History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

Sociology of Organizations: Classic, Contemporary and Critical Readings

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Sociology of Organizations: Classic, Contemporary and Critical Readings

Manufacturer: Sage Publications, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0761987665

Book Description

"Michael Handel has assembled an authoritative and wide-ranging collection of key articles in the organizations field, and complements these papers with a terrific critical survey of the literature. His introductory essays will benefit both students and researchers alike. This collection is a real service to the field."

- Walter W. Powell, Stanford University

"A unique reader and commentary with broad coverage of the classics, combined with a healthy skepticism about received theories and an emphasis on the impact of organizations on society. The lucid commentary brightens the field."

- Charles Perrow, Yale University

For the first time, a single volume offers a comprehensive selection of primary readings and companion overview essays on the sociology of organizations. These readings and essays provide incisive and guided coverage of the subjects normally included in a one-semester sociology of organizations course.

The Sociology of Organizations covers the full range of theoretical perspectives and substantive topics through readings that are either classics in the field or widely discussed and debated "new classics."

Section introductions explain key terms and concepts, provide illustrations, and summarize related debates and research in clear prose. The depth of these overview essays makes this book ideal for use as either as a stand-alone text or a supplementary reader. After reading this book, students will have a thorough understanding of central concepts and an appreciation of the primary texts that are the foundation of the field.

Scholars and students in the fields of sociology, management, organizational behavior, and organizational psychology and those within political science and economics who are interested in how organizations function will find this work a welcome, invaluable resource.

Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory (Classics in Organization and Management Series)

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A founding blocks of contingency approaches in organizational studies and human resource management

Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory (Classics in Organization and Management Series)
James Thompson
Manufacturer: Transaction Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0765809915

Customer Reviews:

A founding blocks of contingency approaches in organizational studies and human resource management.......2007-06-13

1967 saw the publication of three books that are now considered founding blocks of contingency approaches in organizational studies and human resource management. Theory of Leadership Effectiveness by Fred Fiedler, Organization and Environment: Managing Differentiation and Integration by Paul Lawrence and Jay Lorsch, and "Organizations in Action" by James D. Thompson. Fiedler created a model of leadership for industrial and organizational psychology while Lawrence, Lorsch, and Thompson studied organizational structure.

Thompson's book aims at providing what he calls a "conceptual inventory": a framework for tying together a multitude of concepts by various authors. The book reads like a serialized decision tree - a hundred propositions presented in the order of their dependencies, fleshed out by explanations and some examples of the concepts involved.

Thompson's approach is based on two fundamental ideas: 1) The nature of uncertainty in the environment is a determining factor of organizational structure. 2) Simple models cannot work for complex organizations, but for their respective components.

Uncertainty in the environment - variables the organization can neither control nor predict - is a key to understanding organizational structure, according to Thompson. An organization is built around a technical core; in order to achieve high performance, the organization shields the core from uncertainty by setting up separate components that serve as an interface to the outside world. Such a division of responsibility allows an organization to structure their technical core from a closed-system perspective and hence with a rational model. Uncertainty is taken care of, and the technical core component can be designed for maximum performance. The components at the managerial level are also tasked with controlling the technical core. Components at the third, the institutional level cover aspects of the environment that go beyond a straight-forward provision of resources and sales channels - here, uncertainty is high and means of control are few and weak.

In part two of the book, Thompson takes a stab at the human factor. He sketches out some goals of employees: individuals in early-ceiling occupations, for instance, use collective bargaining to improve the standing of their occupation while individuals in late-ceiling occupations try to improve their standing among their peers. Exercising discretion appears as a key problem to Thompson; while acknowledging that "some individuals are more tolerant of risk and ambiguity than others", he goes on with the assumption "that individuals exercise discretion whenever they believe it is to their advantage to do so and seek to evade discretion on other occasions." Individuals make entirely rational choices to present their work in the best light possible (pp. 123, 124), but they are not opportunistic; Thompson briefly discusses what he terms "deviant discretion" and presents it as a relatively minor problem, at least "in societies which possess the appropriate supporting institutions" (p. 122).

In this second part, Thompson appears to be out of his depth. He is not a psychologist - the concepts and models of part two look crude compared to the framework in part one. And while mechanistic models of organizations are commonplace, the reader may be less forgiving when simple models are applied to humans.

It is safe to assume that Frederick W. Taylor was aware that resources don't simply materialize in the factory as needed. Max Weber presented bureaucracy as an answer to an environment where rational-legal authority was on the rise. And both intended to tailor organizations to given problems, guided by their respective principles. From this perspective, Thompson does not stray far from the idea that there should be "one best way" - he offers a formalized, fairly deterministic way for finding the structure that can cope with a given environment, including its uncertainties. In fact, Thompson performs a sleight of hand in plain view of the reader: the highest uncertainty is relegated to a barely defined institutional level - but for that level, precious little insight is offered beyond the common measuring of success in satisficing terms.

What really differentiates Thompson from Weber and Taylor with regards to uncertainty is the assessment of organizations: goals may be unclear or conflicting, and cause/effect relations may be unknown - these are hard problems that bureaucracies and scientific management are ill-equipped to deal with.

Books are not very flexible as a medium. The process of creating and distributing new editions is expensive, and the readership may not even be appreciative, particularly if a book is popular enough to warrant further editions or even regarded as a "classic" (reference books are an obvious exception). And so this reader stumbled over several oddities and omissions: Thompson didn't foresee the rise of Just-In-Time production (pp. 20-23). Within his model, increasing interdependence results in increased power and dependence - an explanation of how this constitutes an "important escape from the 'zero-sum' concept of power" seems lacking (pp. 30-32). And he fails to mention that in many scenarios, coalescence is less constraining than co-optation - joint ventures are separate entities while members of the board of directors affect the main organization (pp. 35, 36). It is worth pointing out that this last problem becomes only obvious when looking at the specific examples given by Thompson.

Thompson's legacy is a more differentiated look at the complexity of organizational structure. If theories evolved, it might have been a decent starting point for a more comprehensive framework of organizational studies. In some disciplines, however, theories tend to be more closely associated with authors than with research subjects. They rarely evolve. They are superseded.

The Human Group (Classics in Organization and Management Series)

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The Human Group (Classics in Organization and Management Series)
George Caspar Homans
Manufacturer: Transaction Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1560005726

Classics of Organization Theory (with InfoTrac )

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dull, dull, dull
Delivers what it says....

Classics of Organization Theory (with InfoTrac )
Jay M. Shafritz , J. Steven Ott , and Yong Suk Jang
Manufacturer: Wadsworth Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0534631568

Book Description

Grasp the important themes, perspectives, and theories of the field with CLASSICS OF ORGANIZATION THEORY (WITH INFOTRAC). This collection of the most enduring works in organization theory describes what organization theory is, how it has developed, and how its development has coincided with developments in other fields. Written by distinguished theorists in the field, this book will provide you with the background you need in your future career.

Customer Reviews:

dull, dull, dull.......2007-04-17

Had to slog through this book for an OB class, never did see the relevance.

Delivers what it says...........2000-03-15

I used this book (actually the 3rd edition) in preparing for my comprehensive exams for my master's degree. The title is descriptive. The book is short excerpts of key writings on the organization theory. The selection of readings is appropriate. The only complaint I have is that sometimes I wished I had the complete book in question! On the other hand, some of this stuff is really dry. If you are pursuing the field in an academic way, this is a valuable book. But I can't imagine reading it for enjoyment or idle curioisity.

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This book is a must for the library of the OD practitioner.

Organization Development Classics
Judith C. Hoy , Donald F. Van Eynde , and Dixie Cody Van Eynde
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Entrepreneurship | Small Business & Entrepreneurship | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0787908665

Book Description

Timeless, poetic and wise, the articles recaptured in this remarkable volume beg to be read again and again, a much for their spirit as for their practicality. This collection defines our roots, yet in its timelessness points the way to the road ahead for the theory and practice of organization development.
--Gary E. Jusela, Corporate Director of Organization Development, The Boeing Company

From the very first issue to the present, the OD Practitioner has been the premier publication of the organization development profession. Its articles defined organization development and envisioned its future. These articles are now considered classics. And for the first time, they are assembled here, all in one volume, for practitioners and aspirants to the field to study, learn from, and enjoy again and again. A wealth of innovative thinking that will continue to impact the OD profession for years to come.

To discover where you're going, it helps to first know where you've been. And in the world of organization development, the surest road map is the OD Practitioner.

Among the leading contributors to this volume are:

Richard Beckhard
Geoff Bellman
Warner Burke
Roger Harrison
Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Jim Kouzes
David Noer
Tony Petrella
Barry Posner
Ed Schein
Marvin Weisbord
Margaret Wheatley . . . and many more!

Since its debut in 1968, the OD Practitioner has been the premier forum in which the field's founders, innovators, and working professionals have shared their ideas, values, and experiences regarding the practice of a dynamic discipline few can accurately define. With every issue published, the profession chronicles its history, refines its standards, and imagines its future.

Readers will learn from these:

Stories of OD successes and failures
Interviews
Historical insights into OD
OD anecdotes
Consulting tips
Leadership ideas...and much more!

In these pages, readers will gain a historical perspective on both the theory and work of organization development that will greatly inform their practice. They will discover reports and research that moved the field ahead. They will gain an appreciation of the foresight the field's founders and innovators had regarding OD's possibilities and usefulness. And they will benefit from a wealth of innovative thinking as relevant today as when originally published?thinking that will continue to impact the practice of organization development for many years to come.

Customer Reviews:

This book is a must for the library of the OD practitioner........1999-03-19

The field of OD has a rich, varied, and value based heritage. Through case studies, research, metaphor, and story telling these "classic" articles from "The OD Practitioner," capture the scope, beauty, and promise of organization development. The OD Practitioner is a publication which is small in circulation, but large in impact. This collection of "The Best of the OD Practitioner," deserves to be read by all who profess to practice OD. From classics by recognized experts such as Bob Tannenbaum and Herb Shepard, to gems such as "Reflections of a New Mother on the Similatities Between Caring for an Infant and Working with Organizations: Or What New Babies and Clients have in Common," by Rosemarie Barbeau, this collection touches the mind and the heart of OD practitioners.

The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective (Stanford Business Classics)

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The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective (Stanford Business Classics)
Jeffrey Pfeffer , and Gerald Salancik
Manufacturer: Stanford Business Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 080474789X
Release Date: 2003-03-26

Book Description

Among the most widely cited books in the social sciences, The External Control of Organizations has long been required reading for any student of organization studies. The book, reissued on its 25th anniversary as part of the Stanford Business Classics series, includes a new preface written by Jeffrey Pfeffer, which examines the legacy of this influential work in current research and its relationship to other theories.

The External Control of Organizations explores how external constraints affect organizations and provides insights for designing and managing organizations to mitigate these constraints. All organizations are dependent on the environment for their survival. As the authors contend, “it is the fact of the organization’s dependence on the environment that makes the external constraint and control of organizational behavior both possible and almost inevitable.” Organizations can either try to change their environments through political means or form interorganizational relationships to control or absorb uncertainty. This seminal book established the resource dependence approach that has informed so many other important organization theories.

Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties (Social Science Classics Series)

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The Revival of the Major Political Concepts
OSTROGORSKI'S "RESSURRECTION"

Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties (Social Science Classics Series)
Moisei Ostrogorski
Manufacturer: Transaction Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

Translated from the French by Frederick Clarke; with a preface by James Bryce. This classic of Political Science has taken its place, along with the works of Pareto, Mosca, and Michels, as one of the fundamental, in-depth studies of the workings of the political process. This is the first COMPLETE reissue of this long-unobtainable work.

THIS TITLE IS CITED AND RECOMMENDED BY: Books for College Libraries; BJC.

