at the end of the year, but it’s an extra-tall order to be joyful and spirited when the quarterback of your team has been killed in a car accident. For both the team and the squad, watching Robbie get replaced by newcomer Jack Walsh is brutal. And when it turns out Jack is actually short for Jaclyn, all hell breaks loose. The players refuse to be led by a girl, the cheerleaders are mad about the changes to their traditions, and the fact that Robbie’s been not only replaced but outshined by a QB who wears a sports bra has more than a few Atherton Alligators in a rage. Amber tries for some semblance of unity, but it quickly becomes clear that she's only got a future on the squad and with her friends if she helps them take Jack down. Just one problem: Amber and Jack are falling for each other, and if Amber can't stand up for Jack and figure out how to get everyone to fall in line, her dream may come at the cost of her heart. Dahlia Adler's Home Field Advantage is a sparkling romance about fighting for what - or who - you truly want.

By More Than Providence
By More Than Providence

Author: Michael J. Green

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2017-03-21

Total Pages: 760

ISBN-13: 0231542720

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Soon after the American Revolution, ?certain of the founders began to recognize the strategic significance of Asia and the Pacific and the vast material and cultural resources at stake there. Over the coming generations, the United States continued to ask how best to expand trade with the region and whether to partner with China, at the center of the continent, or Japan, looking toward the Pacific. Where should the United States draw its defensive line, and how should it export democratic principles? In a history that spans the eighteenth century to the present, Michael J. Green follows the development of U.S. strategic thinking toward East Asia, identifying recurring themes in American statecraft that reflect the nation's political philosophy and material realities. Drawing on archives, interviews, and his own experience in the Pentagon and White House, Green finds one overarching concern driving U.S. policy toward East Asia: a fear that a rival power might use the Pacific to isolate and threaten the United States and prevent the ocean from becoming a conduit for the westward free flow of trade, values, and forward defense. By More Than Providence works through these problems from the perspective of history's major strategists and statesmen, from Thomas Jefferson to Alfred Thayer Mahan and Henry Kissinger. It records the fate of their ideas as they collided with the realities of the Far East and adds clarity to America's stakes in the region, especially when compared with those of Europe and the Middle East.