Product Description
KEY BENEFIT: Business is changing at break-neck speed, so managers must be increasingly active in reorganizing their firms to gain a competitive edge.Organizational Theory, Design, and Change continues to provide students with the most up-to-date and contemporary treatment of the way managers attempt to increase organizational effectiveness.  By making organizational change the centerpiece in a discussion of organizational theory and design, this text stands apart from other books on the market. The sixth edition has been updated to reflect the most recent trends in real-world managing techniques. Examples have been updated to provide vivid illustrations of such techniques in action.
KEY TOPICS: The Organization and Its Environment; Organizational Design; Organizational Change
Business is changing at break-neck speed, so managers must be increasingly active in reorganizing their firms to gain a competitive edge. This text combines theory with application to show students how organizational change can affect the profitability of a business.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

good book, bad seller
I've had no problems with the book, besides the fact that when I received it there was coffee spilled all over the entire thing.Seller must have 'forgot' to mention it, considering how I still paid full price for it.

Ms. Bo
Book in very good condition, but it was not new as stated in the selling information.Had only a few markings in it.Overall, very satisified with the book.Shipment was within the allotted time, but could have been faster.Payment was by credit card, so book should have been shipped once payment was confirmed.

great seller
This text arrived in great shape and was reverything as described. I expidited the shipping and it arrived in two days. As far as the text, good info.

College Textbook
The book arrived like brand new just as specified when ordered.It was delivered in time. I would buy from this seller again.

Great Condition
Ordered this text book for a master's class I enrolled in. Decided to try a "used" text to save money. Will start to use book in 1 week. ... Read more

Product Description
This book makes an authoritative and practical introduction to organizational behavior. It contains leading-edge coverage of topics and issues combined with a wealth of learning tools that help readers experience Organizational Behavior and guide them to becoming better managers. Chapter topics discuss individual differences: personality, ability, and job performance; work values, attitudes, moods, and emotions; perception, attribution, and the management of diversity; learning and creativity at work; pay, careers, and changing employment relationships; managing stress and work-life linkages; leadership; power, politics, conflict, and negotiation; communication flows and information technology; organizational culture and ethical behavior; and organizational change and development . For business professionals preparing for a career in management. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

purchase review
The book I purchased from was received in a very timely manner and was in excellent condition when I received it. I would definitely purchase from this seller again (thebookdude)

Loved this book!
I enjoyed reading this book. It was not dull and very informational! I think I am a little spoiled because my other books are not as well-written.

Workplace success...
This book has all sorts of information that will help any group of people working together get along better because of a greater understanding of different kinds of people.

not for MBA students
This book was required for an MBA class.It is more suited for undergraduates.It does not encourage deeper thinking or analysis appropriate for the graduate level.

The book is strong in theoretical understanding but weak in management applications. It is nice to be able to list the names of motivation theories, for example, but the authors seem uanble to provide criteria one might want to consider for policy decisions.I wonder if this book is by and for academics who have no real life work experience but need to publish or perish.

End of chapter supplementary articles are only from the New York Times.Although the book's introductory material lets us know how wonderful this is, a greater variety of source material would enhance the overall effectiveness. After all, the book does speak of diversity.

To its credit, the book is reasonably readable and does not overwhelm us with too much esoteric academic speak.

Great book. Must have it, if you are studying Org. Behavior
A colorful introductory textbook on organizational behavior that integrates concepts, theories, and research findings to examine individuals in organizations, groups and organizational processes, and inter-group relations and the organizational context. Case studies illuminate concepts and provide managerial implications. There is a diversity of heuristic features, some integrated into the text and some at the end of each chapter or part.

Great book. Must have it, if you are studying Organizational Behaviors (OB).

Also, this book is well known to many of top ranked universities in Graduate Programs (MBA) and No. of copies this books have been sold are in few hundred thousands !!! (@ 380,000 copies) justifies it's strength and quality of knowledge as well.
... Read more

Product Description
This leading strategy text presents the complexities of strategic management through up-to-date scholarship and hands-on applications. Highly respected authors Charles Hill and Gareth Jones integrate cutting-edge research on topics including corporate performance, governance, strategic leadership, technology, and business ethics through both theory and cases. Based on real-world practices and current thinking in the field, the Ninth Edition of Strategic Management features an increased emphasis on the changing global economy and its role in strategic management. The high-quality case study program contains 30 cases covering small, medium, and large companies of varying backgrounds. All cases are available in the main student text or the core case text. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

textbook - strategic management
The textbook is well structured, easy to follow, has excellent formatting through interspersing real world examples throughout each chapter.

The information presented maps well to my base of knowledge on this subject. The book has offered quite a few enlightening perspectives on how and why businesses and their management teams make the good and bad decisions that they do.

good to know
This book is easy to read and interesting for a textbook. This paperback edition, however, does not include the case studies.If you need the case studies for class get the hardcover edition.

Fast delivery and as described.
Received the book on time and it was just as it was desribed. Plus I received a personalized card wishing me succes in my school year. Defintly excellent service

Outstanding treatment of the subject
There is no question that for a graduate course in business strategy, either in an MBA or a PhD program, that this book serves as an excellent textbook, covering all aspects of businees strategy in a global economy.All strategies are covered, along with each advantage and disadvantage. Strategies for expansion and survival into foreign markets, as well as locally are fully covered. Of course, the requirements for competetive advantage and how to get there is given thorough treatment.

For the person in business who wants to review or read about business strategies, this book is also an excellent reference tool.

The case studies throuout the book are very illustrative of the points being made.

One thing to be aware of is that the publisher's website does not always deliver to the student all that is promised. If a new edition is published even within weeks of an older edition, then the student who purchased the older edition finds him or herself wihtout much of the promised information available. This happened to me. The ninth edition was published right before my semester started, and the school had already purchased the 8th edition. I contacted the publisher over this, and basically I was S.O.L.

I shall use the text as a reference for years to come. ... Read more

Product Description
This collection of essays by Gareth Stedman Jones proposes a different way of seeing both historians' analytical conceptions of 'class', and the actual manifestation of class in the history of English politics and English culture since the 1830s. As the progenitor of the first generally acknowledged working-class movement, the English working class provided the initial empirical basis for not only the original Marxist theory of modern industry and proletarian revolution, but also subsequent historians' reactions against, or adaptations of, the Marxist theory of class. In Languages of Class Gareth Stedman Jones draws a distinction between two conceptions of class: the everyday and commonplace perception of its pervasiveness in England, and the Marxist idea of its revolutionary significance. He proceeds to challenge the predominant conceptions of the meaning and development of 'class consciousness' by stressing the political and discursive conditions in which particular languages appeared and receded. Among the themes of individual essays in the book are a rethinking of 'the making of the English working class' and the phenomenon of Chartism, a novel exploration of the formation and components of 'working-class culture', and, in the light of these, a new approach to understanding the history of the Labour Party. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Watch Your Language
Gareth Stedman Jones's Languages of Class is a collection of essays, which as the subtitle makes clear, studies the English working class at various moments from 1832 to 1982. The unifying theme of these essays is a concern with the big "C" issues of history: Class, Culture, Control, Consciousness and Custom. Fittingly the centerpiece of the book retains this alliterative and theoretical concordance through its consideration of Chartism. The essays display the evolution of Stedman Jones's concern with the deployment of concepts of class. In his introduction to the collection Stedman Jones states his mature, 1982, view "that the term class is a word embedded in language and should thus be analysed in its linguistic context." Further he states that "because there are different languages of class" the historian must not assume that every articulation of "class" shares "a single reference point in an anterior social reality." These points find there clearest expression in his treatment of Chartism. (pp. 7-8)

Stedman Jones argues that Chartism needs to be rethought because "nearly all the writings on Chartism, except that of the Chartists themselves," concentrate on the movements' class character, or the hunger and distress "of which it was thought to be the manifestation," rather than on what the Chartists said or wrote. Against this practice Stedman Jones wishes to analyze the ideology of Chartism through what he calls its "linguistic form." He argues that this form was not an expression of class consciousness on behalf of the working class as the form pre-existed independent action by that class. Nor was the form a mere expression of discontent, rather it "informed the political activity of the movement, ... defined the terms in which oppression was understood, and it was what provided the vision of an alternative." Further the linguistic form "defined the political crisis from which Chartism emerged" and fashioned the means of the crisis's resolution.(p. 93, p. 94, & pp. 95-96)

Stedman Jones's argument, in essence, is that Chartist consciousness was shaped by an inherited language of radicalism that saw economic power as derived from political power rather than the other way round. This argument is significant because it rejects a notion of Chartism as the beginning of working class consciousness and makes it part of a customary radical response to corruption. It is at this point that his argument begins to falter.

Stedman Jones notes that E.P. Thompson, in The Making of the English Working Class, "freed the concept of class consciousness from any simple reduction to the development of productive forces," but adds that it is necessary to go further. Stedman Jones wishes to explore the space of ideological context where the coherence of a language of class is established.But this is what he fails to do. He marshals an impressive amount of evidence as to the "radical" nature of the language employed by the Chartists but he never explores the way that this language attained or retained its meaning during the Chartist era. Instead its meaning is established by reference to custom: "From the days of the London Corresponding Society ... the dominant language of radicals had been a form of constitutionalist rhetoric, which had used precedent to justify images of an organic community and elaborated a mythical history ... to reclaim rights which historically belonged to the English people." (p. 101 & p. 125)

This shying away from the implications of analyzing movements for change through the language they employ leads to a slippage in Stedman Jones's essay. At one stage the reader is told that in the early years of the nineteenth-century "the case for universal suffrage was not generally argued on an abstract plane as a universal right inhering in every citizen." Later Stedman Jones says, that "even in this last phase of Chartism [1850] ... a language of natural right still predominated." In the first instance Stedman Jones described how the language of rights was interpreted with regards to property, that is, according to the Chartists, the only legitimate source of property was labor and this gave the working classes a claim to rights. In the second instance he was trying to display the militant conviction that the concept of natural rights could engender, but also the limits imposed by the "individualist presuppositions" of such language.It is in the space between these two formulations that Stedman Jones's project falls flat. At one end he can talk of the working classes claiming rights through a concept of property while at the other end he speaks of the limits of their language. Between these two instances he displays a selection of Chartist writings that employ the same language but he never analyzes their content. Instead the reader is left with a set of instances that confirm Stedman Jones's basic assumptions about the continued use of the language of "radicalism." Language assumes an ahistorical function through his presentation and ends up being "limited." Language emerges as Marx's dead weight of tradition, although in Stedman Jones's presentation it is not quite dead and has some positive function. But the relationship between dead weight and positive function remains vague and the reader is left to make the appropriate connections. (p. 108 & p. 156)

Stedman Jones shows how political consciousness relies upon language but he does not adequately show how political consciousness can shape the language it employs to meet a specific occasion. He concludes his essay on Chartism by pointing to the changing character and policies of the state as the principle cause of the rise and fall of Chartism. But his essay suggests that it was the inability of Chartists to shape the language they employed that led to their decline. ... Read more

Product Description
This leading strategy text presents the complexities of strategic management through up-to-date scholarship and hands-on applications. Authors Charles Hill and Gareth Jones--both highly regarded in the management field--integrate cutting-edge research, rising trends in strategy, and hot topics such as corporate performance, governance, strategic leadership, technology, and business ethics through both theory and cases. Most of the chapter-opening and chapter-closing cases are new, and the authors have either replaced or substantially revised all Strategy in Action boxes. The Seventh Edition also contains a new Running Case on Wal-Mart, introducing relevant aspects of the company's strategy and performance to reinforce the practical application of key concepts and to illustrate how successive chapter topics tie together. In addition to numerous examples and hands-on activities, several new technology resources support instructors and enhance the learning experience for students. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A very thorough primer on business
This book is a great start for anyone going into business.It covers everything from internal issues to external issues and covers theory of adjusting to those issues.It is a slow read.I equate it to a kid eating peas; it is not the most pleasurable thing out there, but you are so much better off consuming it.I would definately recommend it to a friend. ... Read more

Product Description
This leading strategy text presents the complexities of strategic management through up-to-date scholarship and hands-on applications. Highly respected authors Charles Hill and Gareth Jones integrate cutting-edge research on topics including corporate performance, governance, strategic leadership, technology, and business ethics through both theory and cases. Based on real-world practices and current thinking in the field, the Ninth Edition of Strategic Management features an increased emphasis on the changing global economy and its role in strategic management. The high-quality case study program contains 30 cases covering small, medium, and large companies of varying backgrounds. All cases are available in the main student text or the core case text. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Overpriced
Had to buy this for a class - the cases were okay, fairly relevent, but for a few cases this book is way overpriced. We only used it a few times, so my bigger problem I suppose wpuld be with the class, I hate buying rxpensive books that you don'treally need. ... Read more

Product Description
The second volume in the "Cat Tales" series collects 17 original tales and poems concerning cats (plus one classic story by Edgar Pangborn and an essay by H.P. Lovecraft) into the purr-fect anthology for cat lovers! Here you will find "If Wishes Were Fishes," by P.D. Cacek; "The Case of the Unfortunate Mrs Ripley's Cat," by Jeff Crook; "The Problem with Polly," by Scott William Carter, and much more. Edited by four-time Hugo Award-winning editor, George Scithers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

An okay freshman business text.
I have used this text for my university freshman business class for several years.It is an okay business text but in my opinion not a great one.I use it because my department requires its use.

Great Condition! But Very Poor Shipping
This product was exactly what I was looking for at the right price.However, the padded envelope it came in provided pretty much no support to the book and it could've easily been damaged.Also the envelope was barely sealed.It was clearly used before and my book almost slipped right out when i recieved it.What would've happened if it came with no book?Other than that good deal.

Talk about Business 101. Great Information!
I bought this book because I am attending Business School at the University of Phoenix but I would reccomemd this book to anyone who is interested in business. Great information right from the start. I could read this book a hundred times.

