If you want to own or manage a breakout company, R. Neil Thiessen can make it happen-and he'll save you frustration, time, and money, to boot.

Proven in myriad industries, Thiessen's Diamond Solution is a powerful tool for gaining insight into your business and uncovering opportunities that you never knew existed. With this guide, you will learn to develop critical elements for business success, including clarity, focus, adaptability, flexibility, and efficiency, as well as how to:

Decide whether growth is the right option right now for your business Take stock of existing company assets and human resources Determine what's currently working and what is not Build a trustworthy staff that is engaged and involved and will deliver results Foster a culture of accountability and action Implement "Leaderment," an ideal combination of leadership and management Use Opportunity Assessment to prioritize your precious resources

With the expert tips and strategies, case studies and examples, and practical exercises in this motivating and empowering book, you will avoid pitfalls, minimize risks, and achieve extraordinary results as your business grows with limited resources and limitless imaginations.

Economic resilience is an emergent field in the social sciences. In this timely book, key scholars examine how individuals, organisations, regions and nations are affected by internal and external crises, and consider how the ways in which they respond will determine their future growth path. Providing a coherent and clear narrative, Creating Resilient Economies offers a theoretical analysis of resilience and provides guidance to policymakers with regards to fostering more resilient economies and people. It adeptly illustrates how resilience thinking can offer the opportunity to re-frame economic development policy and practice and provides a clear evidence base of the cultural, economic, political and social conditions that shape the adaptability, flexibility and responsiveness to crises in their many forms. Academics and scholars across the social sciences will find this book an enlightening gateway into the subject of economic resilience. Its eminently practical approach will also benefit government policy makers interested in how localities, regions and nations can respond more effectively to crises. Contributors include: D. Bailey, G. Bentley, C. Brooks, C. Brunelle, J. Clark, P. Di Caro, R. Doern, E. Evenhuis, S. Dawley, H. Gong, N. Gray, R. Hassink, R. Huggins, C.K. Monsson, L. Pugalis, J. Simmie, B. Spigel, P. Thompson, A. Townsend, T. Vorley, N. Williams

Entrepreneurs Inside: Accelerating Business Growth with Corporate Entrepreneurs was inspired by an extraordinary group of individuals who stepped up to the challenge of building new growth businesses in their organizations. Building a new business inside an existing organization is a daunting task. It takes a unique combination of competencies to lead these initiatives. The book describes the competencies of successful corporate entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial leaders. It also reveals the obstacles and hidden barriers these executives encountered as they created the entrepreneurial culture necessary for success. Most valuably, the book offers a practical look at corporate entrepreneurship, innovation, and execution.

In December of 1963, grief over the recent assassination of President Kennedy gave rise to a heightened sense of urgency to "grab the brass ring now." So it was that on a snowy day in Dallas, a legal secretary looking for a brighter future for herself and her family answered an ad placed by a new company, Mary Kay Cosmetics. In Jackie Brown's brief interview with Mary Kay, she became convinced not only of the company's quality products and the founder's values, but also of the potential in the marketing plan. Here was a company that would reward her hard work and dedication with an executive paycheck Jackie rose through the ranks of Mary Kay Cosmetics as no one else did. Jackie's successes in selling and recruiting laid the foundation for a cosmetics empire and she herself became the gold standard for new recruits. But as the company's achievements spiraled ever higher, Jackie began to see flaws from within. And these were only the first warnings of a breach of trust so great it would start a battle between the two women. This is the story the public has never heard. The real story that fills in the gaps left by other published reports. It is a story of loyalty and betrayal, joy and heartbreak, recognition and disappointment, heady success and depressing failure. Ultimately, it is also a story of tragedy, and Jackie Brown is the only one who can tell it. Author Jackie Brown spent over forty years in the cosmetic business and was president of two cosmetic companies. Now retired, she lives in a small town in Arkansas.

