BizEd

MayJune2004

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Coming Soon! Created especially for b-school faculty, AACSB International will introduce a brand-new electronic newsletter in May. Faculty eNews will follow the latest trends impacting faculty and provide commentary from the leaders within disciplines. Faculty eNews will bring you the names and faces of the movers and shakers among b-school faculty and give valuable insights into AACSB International stan- dards and programs. Don't miss an issue! Contact Tom Wolf (tom@aacsb.edu) to subscribe. ing for employees, the community, and the environment. "Do we feel companies with a conscience offer a socio-economic cure-all for these confusing and turbulent times? Certainly not," the authors write. "But do we believe that they provide a viable alternative for an Enron- and World Com-weary world? Absolutely." (The Publishing Cooperative, $15.95) People argue; institutions fight over scarce resources; countries make war. Conflict is all around us, on both the grand and personal scale. Because it is such a powerful force, "conflict must be managed, although it cannot always be resolved," say Sandra I. Cheldelin and Ann F. Lucas in Academic Administrator's Guide to Conflict Resolution. They discuss the types and sources of con- flict and how it is influenced by per- sonal, cultural, and social contexts. While they note that much conflict occurs between two parties, some of their more intriguing chapters deal with the internal conflict individuals might experience when trying to balance contradictory roles in their lives. Not only do they identify sources of conflict on the university campus, they offer practical guides for how to defuse it, and how to make a school stronger for having survived it. (Jossey-Bass, $20) theory of "creative destruction" as the best way to effect organizational change, he instead proposes "creative recombination." This model uses the systems, employees, networks, and strengths that a corporation already possesses and redirects them toward The very title of Eric Abrahamson's book is intriguing and curiously hopeful: ChangeWithout Pain. Decrying the recent goes on in an inventor's basement workshop as he takes existing parts designed for other uses and reworks them into an exciting new product. More practically, he walks the reader through various "creative recombina- tions" successfully implemented at companies like Westland Helicopters and Continental White Cap. He also cites statistics about how destructive "creative destruction" really can be, numbers that should make savvy managers seriously consider the prin- ciples in his book. (Harvard Business School Press, $26.95) new goals, while causing a minimum of disruption in the workplace. Abrahamson compares the process of creative recombina- tion to what BizEd MAY/JUNE 2004 57

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