Introduction to Business:How Companies Create Values for People
This book was like brand new.I purchased it at a 75% discount.It saved me lots of money. ... Read more

Product Description
This remarkable book, written soon after the French Revolution, has traditionally been considered one of the founding documents in the history of socialism. It introduces the best known and most extraordinary Utopia written in the past two centuries. Charles Fourier was among the first to formulate a right to a minimum standard of life. His radical approach involved a systematic critique of work, marriage and patriarchy, together with a parallel right to a "sexual minimum." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

...And The Sea Will Turn Into A Tastey Beverage...
is this a classic text that will be of particular intrest to scholars of the history of utopian socialism and feminism and political thought in general? probably. is charles fourier one of the most complex, mindboggling, idiosyncratic thinkers and writers of all time? i think so. whatis particularly intresting to me about this book though? here it is:theidea that civilization is an abomination responsible for the decrepit stateof our planet and that fourier had single handedly discovered the processby which we will be able to bring the universe into harmony through asocial revolution that will align the planets and turn the ocean into atastey beverage and will create an aurora that will attach itself to thenorth pole that will raise the temperature of the northern lattitudesenough to make them comfortable to humans and also that any animals thatdont help humans will be replaced by anti versions of these animals such asthe anti-shark that will catch fish for us and anti-hippopotomi that willpull our boats around for us and anti-lions (sevral times larger thannormal lions) that will be capable of carrying several passangers at a timeto where ever they want to go at increadibly high speeds. all this wasconceived in the late 1700's. truly amazing. the stuff about his socialstructure ideas is very interesting too whether you are interested insocial theory or not. ... Read more

Product Description
Comprehensive and current, the third edition of Organizational Theory makes important theories accessible and interesting in order to teach future managers the skills and concepts necessary to succeed. *An integrated flow between chapters - allows students to clearly see how topics relate to each other from the start. *An in-depth look at organizational culture from the origins of culture to its relationship with organizational effectiveness. *Detailed coverage of the stakeholder approach to organizations and the implications of this approach for organizational effectiveness. *Explanations of the most recent developments in organizational structure such as the product team structure, outsourcing, and the network organizations. *Discussion of recent literature on inter-organizational linkage mechanisms, including the role of resource dependence theory and transaction cost theory in explaining why organizations choose different types of linkage mechanisms. *An integrated account of the strategy-structure relationship. *Comprehensive coverage of international strategy and structure and global organizational design.*An analysis of new technological developments, including the Internet, integrated with traditional concepts already used in organizational theory. See how technical complexity, task non-routinism, and task interdependence affect organizational design. *A detailed discussion of both population ecology theory and institutional theory.Look for more information on the Web at www.prenhall.com/jones ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Excellent book and you can not get a better price
This book is much better than the recommended for my MBA. The price is also incredible at the Amazon market place. It has many real world cases and it is easy to read and understand. Highly recommended.

A Superb Text About Organizational Theory & Design
Amongst several Organizational Theory textbooks, this book stands unique. It is very comprehensive, profound, and detailed while being simple, exciting, highly organized, and not wordy. The language of the book is conversational and it helps you "digest" the theoritical concept very quickly depending on a wonderful set of examples and real-life profiles. This text was definitely helpful to me in develpoing a very clear understanding of organizational design, stucture and culture through an excellent coverage of up-to-date topics and well-refined treatment of textual presentation. I advise every management reader to enrich his/her personal business library by acquiring this book. It is really awesome!

Very Comprehensive Treatment of Org Theory/Design
I teach an undergraduate class in "Organizations & Technology" at the University of Phoenix (Southern California campuses) and we use the Garth R. Jones book as our textbook.I have found the book to be so comprehensive and well-organized that I am able to link the organization and content of my lectures directly to the textbook. I find that I cannot do this with many textbooks.

I am most anxious to obtain the "instructor's version" of the text and the accompanying videotapes.(These are mentioned inthe preface.)

A Good Review of Organizational Theory
Jones' text on organizational theory provides the casual reader with a good review of the main currents of thought on that subject.The layout of the material helps readers identify key points easily.

This readerfound the surprising number of grammar errors, particularly splitinfinitives, distracting.

This is a question!
Does anyone know if this book was co-written with Rob Goffy ... Read more

Product Description
Jones/George, Essentials of Contemporary Management is the concise edition of the market bestselling textbook by the same author team. Jones and George are dedicated to the challenge of “Making It Real” for students.The authors present management in a way that makes its relevance obvious even to students who might lack exposure to a “real-life” management context. This is accomplished thru a diverse set of examples, and the unique, and most popular feature of the text, the “Manager as a Person” Chapter 2. This chapter discusses managers as real people with their own personalities, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and problems and this theme is carried thru the remaining chapters. This text also discusses the importance of management competencies--the specific set of skills, abilities, and experiences that gives one manager the ability to perform at a higher level than another in a specific context. The themes of diversity, ethics, globalization, and information technology are integrated throughout. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

excellent
This book was an older edition but it was perfect for my class.A lot cheaper than the new edition too.

Love Amazon!
I go to Ashford and their books are sooo expensive. I have been using Amazon for awhile now and I love it and I get my books delivered in a timely manner. Thanks amazon, your a lifesaver!

Good Business
I wasn't satisfied with the product. However, I could return it without problem. Therefore, overall I think they had good customer service and the business transaction was very good

Great price, condition & shipping on Textbook!
Bought it, read it for class, sold it! Best condition of a textbook is that once the class is over I can re-sell the book with no delays! Thanks!

