BiblioVault - Books about Management

Ecology and Management of a Forested Landscape

Fifty Years on the Savannah River Site

Edited by John C. Kilgo and John I. Blake; Foreword by H. Ronald Pulliam

Island Press, 2005

Can land degraded by centuries of agriculture be restored to something approaching its original productivity and diversity? This book tells the story of fifty years of restoration and management of the forested landscape of the Savannah River Site, a 310-square-mile tract of land in the coastal plain of South Carolina that has been closed to the public for more than five decades.

Ecology and Management of a Forested Landscape presents for the first time a complete synthesis and summary of information on the Savannah River Site, providing a detailed portrait of the plant and animal populations and communities on the site and the effects on them of fifty years of management practices. Contributors offer thirty-two chapters that describe the site's history, land management, physical environment, plant and animal communities, endangered species, and game species. Extensively illustrated with photos, maps, charts, and tables, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the forest management practices that can support long-term forest recovery and restoration of native habitats. It represents for natural resource managers a detailed case study in long-term land management, and provides scientists with an in-depth analysis of the natural history and physical and biological characteristics of a southeastern forested landscape.

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Ecology and Management of Cowbirds and Their Hosts

Studies in the Conservation of North American Passerine Birds

By James N. M. Smith, Terry L. Cook, Stephen I. Rothstein, Scott K. Robinson, and Spencer G. Sealy

University of Texas Press, 2000

In the past two centuries, cowbirds have increased in numbers and extended their range across North America, while many of the native songbird species whose nests they parasitize to raise their young have declined. This timely book collects forty essays by most of the principal authorities on the biology and management of cowbirds. The book's goals are to explore the biology of cowbirds, the threats they pose to host species and populations, and the management programs that are being undertaken to minimize these threats.

The book is organized into five sections, each with an extended editors' introduction that places the contributions in a broad, up-to-date setting. The sections cover:

The changing abundance of cowbirds and the ways in which their numbers can be estimated.
Host choice by cowbirds, the negative effects of cowbirds on particular host species, and the daily patterns of cowbird behavior.
Behavioral interactions between cowbirds and specific host species.
Patterns of cowbird abundance and host use across varying landscapes.
Management programs designed to control cowbirds and protect threatened songbirds.

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Ecology and Management of North American Savannas

Guy R. McPherson

University of Arizona Press, 1997

Savannas are ecosytems with a continuous grass layer and scattered trees or shrubs. These lands occupy nearly a third of the earth’s land surface and are an important resource not only in world economies but also as repositories of biodiversity. Because savannas are generally thought of as tropical ecosystems, most reviews of the literature have tended to disregard savannas found in temperate zones. Yet these ecosystems are both extensive and diverse in North America, ranging from longleaf pine habitats along the Atlantic coastal plain to xeric piñon-juniper communities of the Great Basin-ecosystems seemingly disparate, yet similar enough to merit study as savannas. This book provides an overview of the patterns and processes shared by these ecosystems and offers substantive ideas regarding future management and research efforts. It describes the composition geographic distribution, climate, soils, and uses of savannas throughout North America, summarizing and integrating a wide array of literature. While discussing these ecological patterns and processes. McPherson develops a framework for implementing management practices and safeguarding the future of these important wildland ecosystems. Ecology and Management of North American Savannas takes a major step toward establishing the science of savanna ecology for North America. It encourages constructive debate and relevant research on these important systems and will also serve as a useful resource in biogeography, plant ecology, and rangeland management.

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The Ecology and Management of Prairies in the Central United States

Chris Helzer

University of Iowa Press, 2010

Most prairies exist today as fragmented landscapes, making thoughtful and vigilant management ever more important. Intended for landowners and managers dedicated to understanding and nurturing their prairies as well as farmers, ranchers, conservationists, and all those with a strong interest in grasslands, ecologist Chris Helzer’s readable and practical manual educates prairie owners and managers about grassland ecology and gives them guidelines for keeping prairies diverse, vigorous, and viable.
Chapters in the first section, "Prairie Ecology," describe prairie plants and the communities they live in, the ways in which disturbance modifies plant communities, the animal and plant inhabitants that are key to prairie survival, and the importance of diversity within plant and animal communities. Chapters in the second section, "Prairie Management," explore the adaptive management process as well as guiding principles for designing management strategies, examples of successful management systems such as fire and grazing, guidance for dealing with birds and other species that have particular habitat requirements and with the invasive species that have become the most serious threat that prairie managers have to deal with, and general techniques for prairie restoration. Following the conclusion and a forward-thinking note on climate change, eight appendixes provide more information on grazing, prescribed fire, and invasive species as well as bibliographic notes, references, and national and state organizations with expertise in prairie management.
Grasslands can be found throughout much of North America, and the ideas and strategies in this book apply to most of them, particularly tallgrass and mixed-grass prairies in eastern North Dakota, eastern South Dakota, eastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, eastern Oklahoma, northwestern Missouri, northern Illinois, northwestern Indiana, Iowa, southwestern Wisconsin, and southwestern Minnesota. By presenting all the factors that promote biological diversity and thus enhance prairie communities, then incorporating these factors into a set of clear-sighted management practices, The Ecology and Management of Prairies in the Central United States presents the tools necessary to ensure that grasslands are managed in the purposeful ways essential to the continued health and survival of prairie communities.

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Ecology and Management of the North American Moose, Second Edition

Charles C. Schwartz

University Press of Colorado, 2007

Back in print as a University Press of Colorado edition, this abundantly illustrated volume with field sketch illustrations by William D. Berry fully explains moose biology and ecology and assesses the increasingly complex enterprise of managing moose. Twenty-one of the world's authorities on the species discuss its taxonomy, reproduction and growth, feeding habits, behavior, population dynamics, relationships with predators, incidental mortality, seasonal migration patterns, and habitat and harvest management.

Contributors include Warren B. Ballard, Arnold H. Boer, Anthony B. Bubenik, M. E. Buss, Kenneth N. Child, Vincent F.J. Crichton, Albert W. Franzmann, Kris J. Hundertmark, Patrick D. Karns, Murray W. Lankester, Richard E. McCabe, James M. Peek, Henry M. Reeves, Wayne L. Regelin, Lyle A. Renecker, William M. Samuel, Charles C. Schwartz, Robert W. Stewart, Ian D. Thompson, H. R. Timmermann, and Victor Van Ballenberghe. A Wildlife Management Institute book

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Ecology of the Bay of Quinte

Health, Management and Global Implications

C.K. Minns

Michigan State University Press, 2022

Project Quinte was a Canadian multi-agency collaborative initiative—launched in 1972 and lasting until 2018—that generated the longest ecosystem-based data set in the Great Lakes. The project produced a special bulletin of the Canadian Journal of Fisheries Science in 1986 and two special issues of Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management more recently. This monograph provides a broad sweep of the many facets of aquatic ecosystem structure and function that were explored in efforts to define and solve the challenges to ecosystem health present in the Bay of Quinte ecosystem and to sustain it hopefully far into the future. Many papers provide a long-term perspective that highlights the need to maintain monitoring programs while increasing our basic knowledge. Long-term studies of ecosystems like Quinte continually reveal new questions and challenges beyond the scope of controlled laboratory experiments. The health of the Bay of Quinte is much improved as a result of the long-term participation of people, time, and resources reflected in this book. The monograph through its twenty-six in-depth chapters opens a wide panorama for exploration and application of the ecosystem approach and the resulting productivity, with much remaining to be done by those that follow in these footsteps. Approximately one hundred scientists have collectively participated toward the preparation of various chapters included in this meticulously peer-reviewed monograph.

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Economic Analysis of Product Innovation

The Case of CT Scanners

Manuel Trajtenberg

Harvard University Press, 1990

One of the most striking features of contemporary industrial economies is their ability to offer an ever-expanding and improving range of products. Personal computers, tiny pacemakers, digital watches, and VCRs simply did not exist, and were not even dreamt of, only a few decades ago. Such product innovations play an increasingly important role in modern economic growth, and it is therefore imperative that economists come to grips with them, just as they have done with traditional economic phenomena.