Customer Reviews:

The Revival of the Major Political Concepts.......2003-03-01

Seymour Martins Lipset is the author of the preface and of this abridged edition of Moisei Ostrogorski's major and fundamental work: the two volumes set entitled "Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties", first published by Haskell House Publishers of New York in 1902. Through this fantastic work, we can understand how the political theatre is made and used not for the protection and guarantee of the people's interests, but for the political elite, the minority interests instead. Concepts like: clientelism, corruption, power image, caucus, ring, whip, dark horses... are only but some of the many examples that show how actual and important the knowledge and understanding of that work remains until today. The study and analysis pursued by Ostrogorski, the problems he was able to found and the construction he made of the British (1st Volume) and American (2nd Volume) societies and civilizations remain actual, and we can find today the repetition of the majority of the "difficult" situations that are able to exist (even) in a "democracy". Its a fundamental and prioritary author for those interested in understanding how the world goes on, and through what kind of rules... Good not only for those with interests in political science subjects, but to all citizens in general.
It was for that reason that I have been studying Ostrogorski's thought and all his work, and I have already written a book on it, which is entitled, in portuguese, "A Fórmula do Poder. Elite, Democracia, Partidos e Corrupção Política no pensamento de Moisei Ostrogorski", something which in english could be "The Power's Formula. Elite, Democracy, Political Parties and Political Corruption in Moisei Ostrogorski's Thought".

OSTROGORSKI'S "RESSURRECTION".......2000-09-28

This is one of the most interesting and realistic analysis on democracy and political parties. The author goes deep into the "real", factual functions of the social and political institutions and through his analysis he concludes that "real" and perfect democracy as well as the representativity of the majority, the people, became much compromised by the professional politician who, with the help of the caucus and bosses, he considers to be the figure that plays the most important role in society, as part of the elite which effectively have the power. Although the solution he advocates has no application nowadays as it had not in the 19th century - the ocasional parties -, the analysis seems mostly actual and real.

Formal Organizations: A Comparative Approach (Stanford Business Classics)

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Formal Organizations: A Comparative Approach (Stanford Business Classics)
Peter M. Blau , and W. Richard Scott
Manufacturer: Stanford Business Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 080474890X
Release Date: 2003-09-26

Book Description

Upon its publication in 1962, this book became one of the founding texts of organizational sociology. Bringing together diverse approaches, it presented a new focus of interest: the formal organization. Blau and Scott raised the level of analysis from attention solely on individual participants and work groups to a broader understanding of organizations as collective actors.

In the book, the authors reviewed multiple types of studies—including case studies, experimental research, and surveys—and integrated them to define new central themes. They used their own empirical studies of two social welfare agencies to illustrate the ways in which varying organizational contexts shape work group and participant attitudes and activities. Formal Organizations served to integrate research on both formal and informal systems, authority and leadership, and stressed the importance of links to the wider environment. This reissue, which includes a new introduction by Scott, makes this seminal work accessible to a new generation of scholars and practitioners.

Knowledge Management: Classic and Contemporary Works

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The learning-centric alternative for knowledge management
Not the best KM book out there
Packed with Knowledge!
List of included works
List of included works

Knowledge Management: Classic and Contemporary Works

Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0262632616

Book Description

This book provides an introduction to the field of knowledge management. Taking a learning-centric rather than information-centric approach, it emphasizes the continuous acquisition and application of knowledge. The book is organized into three sections, each opening with a classic work from a leader in the field. The first section, Strategy, discusses the motivation for knowledge management and how to structure a knowledge management program. The second section, Process, discusses the use of knowledge management to make existing practices more effective, the speeding up of organizational learning, and effective methods for implementing knowledge management. The third section, Metrics, discusses how to measure the impact of knowledge management on an organization. In addition to the classic essays, each section contains unpublished works that further develop the foundational concepts and strategies.

Customer Reviews:

The learning-centric alternative for knowledge management.......2005-03-26

At the start of each episode of the mysterious, brain-twisting 1960s spy/science fiction series, The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan would declare: "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered!" This could well be the rallying cry for the perspective on knowledge management taken by the contributors to this 451-page volume. The 18 pieces are gathered into three groups covering strategy, process, and metrics. Although the volume can certainly serve well as a general introduction to knowledge management, the editors make no bones about their distinctly learning-centric (as distinct from information-centric) perspective that they take.