ESSENTIALS OF CONTEMPORARY MANAGEMENT 2ND EDITION
This book matched up perfectly for each assignment. I have purchased books in the past with the correct title, but was probably the wrong edition is why the assignment page numbers didn't match up. This book you could tell was used, but it served its purpose perfectly.
Thx ... Read more

Product Description
Contemporary Management by Jones and George distinguishes itself through its authorship, comprehensive, current contents, rich and relevant examples and applications and experiential exercises provided in every single chapter. This #1 best-selling text continues to redefine what principles of management texts should look, sound, and feel like. As an author team Gareth Jones and Jennifer George are uniquely qualified to write about both the strategic and organizational challenges managers face. Contemporary Management is a comprehensive text that surveys the theoretical underpinnings of modern management thought and research. Through a variety of examples from an expanded number of small business to medium and large companies it shows the reader how those ideas are used by practicing managers. A hallmark of this text is its focus on the “Manager as a Person,” which discusses managers as real people with their own personalities, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and problems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Looks brand new and came fast!
The book practically looks brand new, just can't tell the difference between mines and a new one. Came very fast. Although the package was mistreated during its journey from the seller and caused a small tear on the front hardcover of the book, I still give it a five star rating because I guess that's not the seller fault but only of the USPS.

Great review
This book was exactly what I thought it would be.Great condition and I received it promptly.

Good Seller
Product came quickly in the mail and was in great condition just as described by the seller

Speedy delivery
I received the item quicker than i expected and in great condition. Great value and cost savings!

New/Used?
It took quite a while for the book to actually arrive but when it did it arrived in a good manner.And it should have because I was buying it new...or so the site said.Granted the pages are not highlighted and the outside is not beat up this book is definitely not new.There was writing and marks at the end of every chapter.For the most part I got what I needed out of the book but I'm irate that I paid a "new" price.If I wanted a used book I would have searched for one.The book was required for a class I am taking and was slightly less than the bookstore at the college. ... Read more

Product Description
Too many companies are managed not by leaders, but by mere role players and faceless bureaucrats. What does it take to be a real leader—one who is confident in who she is and what she stands for, and who truly inspires people to achieve extraordinary results?

Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones argue that leaders don’t become great by aspiring to a list of universal character traits. Rather, effective leaders are authentic: they deploy individual strengths to engage followers’ hearts, minds, and souls. They are skillful at consistently being themselves, even as they alter their behaviors to respond effectively in changing contexts.

In this lively and practical book, Goffee and Jones draw from extensive research to reveal how to hone and deploy one’s unique leadership assets while managing the inherent tensions at the heart of successful leadership: showing emotion and withholding it, getting close to followers while keeping distance, and maintaining individuality while "conforming enough." Underscoring the social nature of leadership, the book also explores how leaders can remain attuned to the needs and expectations of followers.

Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? will forever change how we view, develop, and practice the art of leadership, wherever we live and work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

This will be one of the top leadership books that you will read.
This is a fantastic book that underlines what makes an authentic great leader.
Discusses in details why being yourself within the office environment makes you a standout boss.
The fact that the book is supported by actual examples from real leaders across the world makes the points more believable and convincing.
I'd recommend this work to anyone who strives to be a future leader.

Leadership: Situational, Non-Hierarchical, and Relational
Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones observe that although organizations stress that they need more leaders at every level, too often they encourage the rise of either conformists or role players with an impoverished sense of who they are and what they stand for.Neither makes for effective leadership (pp. 9-10, 14, 27, 70-73, 212).Goffee and Jones stress that regardless of the leadership style in fashion, followers are looking for real leaders, not for leadership clones (pp. 7, 49).

To their credit, Goffee and Jones do not buy into the existence of a universal list of characteristics that should necessarily turn someone into a leader (pp. 10-11, 17, 41, 204).Contexts shift and relationships change over time.For this reason, Goffee and Jones recommend that readers do not try to slavishly model themselves after successful leaders based on the published autobiographies of these leaders (pp. 42, 203).The authors invite aspiring leaders to be more themselves but skillfully and in context (pp. 205, 223-24).

Goffee and Jones articulate their understanding of leadership around three fundamental axioms.Leadership is 1) situational, 2) non-hierarchical, and 3) relational (pp. 11-15, 204).Situation sensing is a mix of sensory and cognitive abilities that allows effective leaders to adjust themselves to the situation at hand.However, leaders can alter the context that they found originally, which requires from them an understanding of what can be rewritten and what cannot (pp. 87-89, 94).Goffee and Jones emphasize that reframing a situation has to be done for the benefit of the followers as well (pp. 12-13).Controversially, the authors argue that people who make to the top of an organization are not necessarily real leaders.Factors such as political acumen, personal ambition, time-serving or nepotism could have played a key role in their ascension to the top (p. 13). Finally, leadership is relational because it cannot be conceived without followers (p. 14).

Goffee and Jones learn from their experience that leadership success calls for managing several tensions effectively: between revealing strengths and showing weaknesses, being an individual and conforming enough, establishing intimacy and keeping distance (p. 25).All these qualities are necessary but not sufficient conditions for leadership.Many people do not want to be leaders for perfectly legitimate reasons (p. 26).

