Digital library
Textbooks, references and open learning resources.
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Focusing on Organizational Change
William Judge · Saylor Foundation · 2012
Never before have strategic leaders been confronted with so much overwhelming change. The traditional approach is to teach the leader or leaders how to direct or control the organizations' reaction on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. This approach is stressful and overwhelming for executive leaders, makes middle managers feel torn between honoring their senior leaders and listening to the demands of front line employees, and is alienating for front line employees. Focusing on Organizational Change offers an alternative to the traditional approach by focusing on building the change capacity of the entire organization in anticipation of future pressures to change. Based on systematic research of more than 5,000 respondents working within more than 200 organization or organizational units conducted during the previous decade, this book offers a clear and proven method for diagnosing your organizational change capacity. While building organizational change capacity is not fast or easy, it is essential for effective leadership and organizational survival in the 21st century.
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Developing New Products and Services
G. Lawrence Sanders · Saylor Foundation · 2012
Developing New Products and Services by Sanders is an outstanding contribution to market research. The book focuses on the upfront activities and ideas for new product and service development. A central theme of Developing New Products and Services is that there is, or should be, a constant struggle going on in every organization, business, and system between delivering feature-rich versions of products and services using extravagant engineering and delivering low-cost versions of products and services using frugal engineering. Students will come away with this notion and how to manifest it as a contributing employee at any company. A number of powerful concepts and tools are presented so your students can better understand how to facilitate new product development. For example, three templates are featured that facilitate new product and service development. The FAD (features, attributes, and design) template is used to identify the features and attributes that can be used for product and service differentiation. The Ten–Ten planning process contains two templates: an Organizational and Industry Analysis template and the Business Plan Overview template. These two templates coupled with the FAD template can be used to develop a full-blown business plan. In addition, Developing New Products and Services includes the following topics: entrepreneurship, technology and product life cycles, product and service versioning, product line optimization, creativity, lock-in real options, business valuation, and project management. Evaluate Developing New Products and Services by Sanders for your marketing courses today.
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Corporate Governance
Cornelis de Kluyver · Saylor Foundation · 2012
Corporate Governance by de Kluyver is a primer on corporate governance. It is designed to help students understand corporate governance by looking at the subject from both a macro- and micro-perspective. Historical data and examples including the recent scandals that have torn the fabric of capitalism pave a pathway to the principal challenges facing today's corporate boards, and how to successfully manage them. Topics Include: Clear coverage on why proper corporate governance has become a moral imperative and how to corporations achieve it. Discussions on recent governance reforms in the United States. Outlines of the roles that each individual in the corporate governance process must take on and how to effectively execute on those roles. Exploration on the future of corporate governance in the epilogue Take some time to review Corporate Governance by de Kluyver to see if it is a good fit for your strategy courses.
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Building Strategy and Performance
Kim Warren · Saylor Foundation · 2012
This book uses a balanced blend of frameworks and illustrations to teach you how to tackle the challenge of driving performance into the future. Kim Warren takes special care with this new textbook, Building Strategy and Performance, to ensure that it delivers instruction on how to deliver strategy powerfully over a sustained period of time. This book helps you to show your students where the levers are that they can control and how to choose what to do, when, and how much to achieve their specific goals. This book effectively outlines the dynamics of strategy, how one drives performance - past, today and into the future. It shows what causes performance to improve or deteriorate and what your students can do to change this trajectory for the better. But don't take our word for it, review the book now to see if it can help you to deliver the kind of tactical strategy course you desire for your students.
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Advanced Business Law and the Legal Environment
Don Mayer; Daniel Warner; George Siedel; Jethro Lieberman · Saylor Foundation · 2012
Mayer, Warner, Siedel and Lieberman's Advanced Business Law and the Legal Environment is an up-to-date textbook with coverage of legal and regulatory issues that are more technical than the topics in the authors' Foundations of Business Law and the Legal Environment. Appropriate for students who have already taken an introductory Legal Environment or Business Law course, the text is organized to permit instructors to tailor the materials to their particular approach. The authors take special care to engage students by relating law to everyday events with which they are already familiar with their clear, concise and readable style. Advanced Business Law and the Legal Environment provides students with context and essential legal concepts relating to the Uniform Commercial Code and various aspects of property law. The text provides the vocabulary and legal savvy necessary for business people to talk in an educated way to their customers, employees, suppliers, and other stakeholders — and to their own lawyers.
