People Problems And Profits

"Dr. Gellerman eliminates the jargon and mystique that has grown up around much of the practice of industrial psychology. He...tells the modern executive exactly what applied psychology can and cannot do for [their] company. He explains how an informed manager can work effectively with a consulting psychologist. He warns of the dangers of misuse and gives a thorough discussion of the techniques, principles, and potentials of industrial psychology. Dr. Gellerman discusses hiring, promoting, communications, human relations, company personality, a philosophy for mature management, and the sometimes surprising role of the "neurotic" in business. Here is a landmark book for today's executive who must cope with the complex problems of the corporate world--a guide to help him manage wisely, productively, and creatively"--Provided by publisher.

The pharmaceutical industry has come under intense criticism in recent years. One poll found that 70% of the sample agreed that drug companies put profits ahead of people. Is this perception accurate? Have drug companies traded ethics for profits and placed people at risk? In Profits before People? Leonard J. Weber exposes pharmaceutical industry practices that have raised ethical concerns. Providing systematic ethical analysis and reflection, he discusses such practices as compensating physicians for serving as speakers or consultants, providing incentives to physicians to enroll patients as subjects in clinical research, and advertising prescription drugs to the public through the mass media. Weber's critique of the industry is stern. While acknowledging that new industry guidelines are promising, he finds much room for improvement in the way drug companies market their products. Yet Weber makes a strong case that profits and ethics can coexist and that they are not mutually exclusive. In an effort to understand the proper place of commerce in disseminating information about new drugs, the book aims to clarify basic responsibilities and to help identify sound ethical practices. It recognizes that ethics and law are not the same, that "having a right" is different from "doing the right thing," and that taking ethics seriously means recognizing that the law does not answer all questions about what is right. Weber points the way to more demanding standards and better practices that might begin to restore confidence in the drug industry.

Attacks against the pursuit of profit in eighteenth-century Britain have been largely read as reactions against market activity in general or as critiques of financial innovation. In The Problem of Profit, however, Michael Genovese contends that such rejections of profit derive not from a distaste for moneymaking itself but from a distaste for individualism. In the aftermath of the late seventeenth-century Financial Revolution, literature linked the concept of sympathy to the public-minded economic ideals of the past to resist the rising individualism of capitalism. This study places literary works at the center of eighteenth-century debates about how to harmonize exchanges of feeling and exchanges of finance, highlighting representations of communitarian, affective profit-making in georgic poetry as well as in the work of Joseph Addison, Daniel Defoe, Richard Steele, Sarah Fielding, Henry Fielding, David Hume, Samuel Johnson, and Laurence Sterne, among others. Investigating commercial treatises, novels, poetry, periodicals, and philosophy, Genovese argues that authors conjured alternatives to private accumulation that might counter the isolating tendencies of impersonal exchange. However, even as emotional language and economic language arose together in the 1700s, the attendant aspiration to form a communitarian economy in Britain was not fulfilled. By recovering an approach to moneymaking that failed to thrive, The Problem of Profit argues for the relevance of an unfamiliar narrative of capitalistic thought to today’s anxiety over the discord between personal ambition and public good.

What is the relationship between the social performance of companies and their financial performance? More colloquially, can a firm effectively attend to both people and profits as it conducts its business? This question has been investigated in no fewer than 95 empirical studies published since 1972. The authors have assembled a compendium of this research to give researchers and practitioners alike a broad overview of these 95 studies and a systematic database detailing the content of each one. This book provides a comprehensive portrait of this research literature. It begins with a broad orientation to the literature, exploring why the link between social and financial performance has been subject to continual inquiry and often heated debate. The authors then present an integrated overview of the 95 studies. Through the charts and tables, the authors illuminate the nature of the studies conducted; the data samples selected for investigation; the ways in which financial and social performance have been measured; and the overall tally of results.

The issue of globalization-its promises, and more often, its shortcomings-commands worldwide attention. Recent events illuminate the dark side of globalization and underscore the urgent need to redesign its basic principles. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 are one in a series of crisis that have shaken the foundations of the global order. The rise of strong anti-globalization movements around the world, the deteriorating global economy, including America's own economic turbulence, and an ever-growing distrust of powerful multinational corporations in the face of catastrophic mismanagement, symbolized by Enron and WorldCom, dramatize the failure of globalization. For a safe and economically secure future, Charles Derber argues in People Before Profit we must de-bunk the myths about our current form of corporate-led globalization and re-orient ourselves on a more democratic path. Popular misconceptions, what Derber terms the "globalization mystique," present globalization as new, inevitable, self-propelling, and win-win for rich and poor countries alike. By challenging each of these beliefs, Derber reveals a dynamic system that is constantly being invented and re-invented-and can be again. Globalization does not have to be a "race to the bottom" where the poverty gap grows ever wider and half the world lives on less than two dollars a day. In fact, Derber's hopeful and detailed vision of reform, including practical suggestions for every concerned citizen, shows that globalization has the potential to be an authentic agent of democracy, social justice, and economic stability. The challenges are great; the new globalization will require deep and difficult changes, as well as a new politics that shifts power away from the elite. But the seeds have already been planted and the new globalization is beginning to emerge. In a moment rich with opportunity, People Before Profit is an essential contribution to the most important debate of our times, written in clear, straight-forward prose for everyone seeking a better world.

Build the bottom line in your business: engaged people = enriched profits