Events ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the global economic crisis have taught businesspeople an unforgettable lesson: if you don’t plan for “extreme risk,” you endanger your organization’s very survival. But how can you plan for events that go far beyond anything that occurs in normal day-to-day business? In Learning from Catastrophes, two renowned experts present the first comprehensive strategic framework for assessing, responding to, and managing extreme risk. Howard Kunreuther and Michael Useem build on their own breakthrough work on mitigating natural disasters, extending it to the challenges faced by real-world enterprises. Along with the contributions of leading experts in risk management, heuristics, and disaster recovery, they identify the behavioral biases and faulty heuristics that mislead decision makers about the likelihood of catastrophe. They go on to identify the hidden links associated with extreme risks, and present techniques for systematically building greater resilience into the organization. The global best-seller The Black Swan told executives that “once in a lifetime” events are far more common and dangerous than they ever realized. Learning from Catastropheshows them exactly what to do about it.

Learning from Catastrophes: Strategies for Reaction and Response (paperback)

Business & Money

Kunreuther, Howard

Useem, Michael

Insurance

Ft Press

A profound and insightful look at how company leaders prepare for and respond to shocks and crises that threaten their business. Successful firms strategically manage and are more accurate in their assessment of large-scale risks. Doing so is increasingly challenging given the pace of change, whether financial, technological, regulatory, or environmental. Mastering Catastrophic Risk provides real-world practical insights into how large companies are responding to this new reality and develops a framework for smarter thinking about events that can damage a business. As leading authorities on risk management, strategy, and company leadership, Howard Kunreuther and Michael Useem take us on a groundbreaking tour of firms' decision making process. They demonstrate how improving readiness for and resilience against future shocks is now an integral part of company strategy. Using the "DISRUPT" model they have developed, they highlight the seven primary Drivers of disruption: Interdependencies increase exposure; Short-term focus results in limited vision; Regulations require change and constrain opportunities; Urbanization increases the costs of disasters; Probabilities of disasters have increased; and Transparency has enhanced public awareness of problems and impacts on firms' reputations. Some disruptions can be anticipated, while others arrive without warning. Their onset stresses decision makers, impairs company operations, and may even put the enterprise at risk. The bottom-line: business leaders and their governing boards face ever more challenging disruptions and must be ever more on guard. If your company is hit tomorrow, will it bounce back, or drown?

Mastering Catastrophic Risk: How Companies Are Coping with Disruption

Finance

Oxford University Press

The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Business Political Activity in the U.S. and U.K.

Discusses the influence top American and British business executives exert on political candidates and public officials in their respective countries

Literature & Fiction

British & Irish

Driven by declining profits and government regulation, a new form of class-wide business leadership has emerged: a transcorporate network that is giving a new coherence and power to business in both America and Britain. This book delineates the "inner circle" of top executives who play a leading role in this network, advising the highest levels of government and working to promote a political environment favorable to all business.

Economics

Turbulence--rapid and sometimes tumultuous changes--has characterized the labor markets of the 1970's and 1980's. Turbulent competitive conditions have cut sharply into profits and have forced downsizings and radical readjustments in America's workplaces. Workplace turbulence has resulted in lost jobs, declining incomes, and falling productivity for American labor. From the perspectives of business and labor, turbulence and its consequences is the key human resources issue for the last part of the twentieth century. In Turbulence in the American Workplace, a distinguished group of experts forcefully and convincingly argue that the human resources capacity of the private sector is the first line of defense against turbulence and is of equal importance to public sector education and training programs. The authors--including Kathleen Christensen, Patricia M. Flynn, Douglas T. Hall, Harry C. Katz, Jeffrey H. Keefe, Christopher J. Ruhm, Andrew M. Sum, and Michael Useem--effectively demonstrate how global competition, deregulation, and technological change are creating hard choices for employers that will alter both the living standards of workers and the performance of American industry in the coming decades. This illuminating work will be of significant value to business school faculty, corporate strategic planners, and general managers, as well as students and professionals interested in the areas of public policy, industrial relations, education, and labor studies.

Turbulence in the American Workplace

Katz, Harry C.

Hall, Douglas T.

Sum, Andrew M.

Doeringer, Peter B.

Christensen, Kathleen

Flynn, Patricia M.

Keefe, Jeffrey H.

Ruhm, Christopher J.

A far-reaching transformation is taking place in the US in the relationship between employers and employees. The lessons learned from Japan and from "best practice" companies like IBM about how job security, training, and internal development can improve employee commitment and performance have given way to a new set of lessons about how companies can redue fixed costs, increase flexibility, and improve performance by eliminating the elaborate employment systems that prepared employees for long careers in the company. Where the old arrangement protected employees from outside market forces, the new ones drag the market right back in through downsizing, contingent workforces, hiring on the outside for new skills, and compensation contingent on overall organizational performance. New work systems that reengineer processes and empower employees "flatten" the organizational chart, cutting management jobs in particular and reducing opportunities for career development. The new arrangements shift many of the risks of business from the firm to the employees and make employees, rather than employers, responsible for developing their own skills and careers. They also increase the demands placed on workers while reducing what they receive back for their efforts. While morale is down and stress is up, employee performance seems to be rising largely because of fear driven by the shortage of good jobs. Change at Work explores the theme that employees have paid the price for the widespread restructuring of American firms as illustrated by reduced security, greater effort and hours, and reduced morale. In this important study--commissioned by the National Planning Asociation's Committee on New American Realities--the authors consider how individuals and employers need to adapt to the new arrangements as well as the implicatioons for important policy issues such as how skills will be developed where the attachment to the firms is sharply reduced. The future is uncertain, but the authors argue that the traditional relationship between employer and employee will continue to erode, making this work essential reading for managers concerned with the profound impact corporate restructuring has had on the lives of workers.