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Contract Doctrine, Theory & Practice
J.H. Verkerke · CALI's eLangdell® Press · 2014
This is the first in a series of Contracts casebooks. It was originally titled "Collaborative Teaching Materials for Contracts." The first semester of law school is mostly about learning to speak a new legal language (but emphatically not “legalese”), to formulate and evaluate legal arguments, to become comfortable with the distinctive style of legal analysis. We could teach these skills using almost any legal topic. But we begin the first-year curriculum with subjects that pervade the entire field of law. Contract principles have a long history and they form a significant part of the way that lawyers think about many legal problems. As you will discover when you study insurance law, employment law, family law, and dozens of other practice areas, your knowledge of contract doctrine and theory will be invaluable.
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Contract Doctrine, Theory & Practice
J.H. Verkerke · CALI's eLangdell® Press · 2012
This is Volume 2 in a three volume series written for Contracts Law. Its orginal title was "Collaborative Teaching Materials for Contracts." The first semester of law school is mostly about learning to speak a new legal language (but emphatically not “legalese”), to formulate and evaluate legal arguments, to become comfortable with the distinctive style of legal analysis. We could teach these skills using almost any legal topic. But we begin the first-year curriculum with subjects that pervade the entire field of law. Contract principles have a long history and they form a significant part of the way that lawyers think about many legal problems. As you will discover when you study insurance law, employment law, family law, and dozens of other practice areas, your knowledge of contract doctrine and theory will be invaluable.
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Strategic Management
Kennedy Reed · Virginia Tech Publishing · 2020
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT offers an introduction to the key topics and themes of strategic management. The authors draw on examples of familiar companies and personalities to illustrate the different strategies used by today’s firms—and how they go about implementing those strategies. Students will learn how to conduct a case analysis, measure organizational performance, and conduct external and internal analyses. In short, they will understand how organizations operate at the strategic level to be successful. An older version of Mastering Strategic Management (2015) by University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing can be found here: https://open.lib.umn.edu/strategicmanagement/
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International Business
Mason Carpenter; Sanjyot Dunung · Saylor Foundation · 2011
International Business is one of the most challenging and exciting courses to teach in the Business School. To teach a current, dynamic and complete course you need a textbook by authors as passionate and informed about International Business as you are. Carpenter and Dunung's International Business: The Opportunities and Challenges of a Flat World provides exploration into building, leading, and thriving in global organizations in an increasingly flat world. The authors define ”Flat world“ as one where service industries that dwarf manufacturing industries in terms of scale and scope, an Internet that pervades life and work, and networks define modern businesses, whether service or manufacturing. Carpenter and Dunung's text is designed to speak to technologically-savvy students who see national borders as bridges and not barriers. The authors use the lexicon of international business, and additionally, develop students' knowledge of international contexts with the aim that they may launch, run, and work in any organization that is global in scope (or is wrestling with global competition or other global threats). The textbook is organized in 5 Sections: Section 1 introduces the global business course and concludes with a chapter on seizing global opportunities. Section 2 develops student knowledge about key facets of the global business environment, while Section 3 develops knowledge about how a student or organization can exploit opportunities in that global environment. Section 4 is devoted to entrepreneurship in a flat world — this section will explore why the entrepreneurial context is changing, provide lenses for identifying and capitalizing on entrepreneurial opportunities, and Section 5 shows how key organizational activities can be managed for global effectiveness. Every chapter has five enumerated learning objectives, each of these five sections concludes with a short summary (”Key Takeaways“) and five review questions. In addition, each chapter concludes w
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Beginning Management of Human Resources
University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing · 2016
Human Resource Management teaches HRM strategies and theories that any manager—not just those in HR—needs to know about recruiting, selecting, training, and compensating people. Most students will be managing people at some point in their careers and not necessarily in a human resource management capacity. As businesses cut back, they may outsource HR duties to outside vendors. Or, in smaller businesses, the HR department is sometimes small or non-existent, and managers from other departments have to perform their own HRM. Therefore, teaching HRM from the perspective of a general manager, in addition to an HR manager, provides more relevance to students' careers and will give them a competitive advantage in the workplace. This text also provides practical applications of theory relevant to today's workplace. You won't find discussions about “posting vacancies on a job board” or “sending memos.” In the real world, HRM leverages technology in every aspect of the job—from online training modules to technology for better managing flex-time workers and telecommuters. Consider how most companies have gone “paperless” with pay stubs by using software. While such technology has made HRM easier, it has also created a new set of challenges. For example, how does a manager actually implement a new pay system? Therefore, it's important for students to understand what kinds of platforms exist in today's workplace to enhance their effectiveness as future managers. The conversational style of Human Resource Management engages students, while the academic rigor of its content provides them with the tools that any manager needs—whether they work in HR or a different department. PLUS it offers an array of supplements that gives them practice creating real HR documents and role-playing real HR scenarios. Add value to your students' education, enhance the relevance of your curriculum, and make your students more employable by adopting this book for your HRM class. Read it now online to
