Small Town Rules

Small Town Rules
Author: Barry J. Moltz
Publisher: Que Publishing
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2012
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0789749203

Teaches large businesses to use word-of-mouth and reputation-building to gain a loyal customer base in the way small businesses do.

Makers and Takers

Makers and Takers
Author: Rana Foroohar
Publisher: Currency
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2017-09-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0553447254

Is Wall Street bad for Main Street America? "A well-told exploration of why our current economy is leaving too many behind." —The New York Times In looking at the forces that shaped the 2016 presidential election, one thing is clear: much of the population believes that our economic system is rigged to enrich the privileged elites at the expense of hard-working Americans. This is a belief held equally on both sides of political spectrum, and it seems only to be gaining momentum. A key reason, says Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar, is the fact that Wall Street is no longer supporting Main Street businesses that create the jobs for the middle and working class. She draws on in-depth reporting and interviews at the highest rungs of business and government to show how the “financialization of America”—the phenomenon by which finance and its way of thinking have come to dominate every corner of business—is threatening the American Dream. Now updated with new material explaining how our corrupted financial sys­tem propelled Donald Trump to power, Makers and Takers explores the confluence of forces that has led American businesses to favor balance-sheet engineering over the actual kind, greed over growth, and short-term profits over putting people to work. From the cozy relationship between Wall Street and Washington, to a tax code designed to benefit wealthy individuals and corporations, to forty years of bad policy decisions, she shows why so many Americans have lost trust in the sys­tem, and why it matters urgently to us all. Through colorful stories of both “Takers,” those stifling job creation while lining their own pockets, and “Makers,” businesses serving the real economy, Foroohar shows how we can reverse these trends for a better path forward.

A History of Small Business in America

A History of Small Business in America
Author: Mansel G. Blackford
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2003-11-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807862339

From the colonial era to the present day, small businesses have been an integral part of American life. First published in 1991 and now thoroughly revised and updated, A History of Small Business in America explores the central but ever-changing role played by small enterprises in the nation's economic, political, and cultural development. Examining small businesses in manufacturing, sales, services, and farming, Mansel Blackford argues that while small firms have always been important to the nation's development, their significance has varied considerably in different time periods and in different segments of our economy. Throughout, he relates small business development to changes in America's overall business and economic systems and offers comparisons between the growth of small business in the United States to its development in other countries. He places special emphasis on the importance of small business development for women and minorities. Unique in its breadth, this book provides the only comprehensive overview of these significant topics.

The New Economy and Economic Growth in Europe and the US

The New Economy and Economic Growth in Europe and the US
Author: David B. Audretsch
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2013-06-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3540248269

There are many issues relating to the new economy in Europe and the USA that are unexplored. Here, the authors present innovative theoretical and empirical analysis on Internet dynamics, productivity growth and organizational changes in selected OECD countries. New empirical findings related to telecommunications, Internet and growth also are presented. Based on the theoretical and empirical analyses, various policy options are developed. Policy measures, both at the regional and national levels, can stimulate structural change, knowledge diffusion and economic growth. Different governance strategies for the Internet and e-commerce are identified from a global perspective.

The Economics and Management of Small Business

The Economics and Management of Small Business
Author: Graham Bannock
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2005
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780415336673

This book provides an international perspective on small business, and includes many useful pedagogical features such as questions for discussion, international case studies and empirical research.

Are Small Firms Important? Their Role and Impact

Are Small Firms Important? Their Role and Impact
Author: Stephen Ackermann
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1461551730

Are Small Firms Important? Their Role and Impact proposes and supports the claim that small firms make two indispensable contributions to the economy. First, they are an integral part of the renewal process that pervades market economies. New and small firms play a crucial role in experimentation and innovation that leads to technological change, productivity and economic growth. Second, small firms are the essential mechanism by which millions enter the economic and social mainstream of American society. The public policy implications for sustained economic growth and social well-being is the continued high-level creation of new and small firms by all segments of society. It should be the role of government policy to facilitate that process by eliminating entry barriers, lowering transaction costs, and minimizing regulation.

