Books

Henk de Vries, Ilan Oshri and Huibert de Vries
In many ways, the rise of the open source web browser Firefox contradicts common wisdom and expectations. An industry with network effects, as is the case in the web browser industry, should follow the rationale of “the strong grows stronger, and the weak becomes weaker”. This means that in the long run, a single dominant technology will prevail that prevents competing technologies from obtaining a foothold in the market. We can therefore explain the victory of Internet Explorer (IE) over Netscape mainly because IE was bundled with the Windows operating system; however, we still need to understand the rise of Firefox in a ‘winner-takes-all market’. Could the characteristics of Firefox, an open source software web browser, explain this unexpected success?

This book presents the state of the art in marketing decision models.

Mike Wright & Hans Bruining
As private equity markets have gained in importance worldwide over the last decade there has been a growing debate about the role of private equity in the firm and society at large. Private equity firms are facing different challenges, notably: increased pressure to be more transparent in their value creation and governance role with regard to shareholders and employees of the buy-out firm; increased pressure to be more transparent about the short- and long-term economic and social effects, for instance their role in the upside potential of buy-outs and impact on human resources management; increased pressure to be transparent about the determinants of exit strategies; increased pressure to test the acceptability of financial leverage in the financial structures of buy-outs; increased importance of their intermediary role as adviser to vendors and buyers in family buy-outs; increased pressure to combine financial expertise with technological and management control expertise in buy-out firms. For the first time the broad issues now facing private equity and buy-outs are brought together through the contributions in this volume.

Barrie Dale, Ton van der Wiele and Jos van Iwaarden
Managing Quality, Fifth Edition is an essential resource for students and practitioners alike; • This popular and highly successful introduction to Quality Management has been fully revised and updated to reflect recent developments in the field • Includes new chapters on Improvement Approaches, Six Sigma, and new challenges in Quality Management • Combines the latest information on the ISO 9000 quality management system series standards with up-to-date tools, techniques and quality systems • Material has been re-ordered and changes to terminology have been made to bring the book completely up to date • Provides a popular resource for students, academics, and business practitioners alike

With a contribution of Slawek Magala & Gail Whiteman
Slawek Magala, Professor of cross-cultural management and Chair of the department of organisational sciences and human resource management at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and Gail Whiteman, Associate Professor at the Department of Business-Society Management, are among the keynote authors (ch. 16 & 19)who made a high-standard contribution to a new advanced handbook in the business and management arena. The SAGE Handbook of New Approaches in Management and Organization provides many diverse and provocative ideas which could turn out to be highly influential on future organisational concepts.

George Hendrikse
The exciting developments that have occurred in economic organizational theory are made accessible to undergraduate students of Strategic Economics modules in a clearly structured format. With coverage of contemporary issues, authoritative references, numerous applications, exercises and problems – all accompanied by invaluable website-based resources – this book provides a sound introduction to economics, organization and management.

George S. Yip, Audrey J.M. Bink
Multinational companies need to manage their relationships with multinational customers with a globally integrated approach. This book provides a systematic framework for developing and implementing such global customer management programs. It draws on in-depth research at over 20 major U.S. and European multinational companies, such as ABB, Bechtel, BP, Bosch, British Airways, Carrefour, Daimler-Chrysler, Hewlett-Packard, HSBC, IBM, Schlumberger, Shell, Siemens, Tesco, Unilever, Vodafone, Wal-Mart, and Xerox.

A crisp account of the consecutive steps to take (and pitfalls to watch out for) when typically vague business concerns need to be translated into actionable strategy fast.

Empowering Metropolitan Regions through New Forms of Cooperation analyses the development of cross-border and cross-sector partnerships in various European cities and regions. It provides insight into the factors of failure and success in relation to the coalition-forming process by comparing various attempts at this in European regions.