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Business English for Success
Scott McLean · Saylor Foundation · 2011
Business English for Success is a creative solution to a common challenge across Business Communication courses: Business English or Business Presentations? Some classes place an equal emphasis on oral and written communication. If that's the case for you check out our text Business Communication for Success. If, however, your class places the emphasis squarely on written communication and writing proficiency, then Business English for Success is for you. Business English for Success provides instruction in steps, builds writing, reading, and critical thinking, and combines comprehensive grammar review with an introduction to paragraph writing and composition. This step-by-step approach provides a clear path to student-centered learning. A wide range of writing levels and abilities are addressed, helping each student prepare for the next writing or university course. The text opens with a discussion on the sentence and then breaks it down into its elemental components, before reconstructing them into effective sentences, paragraphs, and larger assignments. Then, starting in Chapter 9: Effective Business Writing, the discussion applies lessons learned from the previous foundational chapters into common business issues and applications. From paraphrasing and plagiarism to style to the research process, the expectations increase as several common business documents are presented, including text messages and e-mail, memorandums and letters, the business proposal, business report, resume, and the sales message. This textbook has been used in classes at:Arizona Western College, Hostos Community College, Virginia State University, Truckee Meadows Community College, San Jose State University, Concordia University - Irvine, University New Brunswick - Fredericton, Cerritos College, University of Houston - Downtown, Flat World Knowledge University, A-C Central High School, University of The People, Truckee Meadows Community College, Danville Community High School
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The Legal and Ethical Environment of Business
Terence Lau; Lisa Johnson · Saylor Foundation · 2011
Terence Lau & Lisa Johnson's The Legal and Ethical Environment of Business is a book for today's student, who expects learning to be comprised not only of substance, but also of interactive exercises and multimedia. This book streamlines the presentation of material to ensure that every page is relevant, engaging, and interesting to undergraduate business students, without losing the depth of coverage that they need to be successful in their academic journeys and in their professional careers. This is not Legal Environment of Business (LEB) ”light.“ Rather, this is LEB without risk of students' eyes glazing over in boredom or from lack of comprehension. This is LEB presented in an exciting way, where every page is interesting to students and relevant to real life. The authors recognize that the sheer volume of information to be covered in a LEB course makes it one of the more challenging courses for the business undergraduate. Not only do typical LEB texts read like the first year curriculum at law school, but also the LEB course is grounded in the humanities, which can make the subject even more demanding for students who are also taking statistics, economics, finance, and accounting. Each chapter contains not only substantive law, but also illustrative videos, interactive exercises for hands-on learning, and discussion questions for critical thought. Additionally, each chapter presents ”A Question of Ethics“ section, which contains real world ethical dilemmas relevant to the topic under study. These videos, exercises, discussion questions, and ethics sections all provide opportunities for students to apply concepts that they are learning in the context of relevant LEB topics that shape or restrain actual decision-makers' actions. It's real world practice in the safety of the classroom environment. Lau & Johnson's The Legal and Ethical Environment of Business is a textbook that students will enjoy reading. This will encourage them to come to class prepared, and fre
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Sustainability, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship
Andrea Larson · Saylor Foundation · 2011
This book is suited for the Entrepreneurship or Innovation course with an emphasis on Sustainability or for a course devoted entirely to Sustainability. What are the trends and forces underlying the changing character of the business-environment relationship? How they are creating significant entrepreneurial opportunities for individuals and companies? Around the world, the movement toward ”sustainable development“ has caused many firms to adopt policies and practices that reflect what is sometimes called a ”sustainable business“ or ”triple bottom line“ approach. ”Triple bottom line“ refers to the demonstration of strong performance across economic, social, and environmental indicators. Those measures serve as indicators of fiduciary responsibility to a growing set of concerned investors and therefore can help ensure access to capital. They also enable innovators to lower costs, create strategic differentiation, reduce risk, and position themselves for competitive advantage over rivals less attuned to trends. The deep roots of sustainability thinking are now evident in widespread and increasingly visible activities worldwide, and Sustainability, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship explores this evolution; its necessity, its implications and its progression.
