Opportunism

Download or read book Opportunism written by Shraga F. Biran and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2011-01-18 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this bold and forward-looking book, an Israeli civic leader shows how reorienting our society to make the most of "opportunity" could restore the global economy to health—and give added value to the contributions of the new class of knowledge workers. For most of us, opportunism is a tainted concept. Shraga F. Biran thinks otherwise. He shows that our present economy favors the wealthy few more than at any point in history. But such an economy is both unstable and outmoded, unable to recognize the true value of the work done by the new knowledge class, whose commerce is in ideas, not financial assets. This is why most of us have seen no real gains from the spectacular increases in paper wealth during the past three decades. Biran sees a transformative new way in Opportunism. In today's economy, he argues, the way to thrive is to create an opportunity and make the most of it. With great passion, he proposes that we as a society should establish a "right of opportunity," akin to patents and copyrights, enabling all members of society to lay claim to their ideas and benefit from them financially. Thus empowered, the new opportunists can help bring about a revolution in applied knowledge on the scale of the Industrial Revolution— and a more just, stable, and prosperous society.

Download or read book Jockeying for the American Presidency written by Lara M. Brown and published by Cambria Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book will compel scholars to take a new look at the role of "political opportunism" in the presidential selection process. Lara Brown provides a fresh, innovative exploration of the roots of opportunism, one that challenges conventional wisdom as it advances our understanding of this complex topic."--Michael A. Genovese, Loyola Marymount University.

Download or read book The Fruits of Opportunism written by Le Lin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-10-14 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth examination of the regulatory, entrepreneurial, and organizational factors contributing to the expansion and transformation of China’s supplemental education industry. Like many parents in the United States, parents in China, increasingly concerned with their children’s academic performance, are turning to for-profit tutoring businesses to help their children get ahead in school. China’s supplemental education industry is now the world’s largest and most vibrant for-profit education market, and we can see its influence on the US higher education system: more than 70% of Chinese students studying in American universities have taken test preparation classes for overseas standardized tests. The Fruits of Opportunism offers a much-needed thorough investigation into this industry. This book examines how opportunistic organizations thrived in an ambiguous policy environment and how they catalyzed organizational and institutional changes in this industry. A former insider in China’s Education Industry, sociologist Le Lin shows how and why this industry evolved to become a for-profit one dominated by private, formal, nationally operating, and globally financed corporations, despite restrictions the Chinese state placed on the industry. Looking closely at the opportunistic organizations that were founded by marginal entrepreneurs and quickly came to dominate the market, Lin finds that as their non-compliant practices spread across the industry, these opportunistic organizations pushed privatization and marketization from below. The case of China’s Education Industry laid out in The Fruits of Opportunism illustrates that while opportunism leaves destruction in its wake, it can also drive the formation and evolution of a market.

Download or read book The Fruits of Opportunism written by Le Lin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-10-07 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Like many parents in the US, parents in China, increasingly concerned with their children's academic performance, are turning to for-profit businesses to help their children get ahead in school. China's educational testing industry (ETI) is now the world's largest and most vibrant for-profit education market, with almost one-tenth of China's enormous population attending ETI classes every year. We see the results in the US higher education system, as more than 70% of Chinese students studying in American universities have taken test-preparation classes for overseas standardized tests, such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). In addition to telling an interesting educational story, sociologist Le Lin also tells a fascinating organizational one. A former insider at a Chinese ETI business, Lin shows how and why the Chinese educational testing industry evolved to become a for-profit industry dominated by private, formal, nationally operating, and globally financed corporations, despite restrictions the Chinese state placed on the industry. In addition to unpacking the industry-level evolution, he also probes the transformation at the organizational level: why do some organizations thrive while others fail during the transition to market capitalism? Lin answers these questions by looking closely at the opportunistic organizations that were founded by marginal entrepreneurs. He found that the more opportunistic practices, even those that did not always follow the law, thrived in this initially ambiguous industry. The marginal and opportunistic operators in the ETI implemented aggressive firing and hiring policies that kept a wide range of instructors available and even innovated new teaching practices that led to better student performance. The organizations that broke the rules were the ones that most often won the day. Ultimately, Lin shows that state policies against opportunistic practices unintentionally facilitated the domination of opportunists. As opportunists became rule-makers and diffused their practices across the industry, they pushed privatization and marketization from below. The case of Chinese ETI terrifically illustrates how opportunism is often destructive, but it can also be productive to the formation and function of a market"--

Download or read book The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management written by and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2018-05-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management has been written by an international team of leading academics, practitioners and rising stars and contains almost 550 individually commissioned entries. It is the first resource of its kind to pull together such a comprehensive overview of the field and covers both the theoretical and more empirically/practitioner oriented side of the discipline.

Download or read book Reckless opportunists written by Aeron Davis and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aeron Davis takes a close look at the state of elites today. He argues that the Brexit vote and 2017 election outcome are signs of a deeper leadership crisis that has been developing over decades. The great transformations of the 1980s onwards have not only upended societies, they have reshaped elite rule itself. Too many leaders today, regardless of intent, are ignorant, precarious, rootless and self-serving. Although richer, they have lost coherence, influence and control. Increasingly, they are just reckless opportunists, getting what they can amid the chaos they have created. Their failings are not only damaging wider society, they are undermining the very foundations of the Establishment itself. The book, based on interviews with over 350 elite figures, asks: how did we end up producing the leaders that got us here and what can we do about it?

Download or read book Honest Opportunism written by Peter Riddell and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: