In 2014, automakers in the United States more than doubled their previous all-time record for automotive safety recalls. The most prominent recall was for a defective ignition switch in General Motors vehicles that caused cars to stall and airbags to fail in a crash, prompting a legal, financial and public relations nightmare for the company. "The Ignition Switch from Hell" examines the engineering, managerial and supplier relations problems that led to the defective part. The book provides suggestions on how GM management can improve vehicle quality assurance, including case studies of quality assurance systems from Japanese suppliers.
Our nation is still reeling from the 346 fatalities suffered on two flights of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes, the first in May 2017 and the second in March 2019. These are just one of the series of costly and deadly consequences of defective products described in this book. Besides the Boeing 737 planes, the examples of bad products include automobiles, electrical energy networks, pipelines, bridges and other large structures, banks, drinkable water, and financial services. While the immediate or proximate causes of the disasters have been bad design or bad production, the root or underlying causes have been bad corporate management and business cultures caused by corporate leaders. The final five chapters provide short essays on product design, production, quality control, management, and culture and what the leaders of our private companies and government agencies might do to reduce the pitfalls that have led to so many defective products and their dire consequences.
The future of the free market depends on fair, honest business practices. Business Ethics: Contemporary Issues and Cases aims to deepen students’ knowledge of ethical principles, corporate social responsibility, and decision-making in all aspects of business. The text presents an innovative approach to ethical reasoning grounded in moral philosophy. Focusing on corporate purpose—creating economic value, complying with laws and regulations, and observing ethical standards—a decision-making framework is presented based upon Duties-Rights-Justice. Over 40 real-world case studies allow students to grapple with a wide range of moral issues related to personal integrity, corporate values, and global capitalism. Richard A. Spinello delves into the most pressing issues confronting businesses today including sexual harassment in the workplace, cybersecurity, privacy, and environmental justice.
A terrifying secret, an evil coterie of ruthless masterminds, a murderous battle of cunning and deadly skill—it’s time to send in the Marines! After the Confederation makes a shocking discovery on an alien world, a nefarious band of opportunists from the highest echelons of power plot to steal the vast riches for themselves. Along with the ability to crush any resistance, these moguls possess spacecraft, unlimited resources, and a deadly arsenal of cutting-edge weapons. The only one without a price tag is the Confederation president. Now she is sending Gunnery Sergeant Bass, the men of third platoon, and a single special agent to expose the shadowy figures behind the corruption. And so, on an obscure planet, home to unimaginable treasure and an unsettling species, the toughest fighters in Human Space confront their fiercest battle. For there will be no losers in this war, only the triumphant, the dead, and the vanished . . .
Master of suspense James W. Hall's Hell's Bay sends Thorn deep into the wilds of South Florida, in a story with all the haunting atmosphere of Deliverance and the sheer terror of Cape Fear. Descended from pioneer stock, the Bateses are an aristocratic Floridian family with vast holdings in real estate and mining. When matriarch Abigail Bates is discovered drowned in the Peace River, a chain of events is set into motion, embroiling Thorn with a family he never knew he had and a fortune he doesn't necessarily want. Thorn is leading a fishing expedition into the isolated lakes and mangrove swamps of Hell's Bay when Abigail's son and beautiful granddaughter arrive, claiming Thorn as a long-lost relative and asking him to solve the woman's murder. Little do they know that the killer is already on their trail. Soon their houseboat becomes a precarious island of safety in a landscape of escalating violence. What does the killer want? And why is their predator so enraged, determined to kill them all no matter what the cost? As Marilyn Stasio said in The New York Times, "If violence can be poetic, Hall has the lyric voice for it." In this tour de force of fear and suspense, Hall shows how one family's dark past comes back to haunt its most remote member---and may ultimately cost him his life.
Microeconomic Principles and Problems offers a comprehensive introduction to all major perspectives in modern economics, including mainstream and heterodox approaches. Through providing multiple views of markets and how they work, it will leave readers better able to understand and analyse the complex behaviours of consumers, firms, and government officials, as well as the likely impact of a variety of economic events and policies. Most principles of microeconomics textbooks cover only mainstream economics, ignoring rich heterodox ideas. They also lack material on the great economists, including the important ideas of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek. Mainstream books neglect the kind of historical analysis that is crucial to understanding trends that help us predict the future. Moreover, they focus on abstract models more than existing economic realities. This engaging book addresses these inadequacies. Including explicit coverage of the major heterodox schools of thought, it allows the reader to choose which ideas they find most compelling in explaining modern economic realities. Written in an engaging style focused on real world examples, this ground-breaking book brings economics to life. It offers the most contemporary and complete package for any pluralistic microeconomics class.