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Risk Management for Enterprises and Individuals
Etti Baranoff; Patrick Brockett; Yehuda Kahane · Saylor Foundation · 2009
This book is intended for the Risk Management and Insurance course where Risk Management is emphasized. When we think of large risks, we often think in terms of natural hazards such as hurricanes, earthquakes or tornados. Perhaps man-made disasters come to mind such as the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on September 11, 2001. Typically we have overlooked financial crises, such as the credit crisis of 2008. However, these types of man-made disasters have the potential to devastate the global marketplace. Losses in multiple trillions of dollars and in much human suffering and insecurity are already being totaled, and the global financial markets are collapsing as never before seen. We can attribute the 2008 collapse to financially risky behavior of a magnitude never before experienced. The 2008 U.S. credit markets were a financial house of cards. A basic lack of risk management (and regulators' inattention or inability to control these overt failures) lay at the heart of the global credit crisis. This crisis started with lack of improperly underwritten mortgages and excessive debt. Companies depend on loans and lines of credit to conduct their routine business. If such credit lines dry up, production slows down and brings the global economy to the brink of deep recession—or even depression. The snowballing effect of this failure to manage the risk associated with providing mortgage loans to unqualified home buyers have been profound, indeed. When the mortgages failed because of greater risk- taking on the Street, the entire house of cards collapsed. Probably no other risk-related event has had, and will continue to have, as profound an impact world wide as this risk management failure. How was risk in this situation so badly managed? What could firms and individuals have done to protect themselves? How can government measure such risks (beforehand) to regulate and control them? These and other questions come to mind when we contemplate the consequences of this risk man
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Project Management from Simple to Complex
University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing · 2016
In a world that is becoming more virtual, more global, and more complex, the project manager's ability to function in this environment becomes critical to the success of the project. Project Management from Simple to Complex explores project management within this complex, virtual, and global environment. This is not a standard textbook that was adapted to the new publishing paradigm; it was designed from the beginning to utilize its capabilities. The book is written in collaboration by an expert in Project Management and an expert in writing instructional textbooks and using technology for communicating online to create a unique learning environment that prepares students to manage projects in a global, multicultural, and online environment. Project Management from Simple to Complex features a new model for managing projects, as well as, exploration into the personal dynamics of project management and the role those dynamics play in project outcomes.
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Principles of Management
University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing · 2015
Principles of Management teaches management principles to tomorrow's business leaders by weaving three threads through every chapter: strategy, entrepreneurship and active leadership. Strategic — All business school teachings have some orientation toward performance and strategy and are concerned with making choices that lead to high performance. Principles of Management will frame performance using the notion of the triple bottom-line — the idea that economic performance allows individuals and organizations to perform positively in social and environmental ways as well. The triple bottom line is financial, social, and environmental performance. It is important for all students to understand the interdependence of these three facets of organizational performance. The Entrepreneurial Manager — While the "General Management" course at Harvard Business School was historically one of its most popular and impactful courses (pioneered in the 1960s by Joe Bower), recent Harvard MBAs did not see themselves as "general managers." This course was relabeled "The Entrepreneurial Manager" in 2006, and has regained its title as one of the most popular courses. This reflects and underlying and growing trend that students, including the undergraduates this book targets, can see themselves as entrepreneurs and active change agents, but not just as managers. By starting fresh with an entrepreneurial/change management orientation, this text provides an exciting perspective on the art of management that students can relate to. At the same time, this perspective is as relevant to existing for-profit organizations (in the form intrapreneurship) as it is to not-for-profits and new entrepreneurial ventures. Active Leadership — Starting with the opening chapter, Principles of Management shows students how leaders and leadership are essential to personal and organizational effectiveness and effective organizational change. Students are increasingly active as leaders at an early age, and are
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Organizational Behavior
University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing · 2017
Organizational Behavior bridges the gap between theory and practice with a distinct "experiential" approach. On average, a worker in the USA will change jobs 10 times in 20 years. In order to succeed in this type of career situation, individuals need to be armed with the tools necessary to be life-long learners. To that end, this book is not be about giving students all the answers to every situation they may encounter when they start their first job or as they continue up the career ladder. Instead, this book gives students the vocabulary, framework, and critical thinking skills necessary to diagnose situations, ask tough questions, evaluate the answers received, and to act in an effective and ethical manner regardless of situational characteristics. Often, students taking OB either do not understand how important knowledge of OB can be to their professional careers, or they DO understand and they want to put that knowledge into practice. Organizational Behavior takes a more experiential angle to the material to meet both of those needs. The experiential approach can be incorporated in the classroom primarily through the "OB Toolbox." This feature brings life to the concepts and allows students to not only see how the OB theories unfold, but to practice them, as well.
