Book Summaries

The Internet can be a powerful tool if companies and consumers learn how to use it creatively and imaginatively. Case studies and articles from Wharton’s [email protected] online journal support the authors’ strategies for building value through the Internet — including how to use the Web’s inherent communication, brokerage, and integration effects to your advantage.

Gundling presents a toolkit of the 12 global people skills that international managers, or anyone working with global partners, must acquire. These include interpersonal skills (eg. establishing credibility), group skills (eg. negotiating) and organizational skills (eg. managing change).

The authors show how to reform the traditional budgeting process, which currently consumes too much time while adding too little value. The problem is traditional budgeting’s focus on fixed targets and performance incentives. The authors argue for replacing centrally controlled, predetermined goals with self-regulating, relative competitive benchmarks and transfer the power and decision-making authority from the center of the organization to the front line.