Change at Work

Cappelli, Peter

Knoke, David

Bassi, Laurie

Osterman, Paul

Katz,Harry

A profound and insightful look at how company leaders prepare for and respond to shocks and crises that threaten their business.Successful firms strategically manage and are more accurate in their assessment of large-scale risks. Doing so is increasingly challenging given the pace of change, whether financial, technological, regulatory, or environmental. Mastering Catastrophic Risk provides real-world practical insightsinto how large companies are responding to this new reality and develops a framework for smarter thinking about events that can damage a business.As leading authorities on risk management, strategy, and company leadership, Howard Kunreuther and Michael Useem take us on a groundbreaking tour of firms' decision making process. They demonstrate how improving readiness for and resilience against future shocks is now an integral part of companystrategy. Using the "DISRUPT" model they have developed, they highlight the seven primary Drivers of disruption: Interdependencies increase exposure; Short-term focus results in limited vision; Regulations require change and constrain opportunities; Urbanization increases the costs of disasters;Probabilities of disasters have increased; and Transparency has enhanced public awareness of problems and impacts on firms' reputations. This updated paperback edition includes a new preface to address threats to business that have emerged or intensified in the past two years including existentialthreats like the coronavirus, self-inflicted calamities like the Wells Fargo customer account scandal, and natural disasters like the West Coast wildfires and hurricanes on the Atlantic.Some disruptions can be anticipated, while others arrive without warning. Their onset stresses decision makers, impairs company operations, and may even put the enterprise at risk. The bottom-line: business leaders and their governing boards face ever more challenging disruptions and must be evermore on guard. If your company is hit tomorrow, will it bounce back, or drown?

Liberal Education and the Corporation analyzes the interrelation of higher education and corporate management at a time when educational and industrial institutions are reassessing their basic strategies. Drawing upon research supported by the Corporate Council on the Liberal Arts, in affiliation with the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, it focuses on the corporate career paths of college graduates and on the comparative advantages of liberal arts, business, and engineering degrees, providing data and interpretations essential for policy discussions of curricula reform and corporate management development. The book draws upon four primary sources of information: (l) a survey of major corporations, focusing on their policies and practices in hiring and promoting college graduates; (2) a parallel survey of middle and senior managers of large companies, concentrating on their career experiences and their assessment of other managers of varying educational backgrounds; (3) detailed examination of the experience of major corporations in the hiring and promotion of college graduates; (4) interviews with career counselors and corporate human resource managers.

Liberal Education and the Corporation (Social Institutions and Social Change)

Routledge

Liberal Education and the Corporation

General Motors and IBM dismissed their chief executives and laid off thousands of employees. Sears cut staff, closed its catalog, and auctioned off divisions. American Airlines, Bell Atlantic, and Digital Equipment reengineered their operations. Chase and Chemical Banks merged, while ITT and AT&amp;T divided themselves.Taken in isolation, each company action may appear to be the product of unique circumstances, but behind each merger, each breakup, each shake-up, is the growing power of investors. And the investors wielding this power are not the plutocrats of old but the managers of pension funds, bank trusts, insurance contracts, charity endowments, mutual funds, and 401(k) plans. Pooling the money of millions of small investors, these managers have built massive stakes in the nation's enterprises, and in recent years they have begun to flex their muscles in reshaping corporate direction and improving company performance.The old rules of investing used to be simple and clear: you bought shares and left the operation of the company to a group of professional managers; if you where unhappy with the firm's performance, you sold your shares and moved on. But with the rise of large institutional investors, the option of selling has become problematic. It's one thing to cash out when you own a hundred shares of a company; it's another thing entirely when you own a hundred thousand shares.So fund managers have adopted a new strategy—changing the corporation's policies from within—with dramatic results. Investor Capitalism documents the ensuing struggles among interested parties that have transformed the way in which business goes about its business. Michael Useem takes us inside the boardrooms and into the proxy battles to track the origins of this shift in corporate power and analyze what it has meant for corporations, shareholders, employees, and the American economy. His insights reveal a brave new world of business, which we ignore at our peril.

Investor Capitalism: How Money Managers Are Changing The Face Of Corporate America

Basic Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Useem, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Useem, Michael

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Useem, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Learning from Catastrophes: Strategies for Reaction and Response (paperback)

Mastering Catastrophic Risk: How Companies Are Coping with Disruption

The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Business Political Activity in the U.S. and U.K.

The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Business Political Activity in the U.S. and U.K.

Turbulence in the American Workplace

Change at Work

Mastering Catastrophic Risk: How Companies Are Coping with Disruption

Liberal Education and the Corporation (Social Institutions and Social Change)

Liberal Education and the Corporation

Investor Capitalism: How Money Managers Are Changing The Face Of Corporate America