How to Conquer the Effective Frontier and Drive Improved Value in Global Operations Growth has slowed. Volatility has increased and the world is more global. Brands are defined by innovation and services. Supply chain excellence matters more than ever. It makes a difference in corporate performance. One cannot snap their fingers and deliver supply chain success. It happens over the course of many years. It is measured in inches not miles. In this book, the author evaluates the progress of over a hundred companies over the period of 2006-2013. Success drives value. The effective supply chain makes a difference in winning a war, saving a patient, and driving commerce; but it also makes a difference in a community having clean air, potable water, and a standard of living. Mistakes are hard to overcome. Supply Chain Metrics that Matter tells this story. The book links corporate financials to supply chain maturity. In the book, the author analyzes which metrics matter. The author Lora M. Cecere is a supply chain researcher as well as an authority in supply chain technology. She helps companies gain first mover advantage. In the book, Cecere provides concrete, actionable steps to align and balance the supply chain to drive value. The book explores the crossover between supply chain efficiency and financial growth with topics such as: Outlining the metrics that matter, the metrics that don't Progress in industry sub-segment in improving inventory, cash, productivity and margin The management techniques that improve performance Sharing insights on how metrics change as the supply chain matures The roadmap to improve performance. Today, supply chains are global and dynamic. They are rapidly evolving. Companies that constantly seek out new solutions and opportunities for improvement drive differentiation. In a market where growth is stalled and many companies are stuck in driving supply chain performance, this book provides a clear, concise framework for a more modern, effective supply chain.
How society’s undervaluing of life puts all of us at risk—and the groundbreaking economic measure that can fix it Like it or not, sometimes we need to put a monetary value on people's lives. In the past, government agencies used the financial "cost of death" to monetize the mortality risks of regulatory policies, but this method vastly undervalued life. Pricing Lives tells the story of how the government came to adopt an altogether different approach--the value of a statistical life, or VSL—and persuasively shows how its more widespread use could create a safer and more equitable society for everyone. In the 1980s, W. Kip Viscusi used the method to demonstrate that the benefits of requiring businesses to label hazardous chemicals immensely outweighed the costs. VSL is the risk-reward trade-off that people make about their health when considering risky job choices. With it, Viscusi calculated how much more money workers would demand to take on hazardous jobs, boosting calculated benefits by an order of magnitude. His current estimate of the value of a statistical life is $10 million. In this book, Viscusi provides a comprehensive look at all aspects of economic and policy efforts to price lives, including controversial topics such as whether older people's lives are worth less and richer people's lives are worth more. He explains why corporations need to abandon the misguided cost-of-death approach, how the courts can profit from increased application of VSL in assessing liability and setting damages, and how other countries consistently undervalue risks to life. Pricing Lives proposes sensible economic guideposts to foster more protective policies and greater levels of safety in the United States and throughout the world.
When a New Leader takes Over: Toward Ethical Turnarounds takes a detailed look at the experiences of new leaders who are charged with turning an organization around following an ethical scandal. The challenges confronting new leaders who are tasked with restoring trust, rebuilding reputation, and turning around an organization following an ethical scandal are discussed along with specific actions taken by these leaders during the turnaround process. A main focus of the book is to offer insight into the difficult situations confronting new leaders at the beginning, during and after their turnaround experiences which means turning an unethical organizational culture into an ethical one. A number of examples of turnaround efforts that have taken place over the past two decades are included to provide the most comprehensive documentation of the ethical turnaround process. The book includes an in-depth look at what led to the unethical behavior by examining a number of real-world examples of ethical scandals from around the world. The book will provide an analysis of the various ethical scandals by focusing on concepts like unethical leadership, received wisdom, groupthink and moral silence, all of which contribute to the kind of organizational culture and unethical behavior one finds in organizations that experience ethical scandals. The book also discusses proactive leadership and its importance in implementing ethical turnarounds based on values-based leadership, employee involvement and ethics education. A main premise of this book is that new leaders can successfully create an organization environment to rebuild and institutionalize ethical behavior as part of the turnaround process and sustain ethical behavior beyond the turnaround. The book will be of interest to employees at all levels of an organization, business professionals and other practitioners and others who have an interest in organization change, transformation and ethical turnarounds.
Economic Principles and Problems: A Pluralistic Introduction offers a comprehensive introduction to the major perspectives in modern economics, including mainstream and heterodox approaches. Through providing multiple views of markets and how they work, it leaves readers better able to understand and analyze the complex behaviors of consumers, firms, and government officials, as well as the likely impact of a variety of economic events and policies. Most principles of economics textbooks cover only mainstream economics, ignoring rich heterodox ideas. They also lack material on the great economists, including the important ideas of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, John Maynard Keynes, and Friedrich Hayek. Mainstream books tend to neglect the kind of historical analysis that is crucial to understanding trends that help us predict the future. Moreover, they focus primarily on abstract models more than existing economic realities. This engaging book addresses these inadequacies. Including explicit coverage of mainstream economics and the major heterodox schools of economic thought—institutionalists, feminists, radical political economists, post-Keynesians, Austrians, and social economists—it allows the reader to choose which ideas they find most compelling in explaining modern economic realities. Written in an engaging style and focused on real-world examples, this textbook brings economics to life. Multiple examples of how each economic model works, coupled with critical analysis of the assumptions behind them, enable students to develop a sophisticated understanding of the material. Digital supplements are also available for students and instructors. Economic Principles and Problems offers the most contemporary and complete package for any pluralist economics class.