The information-centric approach, which has been dominant in the field until recently (and still is among consultants with IT systems to sell), emphasizes knowledge as explicit, and as susceptible of being captured, stored, and processed. The contributors to this book instead emphasize the continuous generation, acquisition and application of knowledge in its human and cultural context. This perspective permeates each of the essays and all three of the sections. Those sections begin with a classic work then move onto more contemporary thinking along compatible lines.

The "Strategy" section, which begins with two pieces by Peter Senge, examines the motivation for knowledge management and explores how to structure a knowledge management program. Takeuchi and Nonaka's classic paper, "Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation" opens the "Process" section, which looks at how managers can implement knowledge management effectively, applying it to help make existing practices more effective and to speed up organizational learning. The final section on Metrics covers the use of the Balanced Scorecard, the measurement of intangibles, and metrics for knowledge sharing.

Busy executives need not be deterred by the length of this book. They can read the opening classic pieces, then look only at those following pieces with the most relevance to their concerns and circumstances. Margaret Wheatley's introduction, "Can Knowledge Management Succeed Where Other Efforts Have Failed?", is well worth reading for her concise and lucid account of the common beliefs in organizations that have caused problems for KM. These include beliefs that organizations are machines, only material things are real, that only numbers are real, that you can only manage what you can measure, and that technology is the savior.

Not the best KM book out there.......2004-12-17

There are certainly a few nuggets to be extracted from this volume but it is not a very compelling read. The MIT slant is obvious due to the multiple inclusions of Peter Senge. Yes there is a reprint of the seminal Balanced Scorecard article from the HBR included in this compilation but I really considered most of the papers included in this collection to be extremely uninteresting. Many of the articles provide nothing other than a state of affairs for knowledge management and while they are well researched they are totally dated. Anyone who has read a relatively recent book on the subject of KM will be familiar with the content contained within this volume. Furthermore many of these articles can be found free of charge on the internet as they were published far and wide at their inception. Sure it touches on the major components of knowledge mangement but in my opinion I found the case work to be so general that any *term of the moment* could be substituted for knowledge management. Spend your cash elsewhere.

Packed with Knowledge!.......2004-03-02

This book offers a learning-centered introduction to the field of knowledge management. Each of the three sections (Strategy, Process, Metrics) sets the tone with an opening essay by a well known authority in the field. Several previously unpublished essays that develop the chapter follow each opening piece. This convenient plan makes it possible for time-pressed readers to get the gist of the matter by reading only three or four essays in the area that most concerns them. It also allows readers with a consuming interest in the subject to get all of the details they could possibly desire. Some of the essays are accessible; some are quite heavy going, laden with jargon and dense academic prose that only a specialist could decipher. Thus, we are grateful that the editors have made it so easy for readers to find what they need to know in this well-organized, thorough study of the field of knowledge management.

List of included works.......2001-01-23

I am the editor for this book and I thought it would be helpful to include an overview of the target audience and highlights of the included works in the collection.

This collection is a targetted at leaders in government, industry, or academia who are interested in starting or evaluating a knowledge management program, are currently implementing a knowledge management program, or are simply interested in expanding their understanding of knowledge management.

Featured works include:

Introduction by Margaret Wheatley on, "Can Knowledge Management Succeed Where Other Efforts Have Failed?"

A reflection by Peter Senge on what has been learned since his seminal, "The Leader's New Work: Building Learning Organizations"

Dr. David J. Skyrme on "Developing a Knowledge Strategy: From Management to Leadership"

An introduction by Bipin Junnarkar, CKO of Gateway, on "Sharing and Building Context"

A reflection by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka on what has been learned since their seminal work, "The Knowledge Creating Company"

Dorothy Leonard on "Tacit Knowledge, Unarticulated Needs and Empathic Design in New Product Development"

Dr. Karl-Erik Sveiby on "Measuring Intangibles and Intellectual Capital"

Dr. Nick Bontis on "Managing Organizational Knowledge by Diagnosing Intellectual Capital"