To be perceived as genuine, leaders have to do what they say (p. 16).Despite the need to adapt themselves to shifting contexts and changing relationships, authentic leaders remain real in their relationships with followers, which require constant reality checks (pp. 16, 43, 56).Furthermore, true leaders display some of their (real) weaknesses, preferably after showing their strengths, to look more human and therefore more attractive to others (pp. 19, 34, 41, 62, 67-68, 73-81).Leaders expose themselves to the outside world because they care enough to lead due to an overarching sense of purpose (pp. 61-63, 69, 73).Goffee and Jones note that maximizing shareholder value is an inadequate basis for leadership in the corporate world. Shareholder value maximization is the by-product of other (ethical) goals that inspire leaders and followers (p. 214).However, leaders must conform enough, particularly in the early days, if they are to make the connections necessary to drive change (p. 109).Finally, these leaders have a clear sense of who they are and what works for them (pp. 16, 34, 52-58).This last step calls for self-knowledge or at least self-awareness as well as self-disclosure that represent by far the most demanding dimension of authenticity (pp. 17-20, 31-32, 132).

To develop their sensing capabilities, effective leaders rely heavily on experience and experimentation which often requires them to operate outside their comfort zone.There are three ways leaders can do it: 1) early exposure to a variety of experiences while growing up or at the start of their career, 2) structured-based learning say, at school, or at work, and finally personal coaching (pp. 20-24, 50-51).This experience and experimentation comes in handy to leaders to identify who has the biggest impact on their performance, which teams are important to join to get things done, and the organizational context and constraints within which they have to operate (pp. 94-108, 115-18).

Goffee and Jones also show that to manage their followers effectively, leaders have to use their situation-sensing skills to figure out when to keep their distance and when to get close but not too close to their team (pp. 135, 143-44, 149, 156-58).Disclosing some personal differences and weaknesses while remaining interestingly enigmatic in other ways is the difficult balance to strike for the effective leader (pp. 139-40, 154).Corporate culture and the personality of the leader will be influential in this movement between closeness and distance (pp. 138, 140, 153).For the leaders, the pattern is often this: be distant when they tell their followers what to do; be close when they talk about how (p. 148).

To be effective, leaders also have to communicate with care (p. 161).Effective leaders know the importance of content, authenticity, pace, timing, and communication channels (pp. 164, 167, 179-186).Rational analysis and straightforward assertion of the facts rarely energize followers without a dose of authenticity.Furthermore, effective leaders leverage their sensing capabilities to choose the right mode of communication that works best for them and their organization: i.e., face-to-face meeting, a small group, or a large-scale speech.

Finally, leaders cannot be effective without understanding the wants of their followers (pp. 24, 191).Followers demand from their leaders authenticity, recognition for their contribution, a sense of excitement, and the acknowledgement of their desire to feel part of a community (pp. 192-96).Good followers are prepared to speak up, even if this involves significant personal risks, are prepared to complement the leader, and have a skillful appreciation of change and timing (pp. 198-200).

To summarize, Goffee and Jones shows that effective leadership is situational, non-hierarchical, and relational.To their credit, they do not believe in the existence of a silver bullet that can churn effective leaders at will.

At last, leadership explained!
At last someone has written a book on leadership!So many so called "leadership" books are actually dealing with management.However, Goffee and Jones with their description of "authentic leadership" have clearly defined the essential fundamental interrelationship between the person aspiring to lead and those who might decide to follow.

The book is crammed full of actual case studies of people who have both succeeded and failed as leaders, with the author's explanation as to why.I found the concepts easy to understand and follow.

It is a little slow reading at times, due to the numerous case studies.However, it is worth persevering, as the case studies do illustrate the author's points very well.

Although Goffee and Jones assiduously avoid giving leadership recipes - they rightly maintain that leadership is contextual - there are some good learning points for aspiring leaders.Chapter four for example - Read and Rewrite the Context - has some gems.In this chapter, they describe three levels of analysis for leaders; key leaders who may make the biggest impact on one's performance, important teams, and thirdly the context and constraints within which one must operate.

This should be an essential text for anyone who is looking to take on a leadership role within family, community, organisation or country.Highly recommended.

Bob Selden, author What To Do When You Become The Boss: How new managers become successful managers

Good Advice but Slow Reading
The book's title definitely plays on a manager's fears. Rather than saying "top 10 tips for being a great manager", it is poking at you - "why should anyone be led by YOU?"I'm not a great fan of fear-mongering. So what advice do they offer?

You could say that much of this advice is offered in similar management books. You need to understand the people you work with - what motivates them. If someone is quiet, you need to find quiet things for them to do, rather than force them to be a cheerleader where they are likely to fail. Your techniques must be situational. What works well in a room of 500 high powered salespeople probably won't work in a group of 5 quiet engineers. You need to be very aware of those nuances and adjust your pattern accordingly.

