Amar Bhide - Böcker

Few would deny the crucial role that entrepreneurs play in our increasingly global economy--but exactly what is this vital, yet loosely defined business force we call the entrepreneurial spirit? This landmark study is the first to examine analytically the nature of the opportunities that entrepreneurs pursue, the problems they face, the traits they require, and the social and economic contributions they make. Until recently, entrepreneurs have been largely ignored in modern economic theory. But at the dawn of a networked age, marked by the advent of e-business and the home office, there's no question that entrepreneurs have recaptured the popular imagination. Studies now show that most men and women dream of starting their own businesses rather than rising through the corporate ranks. Yet in spite of increased attention by many of today's leading business schools, entrepreneurship has remained largely a mystery, an apparantly intuitive sense of values possessed by certain individuals. This book targets the issues central to successful start-up ventures, such as endowments and opportunities, planning versus adaptation, securing resources, corporate initiatives, venture capital, revolutionary ventures and the evolution of fledgling businesses. Focusing on hard data and evaluations of numerous start-up businesses, including many of today's major industry leaders, this book presents a new economic model--a key to understanding the guts, determination, luck and skills that constitute the underpinnings of corporate success. Written in clear, concise prose, The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses goes behind the charts and graphs of business theory to the true heart of success. It is essential reading for business students, would-be entrepreneurs, or executives wanting to incorporate the vitality of the entrepreneurial spirit into their organization.

Uncertainty--doubt about what is or could be--fuels our ambitions and fears. Tantalizing possibilities spur us to innovate and explore. Yet, we also strive to reduce uncertainty. Mountain climbers and deep-sea divers plan carefully. Rules, routines, and research in business, the law, and medicine are designed to increase predictability and forestall unpleasant surprises. Mainstream economics, however, hides from uncertainty, banishing it to the mystical world of unknown unknowns or reducing it to mechanistic calculation. Its textbooks ignore everyday problems that lack demonstrably correct solutions. But resolute responses to such problems require confidence. Where does confidence come from, especially when we go beyond the known? How do we justify our fallible judgments to ourselves and others?Drawing on more than thirty years of teaching and research, Amar Bhidé offers compelling answers. Inspired by--while modernizing--the forgotten ideas of the economist Frank Knight and other great twentieth-century thinkers, Bhidé challenges both hyper-rational economic orthodoxy and claims of pervasive behavioral biases. He shows that while big bets require more justification, the facts alone don't persuade skeptics. Instead, narratives that combine reason, contextual evidence, and creative interpretations align our imaginations. Bhidé's framework and rich examples explain neglected and surprising features of entrepreneurship. He shows how startups and giant corporations coexist; how seemingly bureaucratic procedures encourage the giants to undertake complex high-stakes initiatives; and, how vividly described possibilities help make the imagined real. Cutting through esoteric theories--but avoiding glib prescriptions--Uncertainty and Enterprise examines the foundations of bold yet reasonable action.

Our prosperity requires the enterprise of innumerable individuals and businesses who exercise their imagination and judgment-and bear responsibility for outcomes. And it is through dialogue and relationships that widespread enterprise is fostered, not merely prices in anonymous markets. Yet modern finance blatantly neglects these necessary elements for enterprise, and the dynamism of the real economy is stifled. For the last several decades finance has become increasingly centralized, distanced, and mechanistic. Instead of thousands of lending officers making judgments about borrowers who they know, credit decisions are the output of the models of a few Wall Street wizards and credit agencies whose mistakes have widespread, sometimes disastrous consequences.A Call for Judgment explains in a clear way how bad theories and mis-regulation have caused this dangerous divergence between the real economy and finance. Bhidé accessibly lays out how so-called advances in modern finance helped mass-produce toxic products, based on backward-looking, top-down models that have no place in today's dynamic and decentralized world. Thanks to excessively tight securities laws and loose banking laws, anonymous transactions have displaced relationship-based finance. Returning to relationships and case-by-case judgment requires at a minimum tough rules that limit banks-and all deposit taking institutions-to basic lending and nothing else. Financing the Venturesome Economy is essential reading for anyone interested bringing the economy back to a point at which decisions can be made that foster organic economic growth without the potentially disastrous risks currently accepted by modern finance.

This book contains a series of clinical cases that address and illustrate difficult problems in obstetric ultrasound. The approach is strongly didactic and will aid trainees in maternal-fetal medicine and obstetrics to appreciate potential pitfalls and recognize rare presentations. Each case sets out one page of text, then one of treatment algorithms, and then presents sample ultrasound scans. Learning objectives are given for each case, together with a short list of references and background reading.

Many warn that the next stage of globalization--the offshoring of research and development to China and India--threatens the foundations of Western prosperity. But in The Venturesome Economy, acclaimed business and economics scholar Amar Bhide shows how wrong the doomsayers are. Using extensive field studies on venture-capital-backed businesses to examine how technology really advances in modern economies, Bhide explains why know-how developed abroad enhances--not diminishes--prosperity at home, and why trying to maintain the U.S. lead by subsidizing more research or training more scientists will do more harm than good. When breakthrough ideas have no borders, a nation's capacity to exploit cutting-edge research regardless of where it originates is crucial: "venturesome consumption"--the willingness and ability of businesses and consumers to effectively use products and technologies derived from scientific research--is far more important than having a share of such research. In fact, a venturesome economy benefits from an increase in research produced abroad: the success of Apple's iPod, for instance, owes much to technologies developed in Asia and Europe.Many players--entrepreneurs, managers, financiers, salespersons, consumers, and not just a few brilliant scientists and engineers--have kept the United States at the forefront of the innovation game. As long as their venturesome spirit remains alive and well, advances abroad need not be feared. Read The Venturesome Economy and learn why--and see how we can keep it that way.

As entrepreneurs fuel the economy with start-ups, job creation, innovation, and new technologies, the need to understand the evolving field of entrepreneurship continues to grow. Covering every phase of the entrepreneurial venture, from the basic concepts to emerging issues, this collection of readings by leading academics and practitioners is designed to serve as a handbook for entrepreneurs, as well as for teachers and students of the entrepreneurial process. Newly updated with timely material, professors will find this second edition invaluable for the richness of the cases and the accompanying questions designed to facilitate discussion.