Theory, practice and relevance

By Dawn Burton

Cross-cultural marketing is an important element of the contemporary business environment. Many conventional accounts of the topic have conflated cross-cultural and cross-national marketing, but in this groundbreaking, new book, Burton argues that these generalizations have little meaning given the extent of multi-culturalism in many societies.

Given the importance of new emerging markets in the Far East, Middle East, Asia and Latin America, this book raises important questions about the applicability of existing marketing theory and practice, which was originally developed using the model of Western society. An extensive range of cross-cultural marketing issues is addressed, including:

• Cross-cultural consumer behaviour
• Cross-cultural management practice
• Promotional strategies
• Product development
• Distribution
• Marketing research methods

Cross-cultural Marketing offers a new, more complex and sophisticated approach to the important challenges for existing marketing theory and practice and their continued relevance for stakeholders. As such, it is an invaluable text for students of international and cross-cultural marketing, as well as for practitioners who wish to assess new developments in the field.

ISBN: 9780415448925

Published November 21 2008 by Routledge.

Edited by Ronald J. Burke, Cary L. Cooper

Building a peak performing organization is not easy or else everybody would be achieving this goal. Organizations today are facing heightened challenges in remaining competitive in a more demanding global business environment. New technology, customer expectation, outsourcing, low cost competitors and needs for both higher performance and more innovation from employees are only a few of these. In this book Burke and Cooper present an international collection of current research and new perspectives, examining why people and human resource management matter to the success of organizations and presenting examples of efforts to build more satisfying and effective organizations that have worked.

The book includes chapters on organizational processes as well as organizational strategies and design. The former includes performance management, building employee engagement, developing psychological capital (e.g., resilience, self-esteem), managing talent, supporting teams and inspiring leaders at all levels of the organization. The latter tackles how to develop and sustain an ethical organizational culture, fostering the ability to cork across cultures (cultural agility), employer branding, the sustainable organization and improving corporate governance practices. These chapters offer suggestions as to how organizations can embrace the need for continual change.

ISBN: 9780415451703

Published November 21 2008 by Routledge.

By Warren Thorngate, Robyn Dawes, Margaret Foddy

Merit-based tests and contests have become popular methods for allocating rewards – from trophies to contracts, jobs to grants, admissions to licenses. With origins in jurisprudence, methods of rewarding merit seem fairer than those rewarding political or social connections, bribery, aggression, status, or wealth. Because of this, merit-based competitions are well-suited to the societal belief that people should be rewarded for what they know or do, and not for who they know or are; however, judging merit is rarely an easy task – it is prone to a variety of biases and errors. Small biases and errors, especially in large competitions, can make large differences in who or what is rewarded. It is important, then, to learn how to spot flaws in procedures for judging merit and to correct them when possible.

Based on over 20 years of theory and research in human judgment, decision making and social psychology, this unique book brings together for the first time what is known about the processes and problems of judging merit and their consequences. It also provides practical suggestions for increasing the fairness of merit-based competitions, and examines the future and limits of these competitions in society.

ISBN: 9780805858358

Published November 20 2008 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Edited by John Storey, Patrick M. Wright, David Ulrich

Combining up-to-date research, innovative content and practical perspectives, this book is the benchmark by which all other strategic HRM reference works should be measured. Leading figures from around the globe survey the current state of the discipline, while also introducing and exploring new, cutting edge themes in order to offer a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the field.

Section introductions and integrative critiques pull together the separate themes to provide cross-comparisons between chapters to create a cohesive and well-structured volume. Unlike other texts in this area, The Routledge Companion to Strategic Human Resource Management incorporates contributions from leading management and business writers in areas adjacent to human resource management, including strategy, innovation and organizational learning. These add fresh and challenging insights into HRM themes from key mainstream business and management thinking. The field of strategic HRM is thus enriched and extended by this volume.

Focusing on the interplay between theory and practice, this book is an essential resource for researchers and students studying human resource management and strategy.

ISBN: 9780415772044

Published November 20 2008 by Routledge.

By Alan E. Branch

The development of international trade is driven by international logistics and management and the provision of the global supply chain. The ultimate objective of global supply chain management is to link the market place, distribution network, manufacturing/processing/assembly process, and procurement activity in such a way that customers are serviced at a higher level yet lower cost. Overall this has introduced a new breed of management in a computer literate environment operating in a global infrastructure.

Addressing this complex topic, Alan Branch's new book fulfills two clear objectives:

• to provide a concise, standard work on the subject, written in lucid language that embraces all the ingredients of a notoriously complex subject with a strategic focus
• to extol best practices and focus on all areas of the industrial and consumer sectors and their interface with changing international market needs.

Until now, no book dedicated to international logistics and supply chain management was available. Practically-oriented, this book features numerous case studies and diagrams from logistic operators. An ideal resource for management students, academics and managers who need a succinct treatment of global operations, Branch's book skillfully illustrates his ideas in practice. It is a book which should be on the shelf of every practitioner and student of the subject.

