Nicholas Burton – författare

Burton Malkiel’s 1973 A Random Walk Down Wall Street was an explosive contribution to debates about how to reap a good return on investing in stocks and shares. Reissued and updated many times since, Malkiel’s text remains an indispensable contribution to the world of investment strategy – one that continues to cause controversy among investment professionals today.

At the book’s heart lies a simple question of evaluation: just how successful are investment experts? The financial world was, and is, full of people who claim to have the knowledge and expertise to outperform the markets, and produce larger gains for investors as a result of their knowledge. But how successful, Malkiel asked, are they really? Via careful evaluations of performance – looking at those who invested via ‘technical analysis’ and ‘fundamental analysis’ – he was able to challenge the adequacy of many of the claims made for analysts’ success. Malkiel found the major active investment strategies to be significantly flawed. Where actively managed funds posted big gains one year, they seemingly inevitably posted below average gains in succeeding years. By evaluating the figures over the medium and long term, indeed, Malkiel discovered that actively-managed funds did far worse on average than those that passively followed the general market index.

Though many investment professionals still argue against Malkiel’s influential findings, his exploration of the strengths and weaknesses of the argument for believing investors’ claims provides strong evidence that his own passive strategy wins out overall.

Burton Malkiel’s 1973 A Random Walk Down Wall Street was an explosive contribution to debates about how to reap a good return on investing in stocks and shares. Reissued and updated many times since, Malkiel’s text remains an indispensable contribution to the world of investment strategy – one that continues to cause controversy among investment professionals today.

At the book’s heart lies a simple question of evaluation: just how successful are investment experts? The financial world was, and is, full of people who claim to have the knowledge and expertise to outperform the markets, and produce larger gains for investors as a result of their knowledge. But how successful, Malkiel asked, are they really? Via careful evaluations of performance – looking at those who invested via ‘technical analysis’ and ‘fundamental analysis’ – he was able to challenge the adequacy of many of the claims made for analysts’ success. Malkiel found the major active investment strategies to be significantly flawed. Where actively managed funds posted big gains one year, they seemingly inevitably posted below average gains in succeeding years. By evaluating the figures over the medium and long term, indeed, Malkiel discovered that actively-managed funds did far worse on average than those that passively followed the general market index.

Though many investment professionals still argue against Malkiel’s influential findings, his exploration of the strengths and weaknesses of the argument for believing investors’ claims provides strong evidence that his own passive strategy wins out overall.

Perhaps the most peculiar feature of a financial bubble – one that Charles Kindleberger''s classic work Manias, Panics and Crashes draws particular attention to – is the inability of those trapped inside it to grasp the seriousness of their predicament. They know in principle that bubbles exist, and they know that the financial crashes that result from them are capable of destroying individuals'' wealth and entire economies. Yet whenever and wherever a bubble begins to form, we''re told that this time things are different, that there are sound reasons to continue to invest and to presume that prices will continue to rise steadily forever.

Kindleberger''s achievement is to use the critical thinking skill of evaluation to examine this strange mindset and the arguments advanced in support of it. He harshly judges the acceptability of the reasons used to create such arguments, and highlights the issues of relevance and adequacy that give us every reason to doubt them. Kindleberger also uses his powers of reasoning to effect an unusual achievement – writing a work soundly rooted in economics that nonetheless engages and convinces a non-specialist audience of the correctness of his arguments.

Perhaps the most peculiar feature of a financial bubble – one that Charles Kindleberger''s classic work Manias, Panics and Crashes draws particular attention to – is the inability of those trapped inside it to grasp the seriousness of their predicament. They know in principle that bubbles exist, and they know that the financial crashes that result from them are capable of destroying individuals'' wealth and entire economies. Yet whenever and wherever a bubble begins to form, we''re told that this time things are different, that there are sound reasons to continue to invest and to presume that prices will continue to rise steadily forever.

Kindleberger''s achievement is to use the critical thinking skill of evaluation to examine this strange mindset and the arguments advanced in support of it. He harshly judges the acceptability of the reasons used to create such arguments, and highlights the issues of relevance and adequacy that give us every reason to doubt them. Kindleberger also uses his powers of reasoning to effect an unusual achievement – writing a work soundly rooted in economics that nonetheless engages and convinces a non-specialist audience of the correctness of his arguments.

This book explores how the distinctive "Quaker" approach to responsible business is based on honesty, truth and integrity. It analyzes how networks, family and succession are at its heart, and how much this approach offers to current debates on corporate social responsibility, as well as to managers and practitioners in an increasingly complex business world. The contributions in this volume assess the factors that explain the success and prosperity of many Quaker businesses throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, discussing the lessons learned from their disappearance from prominence. By drawing upon examples that illustrate the Quaker ethic, it also considers what so-called “Quakernomics” can contribute to contemporary responsible business theory and practice.

This two volume work examines the role of spiritual and religious traditions as a balancing force during times of crisis in organizational settings. Elucidating the varied ways in which spiritual/religious traditions provide new ways of coping in unprecedented times, the chapters provide an integrative review and critical analysis of recent research in the field. Bringing together an extraordinary compendium of religious/ spiritual traditions through a combination of Eastern and Western approaches, this comprehensive work provides a new perspective and highlights alternative mechanisms to deal with current socio-economic dilemmas and workplace crisis facing humanity.

This two volume work examines the role of spiritual and religious traditions as a balancing force during times of crisis in organizational settings. Elucidating the varied ways in which spiritual/religious traditions provide new ways of coping in unprecedented times, the chapters provide an integrative review and critical analysis of recent research in the field. Bringing together an extraordinary compendium of religious/ spiritual traditions through a combination of Eastern and Western approaches, this comprehensive work provides a new perspective and highlights alternative mechanisms to deal with current socio-economic dilemmas and workplace crisis facing humanity.

Weaving together various strands in a systematic manner, Volume 1 focuses on the faith traditions and practices including Hinduism Sikhism, Quakerism, Catholicism, Presbyterianism, Abraham religions and the Bahá’í tradition. Volume 2 focuses on spiritual traditions including Buddhism and Confucianism. Within the chapters of Volume 2, the authors offer critical explorations of a wide range of topics ranging from crisis management, community responses to Covid-19, ethics, mindfulness, and approaches to pedagogy and organizational research methodologies.

Major religious traditions have begun to reflect on sustainability concerns in their theology and practice. Little research, however, has explored the implications of this development for organizational behavior as well as secular thinkers and practitioners of sustainable development. This book elucidates the varied ways in which faith traditions provide new forms of coping mechanisms to deal with environmental challenges confronting humanity through an integrative review and critical analysis of recent research. Bringing together a compendium of religious and faith traditions, rooted in both Eastern and Western approaches, the work provides a new perspective and presents alternative paradigms to deal with the contemporary ecological crises. 

 Featuring theoretical papers and case studies from different contexts and geographical regions, this book provides researchers, faculty, students, and practitioners with a broad overview of the field from a research perspective, while keeping an eye on building a bridge between scholarship and practice.