This edited volume develops an understanding of the strategies, processes, issues and concerns involved when small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) go international with their local products/services and vice versa. It is a compendium of eighteen selected chapters on the subject, supported by an introductory chapter. The contributions are organized in four parts based on the sub-themes they deal with. The first part, containing the introductory chapter, provides different perspectives on transnational entrepreneurship, returnee entrepreneurship and their linkages with the internationalization process. The subsequent parts have chapters dealing with three sub-themes of the subject - the internal factors (individual and firm-level resources), the external factors (entrepreneurial ecosystem), and the process of organizational transformation and change, respectively, in the context of SME internationalization. Special issues and challenges being faced by SME entrepreneurs in emerging economies have been highlighted in this book, discussing key contemporary issues with regard to internationalization in the three dimensions outlined above. Further, the book explains how an entrepreneur can engineer the transformation of his/her organization into an international SME. This book is a very useful resource for entrepreneurs and policy-makers in general, and for academics and researchers in particular, as it provides an overview of the contemporary research in the critical areas of SME internationalization and transnational entrepreneurship by highlighting the linkages between them with special reference to emerging economies.

The decision to carry out a merger or acquisition is certainly a risky one, not least because of the number of variables influencing the final outcome. It is also a decision frequently based on the wrong objectives and an incorrect evaluation process. With this in mind, this important new book offers solutions for reducing the high percentage of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) that fail. It adopts a normative approach, using theoretical analysis to show what managers could and should do to increase shareholders' value through successful M&A strategies. It also explores the conditions that are suitable for favouring a certain type of M&A (horizontal, vertical or diversified) over the others. The author presents various analytical models combined with a selection of case studies to demonstrate the relevant conditions under which each type of strategy can create value. The book analyses different types of M&As, the specific sources of synergy and the way value can be calculated. An integrated analysis of potential synergies, their evaluation and the modifications to the organizational structure necessary for implementation is also included. In conclusion, the book presents some case studies of successful M&A strategies providing a link between theory and practice. Building upon traditional theories and providing original and innovative analysis, this is an essential book for students and scholars in economics, business and strategic management, as well as managers and consultants seeking an analytical and practical understanding of M&A strategies.

Business Voyages is not a business fairy tale. Much of it really happened. Don't read this book if you are looking for simple answers and magic formulas. Although the book includes some concepts and techniques anyone should know about people and business, it does not promise success. Business Voyages is problem-oriented, presenting some of the problems encountered by the author and others on their business voyages, while explaining tools and processes anyone can use for analyzing and dealing with inevitable problems that will be encountered in any business world. Business Voyages is also opportunity-oriented, showing the reader how one might embark on a business venture at the right time and place and enjoy the winnings of a successful voyage.

This ground-breaking book exposes the myths behind startup success, illuminates the real forces at work and shows how they can be harnessed in your favour. The world isn't a level playing field. Meritocracy is a myth. And if you look at those at the top, you realise that behind every success story is an Unfair Advantage. But that doesn't just mean your parents' wealth or who you know. An Unfair Advantage is any element that gives you an edge over your competition. And we all have one. Drawing on over two decades of hands-on experience, including as the first Marketing Director of Just Eat (a startup now worth over GBP5 billion), the authors show how to identify your own unfair advantages and apply them to any project. Hard work and grit aren't enough, so they explore the importance of money, intelligence, insight, location, education, expertise, status and luck in the journey to success. From Snapchat to Spanx, Oprah to Elon Musk, unfair advantages have shaped the journeys of some of the most successful brands in the world. This book helps you too find the external circumstances and internal strengths to succeed in the world of business and beyond.

Trust is increasingly recognized as a crucial aspect of successful economic relationships, albeit a difficult one to define, and Mark Casson has been at the forefront of recent research in this area.Mark Casson pioneered the use of transaction cost theory to explain the boundaries of the multinational firm. In The Organization of International Business, he extends the internalization theory of the firm to encompass, on the one hand, inter-firm networking and, on the other, the internal organization and managerial structure of the firm. The key innovation is the distinction between information cost - the cost of gathering information on the assumption that it is true - and transaction cost - the cost of ensuring that the information actually is true. This innovation facilitates a synthesis of transaction cost analysis and organizational behaviour. It also provides new insights into the dynamics of internationalization, and the role of learning in the growth of the firm. The Organization of International Business is a major extension of international business theory which synthesizes transaction cost analysis and organizational behaviour. Although it focuses on international business and multinational enterprises, the analysis can be applied to a wide variety of business units. Together with its companion volume, Entrepreneurship and Business Culture, this topical and wide-ranging book offers a definitive analysis of the importance of trust in economic life as well as the related concepts of networking, consultation and empowerment.