Also available from Routledge:
Elements of Shipping, Eighth Edition, Alan E. Branch. (978-0-415-36286-3)
Maritime Economics: Management and Marketing, Alan E. Branch. (978-0-748-73986-8)

ISBN: 9780415398442

Published November 19 2008 by Routledge.

By Guy Callender

It is widely accepted that management concepts such as strategic management, human resource management and management development have a well-defined body of knowledge designed to inform management praxis, however the notion of efficiency has no such body of knowledge to support its application within management praxis.

This book proposes the replacement of the generalised term efficiency with the more comprehensive notion of performance efficiency to provide a reliable basis on which to evaluate management behaviour. Given the scope of the investigation, the outcome is not designed to prove the success or failure of the inherent nature of efficiency, but rather to establish a new starting point for yet wider empirical research. At a macro-level, it advances the proposition that the notion of efficiency has become an ideological statement of support for any management intention rather than a practical means to inform or evaluate a range of management actions.

ISBN: 9780415431804

Published November 19 2008 by Routledge.

By Thomas R. Peltier

Successful security professionals have had to modify the process of responding to new threats in the high-profile, ultra-connected business environment. But just because a threat exists does not mean that your organization is at risk. This is what risk assessment is all about. How to Complete a Risk Assessment in 5 Days or Less demonstrates how to identify threats your company faces and then determine if those threats pose a real risk to the organization.

--To help you determine the best way to mitigate risk levels in any given situation, How to Complete a Risk Assessment in 5 Days or Less includes more than 350 pages of user-friendly checklists, forms, questionnaires, and sample assessments.--

Presents Case Studies and Examples of all Risk Management Components

Based on the seminars of information security expert Tom Peltier, this volume provides the processes that you can easily employ in your organization to assess risk.

Answers such FAQs as:

• Why should a risk analysis be conducted?
• Who should review the results?
• How is the success measured?

Always conscious of the bottom line, Peltier discusses the cost-benefit of risk mitigation and looks at specific ways to manage costs. He supports his conclusions with numerous case studies and diagrams that show you how to apply risk management skills in your organization—and it’s not limited to information security risk assessment. You can apply these techniques to any area of your business. This step-by-step guide to conducting risk assessments gives you the knowledgebase and the skill set you need to achieve a speedy and highly-effective risk analysis assessment in a matter of days.

ISBN: 9781420062755

Published November 18 2008 by Auerbach Publicatio.

British Trade Unions under New Labour

Edited by Gary Daniels, John McIlroy

Trade Unions in a Neoliberal World is the first book to provide readers with an authoritative and comprehensive assessment of the impact of New Labour governments on employment relations and trade unions. This innovative text locates changes in industrial politics since the 1990s in the development of globalization and the worldwide emergence of neoliberalism. The advent of Tony Blair’s government in 1997 promised a new dawn for employment relations. In this rigorous but readable volume, a team of experienced and respected contributors explain in detail how the story has unfolded.

This book looks at all aspects of New Labour’s policies in relation to employment relations and trade unionism. The first half of Trade Unions in a Neoliberal World presents an overview of industrial politics, the evolution of New Labour and an anatomy of contemporary trade unionism. It discusses relations between the Labour Party and the unions and the response of trade unionists to political and economic change. The second part contains chapters on legislation, partnership, organizing, training, strikes and perspectives on Europe.

ISBN: 9780415426633

Published November 18 2008 by Routledge.

By Jonatan Pinkse, Ans Kolk

Climate change has become an important topic on the business agenda with strong pressure being placed on companies to respond and contribute to finding solutions to this urgent problem. This text provides a comprehensive analysis of international business responses to global climate change and climate change policy.

Embedded in relevant management literature, this book gives a concise treatment of developments in policy and business activity on global, regional and national levels, using examples and systematic data from a large number of international companies. The first part outlines the international climate policy landscape and voluntary initiatives taken by companies, both alone and together with others. The second part examines companies’ strategies, covering innovation for climate change, as well as compensation via emissions trading and carbon offsetting.

Written by well-known experts in the field, International Business and Global Climate Change illustrates how an environmental topic becomes strategically important in a mainstream sense, affecting corporate decision-making, business processes, products, reputation, advertising, communication, accounting and finance. This is a must-read for academics as well as practitioners concerned with this issue.

ISBN: 9780415415521

Published November 14 2008 by Routledge.

Corporate governance and organizational behaviour

Edited by Morten Huse

This book presents boards of directors from a strategic and entrepreneurial management perspective. Boards of directors are receiving increased interest in the business world as well as among academic audiences however few contributions integrate corporate governance and organizational behavior. In this book a research stream about value-creating boards is introduced.

Boards of directors have during the recent decades mostly been studied within a framework of corporate governance where the interests of external investors are emphasized. This book aims to go further and explore actual board behavior. The framework and the contributions in the book include concepts such as:

• board leadership and structure,
• boardroom decision-making,
• board task performance
• corporate entrepreneurship and innovation
• boards in small and medium-sized firms
• board diversity and women directors

The book also presents the results of a research agenda about value-creating boards which was conducted throughout various European countries.

ISBN: 9780415437424

Published November 12 2008 by Routledge.