Building the New Economy

Building the New Economy
Author: Alex Pentland
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 475
Release: 2021-10-12
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 026254315X

How to empower people and communities with user-centric data ownership, transparent and accountable algorithms, and secure digital transaction systems. Data is now central to the economy, government, and health systems—so why are data and the AI systems that interpret the data in the hands of so few people? Building the New Economy calls for us to reinvent the ways that data and artificial intelligence are used in civic and government systems. Arguing that we need to think about data as a new type of capital, the authors show that the use of data trusts and distributed ledgers can empower people and communities with user-centric data ownership, transparent and accountable algorithms, machine learning fairness principles and methodologies, and secure digital transaction systems. It’s well known that social media generate disinformation and that mobile phone tracking apps threaten privacy. But these same technologies may also enable the creation of more agile systems in which power and decision-making are distributed among stakeholders rather than concentrated in a few hands. Offering both big ideas and detailed blueprints, the authors describe such key building blocks as data cooperatives, tokenized funding mechanisms, and tradecoin architecture. They also discuss technical issues, including how to build an ecosystem of trusted data, the implementation of digital currencies, and interoperability, and consider the evolution of computational law systems.

The Passion Economy

The Passion Economy
Author: Adam Davidson
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2020-01-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0385353537

The brilliant creator of NPR's Planet Money podcast and award-winning New Yorker staff writer explains our current economy: laying out its internal logic and revealing the transformative hope it offers for millions of people to thrive as they never have before. Contrary to what you may have heard, the middle class is not dying and robots are not stealing our jobs. In fact, writes Adam Davidson—one of our leading public voices on economic issues—the twenty-first-century economic paradigm offers new ways of making money, fresh paths toward professional fulfillment, and unprecedented opportunities for curious, ambitious individuals to combine the things they love with their careers. Drawing on the stories of average people doing exactly this—an accountant overturning his industry, a sweatshop owner's daughter fighting for better working conditions, an Amish craftsman meeting the technological needs of Amish farmers—as well as the latest academic research, Davidson shows us how the twentieth-century economy of scale has given way in this century to an economy of passion. He makes clear, too, that though the adjustment has brought measures of dislocation, confusion, and even panic, these are most often the result of a lack of understanding. The Passion Economy delineates the ground rules of the new economy, and armed with these, we begin to see how we can succeed in it according to its own terms—intimacy, insight, attention, automation, and, of course, passion. An indispensable road map and a refreshingly optimistic take on our economic future.

The Purpose Economy

The Purpose Economy
Author: Aaron Hurst
Publisher: Elevate Publishing
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2014-04-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 193749845X

A series of shifts are happening in our economy: Millennials are trading in conventional career paths to launch tech start-ups, start small businesses that are rooted in local communities, or freelance their expertise. We are sharing everything, from bikes and cars, to extra rooms in our homes. We now create, buy and sell handcrafted products in our local communities with ease. Globally recognized entrepreneur, founder of Taproot Foundation and CEO of Imperative, Aaron Hurst, argues in his latest book that while these developments seem unrelated at first, taken together they reveal a powerful pattern that points to purpose as the new driver of the American economy. Like the Information Economy, which has driven innovation and economic growth until now, Hurst argues that our new economic era is driven by connecting people to their purpose. It's an economy where value lies in establishing purpose for employees and customers through serving needs greater than their own, enabling personal growth and building community. Based on interviews with thousands of entrepreneurs, Hurst shows this new era is already fueling demand for a whole host of products and services and transforming how millennials view their careers. A new breed of startups like Etsy, Zaarly, Tough Mudder, Kickstarter, and Airbnb are finding new ways to create value by connecting us with our local communities. At the same time, companies like Tesla and Whole Foods are making the march from just appealing to affluent buyers to becoming mainstream brands. Hurst calls these companies, along with the pioneering entrepreneurs who founded them, the Purpose Economy's taste-makers. This book is at once a personal memoir of Aaron Hurst’s own awakening as a purpose driven entrepreneur, when he left a well-paying tech job in 2001 to launch Taproot, creating a pathway for millions of professionals and Fortune 500 companies to volunteer for nonprofits. It's also a blueprint for a new economic era that is transforming companies, markets and our careers to better serve people and the world.