Organizational Culture in Action: A Cultural Analysis Workbook
Author: Angela Laird Brenton
"Applying the metaphor of method acting, this workbook is an essential premier for classes in communication and organizational culture. In a cogent and easily accessible style, it provides superb guidelines for observing, interpreting, and understanding the subtle and complex nuances of an organization's culture. The integration of qualitative research methods with cultural analyses makes this text distinctive and valuable addition to any organizational communication class."
-Linda Putnam, Texas A&M University
"The authors skillfully weave together theory, application, and their professional experiences to create a wonderfully useful book that meets the needs of students and practitioners. Anyone who takes cultural analysis seriously should read this book."
-Phillip G. Clampitt, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and Metacomm
"Organizational Culture in Action fills a real resource gap. It is a 'workbook' in the most positive sense of the word. It offers enough step-by-step guidance to give students the confidence they need to move forward independently. At the same time, it does not sidestep the theoretical complexities, conflicts, and confusions surrounding the world of organizational culture and cultural analysis. The book is well conceived, usefully structured, and filled with application exercises that really make sense and are pedagogically justified. My students found it to be both accessible and stimulating."
-John Gribas, Idaho State University
What is organizational culture? And how might knowledge of cultureimprove our organizational performances? Authors Gerald W. Driskill and Angela Laird Brenton have created a stimulating workbook to guide students through data collection, analysis, interpretation, and application of organizational culture data using a practical five-step process. Organizational Culture in Action: A Cultural Analysis Workbook begins by explaining theories on which organizational culture is based. It then provides "how to" guides for gathering information to help improve organizational performance. "Connections" sections present the practical value of theory and concepts discussed throughout. Based on more than 20 years of experience in using this approach with hundreds of students, the authors help students apply cultural insights to fostering diversity, supporting organizational change, making leadership more dynamic, exploring the link between ethics and culture, and making organizations more effective overall.
Unique to Organizational Culture in Action are the various examples the authors have included, which are taken from their consulting experience with more than 150 organizations. An example analysis from a student has also been included to show novice researchers how they too can improve their organizational performance using this workbook.
The integration of national cultural and diversity issues and of ethics and leadership topics, along with the authors' many years of experience in organizational culture, makes Organizational Culture in Action an excellent supplemental text for advanced undergraduate or graduate students studying organizational communication, organizational culture, organizational development, leadership development, or managerial communication.
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Local Economic Development: Analysis and Practice
Author: John P Blair
More than ever before, local economic development issues are being shaped by market forces. Despite this, urban studies and public administration texts focusing on local economic development issues have glossed over or ignored this fundamental change. Now, in Local Economic Development, John P. Blair presents a comprehensive, accessible, and jargon-free text - one that offers both extensive coverage of economic concepts and the new market forces at work today. Topics addressed include regional growth and development, land use, metropolitan government and finance, housing, economic development strategies, and neighborhood development. Blending knowledge from a variety of disciplines (planning, political science, finance, sociology, and marketing) with a strong analytical approach, this is the ideal text for courses in local economic development as well as public finance, public administration, and policy studies and practitioners.
"I found that Local Economic Development well fills a need for a combined treatment of regional economic and planning issues at the undergraduate level. Its greater depth on topics in economics--its main strength--lends it more useful in survey courses in regional economics."
--Journal of Regional Science
"With its purpose being "to present the economics of economic development in a manner accessible to both economists and noneconomists," this volume broadly describes regional development theories, economic development theories, economic development practices, and analytical techniques for assessing the performance of regional and local economies. . . . For those who have never been exposed to the field of economicdevelopment, this book is a user-friendly beginning."
--Choice
"This book represents an important progression and stands as another sign that as a field of study and work, local and regional economic development is a practice whose time has arrived."
--Journal of the American Planning Association
"Local Economic Development should be read by everyone seriously involved in the profession, for it embellishes one's perspective of the subject in a refreshing way. Then, too, the book should be on the desk of everyone who believes economic development is little more than blue smoke and mirrors, especially if such individuals are politicals prone to change economic policy every time results are not immediate or administrations change. . . . If any single argument exists to dissuade impulsive action, perhaps those in such positions can find it here."
--Journal of Community Development Society
Booknews
An accessible comprehensive text for courses in local economic development as well as public finance, public administration, and policy studies. It offers extensive coverage of both economic concepts and the new market forces currently at play. Among the topics addressed are regional growth and development, land use, metropolitan government and finance, housing, economic development strategies, and neighborhood development. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Table of Contents:
| A Short and Important Preface | ||
| 1 | Economic Development and Market Logic | 1 |
| 2 | Three Fundamental and Recurring Issues | 22 |
| 3 | Business Location, Expansion, and Retention | 41 |
| 4 | Market Areas and Economic Development Strategies | 66 |
| 5 | Understanding Economic Structure | 95 |
| 6 | Regional Growth and Development: Fundamental Perspective | 116 |
| 7 | Additional Tools and Perspectives on Economic Growth | 145 |
| 8 | Issues in Economic Development Practice | 168 |
| 9 | Resource and Commodity Flows | 189 |
| 10 | Land Use | 209 |
| 11 | Housing and Neighborhood Development | 238 |
| 12 | Metropolitan Government and Finance | 274 |
| 13 | Planning, Futures Studies, and Development Policy | 304 |
| References | 321 | |
| Index | 329 | |
| About the Author | 345 |
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