Business

Business acumen has emerged as a critical competency for communicators. But if you're a public relations, advertising or communication professional that didn't go to business school, how can you make sure you have the abilities and skills to evolve along with your role?   Business Acumen for Strategic Communicatorsis the book for you. Offering a critical primer for the world of business, Ragas and Culp equip you with the must-have business know-how needed to understand everything from the language and thinking of C-suites and boardrooms, to organizational agility, business models, rules and regulations, the money and the numbers, and even how to read financial statements and reports.  Written for communicators by communicators, the concepts in each chapter are illustrated by expert insight essays written by a diverse group of senior communications leaders, and packed full of case studies, interviews, key terms and cutting-edge research. Brands profiled include Aflac, Costco, CVS Health, Levi Strauss, Mayo Clinic, Southwest Airlines, Target and YMCA of America. With these critical business literacy skills in hand, you will be set to serve with success as strategic counselors to the organizational leaders that are your colleagues, clients, and business partners.

Despite their broad scope and importance, publications related to public sector accounting and auditing have a limited framework, and do not account for the significant variances in public sector accounting and auditing systems between countries and different subsectors of government. The editors of this book have filled this gap by compiling a collection that combines different aspects of public sector accounting and auditing within a single book.  Pooling together existing public sector accounting and auditing practices between countries and preparing a comparative analysis of those practices, the authors analyze the role of the public sector accounting and auditing holistically, and provide a platform to enable financially sustainable policy making and proper assessment of the relevance of accounting frameworks across the globe. The chapters chronicle the strength and weakness of public sector accounting, auditing and systems, and also critically examine the approaches, recording methods, and international regulations which determine how they operate.  Providing a comprehensive account which brings a wide range of countries to the forefront in terms of both comparability and accountability, this study shines a light on the differences in accounting systems between states, and provides timely and accurate information to equip readers to minimize those differences.

Financial distress in corporations is a frequent phenomenon, particularly during times of national and international economic crises; but this can be used as an opportunity and incentive to implement a systematic process of reorganization and revitalization of a business. These plans for recovery can lead to future successes and sustainability rather than just a fix to ensure survival of the business. Crises, if managed promptly from a strategic point of view, can lead to pragmatic changes and bring new value to the company, avoiding market foreclosure and the negative social consequences. Corporate Financial Distress, Restructuring and Turnaroundidentifies a recovery plan, monitoring, deployment and provides tools to direct economic crises towards financial success in the future and financial stability in the short term. An analysis scheme has been developed and is provided to help measure economic, financial and strategic performance with the why, how and what in relation to the recovery plan. A model for the detection and evaluation of the economic-financial performance implemented by an execution of a recovery plan and a set of indicators for evaluating the variables activated by the process of strategic change are identified. Tron uses alert analysis perspective to examine crises and recovery in business to outline discontinuity with the past in order to address strategic organizational changes and lead the financial process of rehabilitation towards success.

The Data Mirage: Why Companies Fail to Actually Use Their Data is a business book for executives and leaders who want to unlock more insights from their data and make better decisions.The importance of data doesn't need an introduction or a fancy pitch deck. Data plays a critical role in helping companies to better understand their users, beat out their competitors, and breakthrough their growth targets. However, despite significant investments in their data, most organizations struggle to get much value from it. According to Forrester, only 38% of senior executives and decision-makers "have a high level of confidence in their customer insights and only 33% trust the analytics they generate from their business operations." This reflects the real world that I have experienced. In this book, I will help readers formulate an analytics strategy that works in the real world, show them how to think about KPIs and help them tackle the problems they are bound to come across as they try to use data to make better decisions.

The ability to achieve business goals by incorporating disruptive technologies as driving forces is critical to an organization's survival. This book prepares executives for the challenge of creating a culture of exploration and shaping strategic transformation in times of profound disruption. How can leaders bridge the gap between business competence and the creation of new wealth?  Understanding that disruption moves society from one level of existence to the next, the author demonstrates that to be future proof, leaders must demonstrate their ability to adapt to changing dynamics with creativity and complex thinking to ensure that they learn and innovate at the same time. Showing readers how tactical agility in future proofing enables employees at all levels to innovate, and take intelligent risks whilst pursuing a clear strategy, Manu showcases how strategic agility in future proofing enables organizations as a whole to identify new trends and changes in the business environment, and empowers individuals to adapt dynamically to new realities.   Recognising that companies which respond to disruptions in the early stages of amplification can convert potentially existential threats into transformative opportunities, this book shows us how good leadership, intelligent informed opinion, and rapid action in a time of change can help organizations not only to predict the future, but create it.

This book is the first of its kind on qualitative research in management in the Indian context. It covers the philosophy and practice of qualitative research, and presents the journeys of 10 management scholars who describe their experiences of doing qualitative research while explaining their choice of varied methods. Both aspiring and experienced management researchers will find it an invaluable resource.

Strategic Corporate Communication in the Digital Ageexplores how contemporary communication approaches are crossing boundaries as innovative media formats and digital transformations offer new challenges and opportunities to academia and practitioners. New technologies have empowered various organisations and their stakeholders. The digital and social media are central to the process of building trust, reputation and support, as online users can use them to scrutinise and influence corporate decisions and actions. This authoritative book features a broad spectrum of theoretical and empirical chapters on topics relating to organisations' interactive engagement with stakeholders during COVID-19. It sheds light on dialogic communications through different digital media, the utilisation of mobile learning technologies for corporate training and development, corporate disclosures of CSR practices, communications of small and medium sized businesses, and provides a taxonomy of online marketing methods, among other topics. This title is a premier reference source and a valuable teaching resource for courses in marketing, communications, strategy and organisational behaviour.