Howard Thomas

Human capital - the performance and the potential of people in an organisation - has become an increasingly urgent issue for business leaders. Dramatic demographic shifts, the globalisation of organisations, increasing business complexity, and generational differences are causing many organisations to place a more deliberate focus on human capital as a key element in strategic planning and execution. This book helps business leaders determine how to address human capital as part of their business strategy, to drive value and realise the potential of the organisation. Topics are presented clearly, allowing readers to quickly grasp and apply key concepts and ideas. The authors share both their academic research and practical experience from around the world, providing first-hand case studies and examples to help bring theoretical topics to life. With a strong practitioner focus, this book will provide business leaders and HR professionals with new insights into how to improve business performance through a unique, strategic approach to human capital.

Questions about the status, identity and legitimacy of business schools in the modern university system continue to stimulate debate amongst deans, educational policy makers and commentators. In this book, three world experts share their critical insights on management education and new business school models in the USA, Europe and Asia, on designing the business school of the future, and how to make it work. They look at how the business school is changing and focus in particular on emergent global challenges and innovations in curricula, professional roles, pedagogy, uses of technology and organisational delineations. Set within the context of a wider discussion about management as a profession, the authors provide a systematic, historical perspective, analysing major trends in business school models, and reviewing a wealth of current literature, to provide an informed and unique perspective that is firmly grounded in practical and experimental analysis.

This is the first of two volumes written to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of EFMD. Through an open-ended interview research process, it seeks to explore the perspectives and views of a wide range of experts drawn not only from the European environment but also from the United States and other global players in the management education field. Understanding the relations and interactions between the various actors in management education is fundamental to any rich analysis of the roles, value and purposes of management education as well as the unfulfilled promises in its evolution. The focus in this first volume is on the challenges, issues, themes and lessons learned in the 40 years of EFMD's evolution. The second volume will concentrate on the future of management education.

Business schools have come under fire in recent years with criticisms centring on their academic rigour and the relevance of business education to the 'real' world of management. Alongside this ongoing debate, increasing international competition and media rankings have led to a fierce struggle between business schools for positioning and differentiation. These are among the challenges that are faced by the Dean of the modern-day business school. In this book, Fernando Fragueiro and Howard Thomas show how Deans of business schools can meet such challenges in terms of strategic direction setting and the execution of their leadership role. Drawing on their invaluable experience as Deans of highly successful business schools, they present a series of case studies to show how leaders of five leading business schools (IMD, LBS, INSEAD, IAE and Warwick) have built effective strategies in the context of internal and external political pressures.

The second edition of Strategy: Analysis and Practice provides up-to-date coverage of strategy with an incisive and analytical approach. The author team combines their extensive experience of teaching and consulting in strategy with cutting edge research to form a comprehensive text suitable for students studying strategic management, corporate strategy or business policy modules. The book sets out to provide students with an understanding of the core concepts and economics of strategy, laying the foundations for analysing strategy on a variety of levels. With a revised structure and fewer, more concise chapters, the second edition concentrates more strategic implementation and decision making. The theory is complemented by thorough pedagogy throughout and a range of excellent case examples and longer cases furnish students with the practical applications needed to fully appreciate the consequences of strategic decisions.

This series of stories explains how the foothills evolved from a wilderness inhabited only by wandering Native Americans to the present prosperous area of dairy farms, busy villages, and excellent schools.

Process and Experience in the Language Classroom argues the case for communicative language teaching as an experiential and task driven learning process. The authors raise important questions regarding the theoretical discussion of communicative competence and current classroom practice. They propose ways in which Communicative Language Teaching should develop within an educational model of theory and practice, incorporating traditions of experimental and practical learning and illustrated from a wide range of international sources. Building on a critical review of recent language teaching principles and practice, they provide selection criteria for classroom activities based on a typology of communicative tasks drawn from classroom experience. The authors also discuss practical attempts to utilise project tasks both as a means of realising task based language learning and of redefining the roles of teacher and learner within a jointly constructed curriculum.