You need to be authentic. You must really believe in what you're saying, and work at something you honestly trust in and enjoy. People can sense inauthentic behavior. If you are working somewhere you hate, it is better to find a new job than to "trick" people into promoting a system you do not like.

You cannot try to be perfect. Nobody IS perfect and people will realize that right away. If you don't know an answer, admit it. People will accept it. If you always forget names, admit to it. People will like you more for "being human" and accept the fault as a cute one. The more you try to hide faults, the more you are known as a deceptive liar.

That's not to say you should not improve yourself. If you have a legitimate "problem" fault like not understanding the core business model, you should strive hard to get better. If you need help, ask for it. People will be more than willing to help you succeed if you are honest about it.

As a manager you should be respected - but not necessarily liked. This is hard for many managers. You need to be able to convey why things need to be done but in the end they DO need to be done. Some people who do not want to do the work will simply not like this. You need to accept that and move on. It's not easy, but it's part of being a manager.

My issues with the book is that it is very dryly written. It is almost a struggle to plow through the information, much of which is given over and over again. They give examples but many times it's like reading a history book vs an engaging story.

I also find some of their examples not ones I would believe in. They complain that a senior executive could lose respect for taking a high salary. I feel if someone has been working 30 or 40 years and is offered a high salary at a job they like, why would they refuse it?? That makes no sense to me.

They also talk several times about a pair of co-workers who are told to work on a project. That night there is a corporate social event which the co-workers go to. The boss walks up to them - IN PUBLIC - and yells at them for being there!! That strikes me as INCREDIBLY inappropriate. They were told to work on something. They are going to work on it! To humiliate them and take away their rest / down time is not a path to healthy long term employees.

That being said, there are some good points in here, and if a manager hasn't figured out some of these ideas, this could help them get started in the right direction. Maybe some people handle dry tomes better than they handle touchy-feely books. If that's the case, then this is the book for you. Just use your own wisdom when absorbing what they right, and realize that not every thing they say is wise for your situation.

Philosophical take on authentic leadership
Authors Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones provide a welcome balance to the many books advising that leadership is a matter of adopting this or that characteristic or technique. They emphasize the situational nature of leadership, the extent to which it depends on followers in a particular organizational context. They infer some basic principles for authenticity and leadership from what seems to be a solid body of empirical observation and interviews, including generally pointed, well-chosen anecdotes showing good leaders in action. We recommend this thoughtful book, which offers an insight that few books on leadership dare to voice. The authors unabashedly assert that even great leadership may not lead to good business results. They further state that an excessive emphasis on results is one of the great obstacles standing in the way of authentic, moral leadership. ... Read more

Product Description
Goff & Jones is the definitive work on restitution providing comprehensive interpretation of all aspects of the subject, and incorporating all developments since the last edition. It first examines the principles of unjust enrichment and then goes on to give detailed coverage of the principles and practical applications of Mistake, Compulsion, Necessity, Ineffective Transactions and Defences. * A new edition of the definitive work on restitution * Guides the reader through the theory, principles and practical application of the law * Covers major recent case law - such as as the radical House of Lords decision in A-G v. Blake which contemplates the possibility of recovering profits from a breach of contract * Many chapters have been substantially rewritten to reflect the rapid evolution of this area of law ... Read more

Product Description

Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs)--languagesgeared to specific vertical or horizontal areas of interest--aregenerating growing excitement from software engineers and architects.DSLs bring new agility to the creation and evolution of software,allowing selected design aspects to be expressed in terms much closerto the system requirements than standard program code, significantlyreducing development costs in large-scale projects and product lines.In this breakthrough book, four leading experts reveal exactly how DSLswork, and how you can make the most of them in your environment.

With Domain-Specific Development with Visual Studio DSL Tools,you'll begin by mastering DSL concepts and techniques that apply to allplatforms. Next, you'll discover how to create and use DSLs with thepowerful new Microsoft DSL Tools--a toolset designed by this book'sauthors. Learn how the DSL Tools integrate into Visual Studio--and howto define DSLs and generate Visual Designers using Visual Studio'sbuilt-in modeling technology.

In-depth coverage includes

• Determining whether DSLs will work for you
• Comparing DSLs with other approaches to model-driven development
• Defining, tuning, and evolving DSLs: models, presentation, creation, updates, serialization, constraints, validation, and more
• Creating Visual Designers for new DSLs with little or no coding
• Multiplying productivity by generating application code from your models with easy-to-use text templates
• Automatically generating configuration files, resources, and other artifacts
• Deploying Visual Designers across the organization, quickly and easily
• Customizing Visual Designers for specialized process needs

Customer Reviews (6)

It's about code generation
I always feel that the words, domain specific development is misleading. To me, more appropriate one is development automation or code generation. Here is my understanding of its background.

In a given industry or computing area, we (developers) know we can automatically build a system based solely on some information. For example, based on schema of a database, we can build a three-tier CRUD web application in an hour with a CRUD code generator. DSL is a tool to make a generator whose input is, you guessed it, XML and output is a collection of artifacts necessary to build the system you want. So you can imagine what kind of heaven it would be for developers with the generator. For the generator, we need to build (1) its schema (XSD) of the input unless you want to write your own routine to parse the input, (2) artifact generation engine, (3) finally generation scripts mapping input to the artifacts you want. Microsoft DSL Tool helps us in this process by providing with t4 text template engine, graphical tools to build XSD and XML input. With appropriate use, a developer can improve his/her productivity a lot.

This book does what it is supposed to do: explaining what we can do with MS DSL. But I think the authors should've concentrated more on designing/creating DSL rather than explaining all other features of MS DSL Tool that can be found in MSDN anyway. Also, visual aspects of the tool can be explained a lot better in video than in writing so most of the chapters could've been delegated to tutorial videos. What I didn't like most is that the book has just a single example, issue tracking application over the whole book. Bottom line is that the question that brought me to this book remains half-answered.

Extremely Frustrating
I was compelled to write this review a few minutes ago while attempting to use this book.I rarely bother to write a bad review-- but I'm fired up.

It's really a fairly horrible example of the genre.The problem is that there is no other game in town for this material.

It's clear the authors know what they are about.In fact, it's fairly obvious they are all brilliant professionals, but they desperately need good editors and co-authors who specialize in presenting this type of material.

This technology is relatively new and unfortunately it seems as though the example implementations available on-line are written by the authors of this book.Terrible or absent in-code documentation is the rule. ...So I am forced to read the book to sort out HOW to do the simplest of things.

When this happens, I seem to spend 15 minutes trying to find precisely what portion of the book is applicable.It's not that the book is poorly organized on a high level.It's that actual content isn't presented in an manner that lends itself to reference.

The examples presented are almost all part of large extended examples that run through most of the book.So I inevitably feel that I am missing most of the context when I start to read.Then the information is sometimes presented in language that sounds insular and academic to me -- a developer and software architect for over 15 years.

The authors seem to have expected the readers to set aside a day or two of their life to read the book from cover to cover and somehow remember it all.It's an absurd premise for a developer's book.No developer worth their salt has that kind of time ... unless they are an academic.It's also an impossible premise because the material is dry as a bone.After reading books from the "Head First" authors, this material will make you want to claw your eyes out.

I think the worst difficulty is that I find key information on how to integrate pieces of the functionality is often ignored or thrown in as an afterthought.

As an example, I discovered I need to add validation on some data entered into my DSL.It seems like an easy thing to do, right?Shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to figure that out, right?15 pages into the section on "Constraints and Validation" I find I understand perfectly why the authors have decided to implement this functionality using C# instead of Object Constraint Language.I understand a great deal about their architectural decisions.I can recite the topology of their belly-buttons on the day they sat down to write the functionality, but I have no idea how to hook up a !@#$ing constraint.

I had the opportunity to listen to a web presentation by one of the authors, Gareth Jones.He presented some ingeniously written code for an example implementation of the DSL tools. To my complete and utter lack of surprise, I understood almost nothing nothing that he said.I found myself zipping back and forth in the presentation trying to deduct how pieces of the code examples he gave were meant to go together.
I was grateful to find the code itself was available on-line ... with no in-line documentation of course.I spent hours understanding how it all fit together when, with some basic presentation skills, he could have given me the information in 5 minutes.

Buy it, but better to read it twice
This is an excellent book.

As the title of the book makes it clear, this is not a book about DSL in general; it is a book about DSL tools in Visual Studio. So it does make sense to criticize the book for requiring VS 2005, as some other reviewers did.

I am glad I read the book cover to cover, and I am enjoying it more on second-reading.The topic is non-linear and certain things in a given chapter make complete sense only after you read material in later chapters.This reflects not on the quality of the book, but on the nature of what is covered.This is why I believe that, for most people, maximum value can be obtained from the book if read twice. It is very well worth it.

What not how
I am disappointed, because the writers are the top of Microsofts engine driving domain specific languages.
The book tells what is possible using Visual Studio 2005 and the DSL tools. However it does a terrible job in explaining how and when to use the tools.
It is not a handsone book, you can't take it and work through examples and it is not an reading/theoratical book either, you can't read it while one the train to work and hope to learn anything.
Just like the book on software factories this book is elaborate and the writers are smart they are just not capable of making the information simple and interesting enough to stick into my head.

Not for my taste of technical book
The books covers almost all of the capabilities for the DSL world, however in this approach to cover all themes, they present some important subjects in a very light way.The reader must have a previous and seriuos knowledge of DSL items and a lot of experience in Visual Studio 2005.
However some chapters (2,3,4,8 and 9) are very very good :D
... Read more

Product Description
When Dirk Dilly gets a call from a distraught wife, he does not expect much in the way of exciting crimes to solve, but he sets off to follow the husband anyway. He couldn't be more wrong and soon he is up to his scaly neck in stolen government secrets, wicked and treacherous dragons, and a confused Prime Minister's son. Of course, nothing is too difficult when you can rely on a good friend like Holly to help you out. ... Read more