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Exploring Business
University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing · 2016
The author's goals in writing Exploring Business Version 2.0 was simple: introduce students to business in an exciting way. Exploring Business is adapted from a work produced by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. This adapted edition is produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing through the eLearning Support Initiative. Though the publisher has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution, this adapted edition reproduces all original text and sections of the book, except for publisher and author name attribution. This textbook has been used in classes at: College of Alameda, Columbia Basin College, Flagler College, Johnson County Community College, Pasadena City College, Penn State University, Renton Technical College, San Diego Mesa College, Sierra College, Yuba College.
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Communication for Business Success
University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing · 2015
Business Communication for Success (BCS) provides a comprehensive, integrated approach to the study and application of written and oral business communication to serve both student and professor. This series features chapters with the following elements: Learning Objectives Introductory Exercises Clear expectations, relevant background, and important theories Practical, real-world examples Key Takeaways or quick internal summaries Key terms that are easily identified In-chapter assignments Postchapter assessments linked to objectives and skills acquisition Each chapter is self-contained, allowing for mix-and-match flexibility and custom or course-specific design. Each chapter focuses on clear objectives and skill demonstrations that can be easily linked to your syllabus and state or federal requirements. Supported by internal and external assessments, each chapter features time-saving and learning-enhancement support for instructors and students. BCS is designed to help students identify important information, reinforce for retention, and demonstrate mastery with a clear outcome product. The text has three content categories: Foundations Process and products Contexts The first three chapters form the core foundation for the study of oral and written business communication. The next sequence of chapters focus on the process of writing, then oral performance with an emphasis on results. The final sequence focuses on contexts where business communication occurs, from interpersonal to intercultural, from groups to leadership. In each of the process and product chapter sequences, the chapters follow a natural flow, from prewriting to revision, from preparation for a presentation to performance. Each sequence comes together in a concluding chapter that focuses on action—where we apply the skills and techniques of written or oral communication in business, from writing a letter to presenting a sales speech. These performances not only serve to reinforce real-world applicat
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Estrategia didáctica basada en TIC para el desarrollo de habilidades sociales en estudiantes preescolares
Ivonne Gioconda Meléndez-Coloma; Alexandra Elizabeth Flores-Robles; Adriana Genoveva Silva-Carrillo; Klever Gonzalo Cárdenas-Velasco · Editorial Grupo AEA · 2025
El desarrollo de habilidades sociales en la infancia es crucial para el bienestar psicológico y el rendimiento académico de los niños. Las habilidades sociales, como la empatía y la comunicación, se aprenden y perfeccionan durante la vida, siendo la etapa preescolar crucial para su adquisición. Sin embargo, diversos factores pueden obstaculizar este desarrollo, afectando la comunicación y la autoestima de los niños. En este contexto, el uso de Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC) emerge como una estrategia didáctica que podría favorecer el desarrollo de habilidades sociales en niños preescolares. El estudio propone analizar cómo contribuye una estrategia didáctica basada en TIC al desarrollo de habilidades sociales en estudiantes preescolares, Ecuador. El problema general plantea la necesidad de comprender esta contribución, y los problemas derivados buscan explorar conceptos, actividades educativas actuales, elementos didácticos de las TIC, y diseñar e implementar estrategias específicas. La hipótesis sugiere que el uso de una estrategia didáctica basada en TIC facilita el desarrollo de habilidades sociales en estos estudiantes. Los objetivos generales proponen la implementación de dicha estrategia, mientras que los objetivos específicos incluyen una revisión documental, un diagnóstico de actividades actuales, la caracterización de factores didácticos de las TIC y la sistematización de la estrategia didáctica. La metodología adopta un enfoque mixto, combinando aspectos cualitativos y cuantitativos, con un diseño no experimental y técnicas de recolección de datos como escalas, fichas sociodemográficas, registros de observación y análisis académicos. La muestra consta de 30 estudiantes. Como conclusión final, se establece que las habilidades sociales son fundamentales para el desarrollo personal y profesional, las habilidades sociales como la comunicación, empatía y autoestima mejoran cuando se promueven actividades que integran el uso de los recurso