In this skillfully crafted and imaginative study, Manuel Trajtenberg develops the tools to quantify and analyze the notion of product innovation. He argues persuasively that the magnitude of an innovation should be equated with the social benefits that it generates. Drawing from the "characteristics approach" to demand theory and the econometrics of discrete choice, he presents an ingenious method to estimate the benefits from product innovations that accrue to the consumer over time. His method centers on consumer preferences for different product attributes -such as speed and size of memory in computers-and then uses those preferences to evaluate the changes in attributes.

Trajtenberg applies his approach to the study of one of the most remarkable innovations in medical technology--Computed Tomography (CT) scanners. He assembled for that purpose an impressive set of data on every aspect of the new technology, from qualities and prices, patents and research, to details on virtually every sale in the United States during the decade following the introduction of CT in 1973. This close-up view of an innovation, quite rare in economic literature, offers valuable insights on the nature of the innovative process, the interaction between innovation and diffusion, the effects of uncertainty about quality, and the implications of changing preferences.

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Effective Conservation

Parks, Rewilding, and Local Development

Ignacio Jiménez

Island Press, 2022

For most, “conservation” conjures the notion of minimizing human presence on wildlands to avoid harmful impacts. But too often, this defensive approach has pitted local communities against conservationists, wasting opportunities for collaboration and setting the stage for ongoing conflict. One conservation approach turns that paradigm on its head, and instead connects conservation with the well-being of human communities, setting both up for success. Called “Full Nature,” this approach—pioneered by conservationist Ignacio Jiménez—seeks to promote fully functional natural landscapes that are tied to the basic needs of the communities in their midst. They become a self-sustaining cycle, where nature and people are integrated ecologically, socially, and politically.

Effective Conservation is based on Jiménez’s experience managing conservation projects on three continents over thirty years. Jiménez offers a pragmatic approach to conservation that puts the focus on working with people—neighbors, governments, politicians, businesses, media—to ensure they have a long-term stake in protecting and restoring parks and wildlife. Jiménez guides readers through the practical considerations of designing, analyzing, and managing effective conservation programs. Chapters explore intelligence gathering, communication, planning, conflict management, and evaluation techniques, and include numerous text boxes showcasing examples of successful conservation projects from all continents. A companion website (islandpress.org/effective-conservation) includes additional case studies, expanded texts, and links to additional resources.

This highly readable manual, newly translated into English after successful Spanish and Portuguese editions, provides a groundbreaking and time-proven formula for successful conservation projects around the world that bring together parks, people, and nature.

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Effective Management of Social Enterprises

Lessons from Businesses and Civil Society Organizations in Iberoamerica

Social Enterprise Knowledge Network SEKN

Harvard University Press

What makes civil society organizations effective performers? What are key practices for businesses creating social value activities as a part of their overall operations? Business leaders have long analyzed corporate practices; this book represents an innovative analysis of how one does good in an effective and strategic manner. This book aims to enable social and business leaders to gain a greater understanding of how to achieve high performance in terms of social value creation.

Social Enterprise Knowledge Network is a research partnership encompassing eleven leading management schools—nine in Latin America, one in Spain, and Harvard Business School—with a demonstrated capacity to produce high-quality, original, field-based research in Latin America.

Based on the results of a two-year research process on how social and business organizations in Iberoamerica achieve superior social performance, Effective Management of Social Enterprises presents the most comprehensive and in-depth analysis of such practices ever undertaken in this region. This practitioner-oriented book also enriches the literature on organizational performance, social enterprise, and corporate social responsibility, and on Iberoamerica more generally.

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The Electronic Resources Troubleshooting Guide

Holly Talbott

American Library Association, 2020

A library user can’t access an article. Your log in credentials won’t work. In the realm of electronic resources everything runs smoothly—until suddenly, without warning, it doesn’t. Invariably, systems will break down, but a trial and error approach to finding out what’s wrong is highly inefficient. This hands-on guide from two expert ERM librarians walks you through the essentials of troubleshooting. It outlines a methodical process that will help you identify the source of a problem even when it’s not obvious and take steps to reach a resolution. With the goal of developing a library-wide workflow in mind, this guide will teach you how to

familiarize yourself with the components of electronic resources, using flowchart diagrams of common access chains such as discovery services, knowledge bases, research guides, and library services platforms;
navigate the complete triage and troubleshooting workflow, illustrated through 14 in-depth examples;
recognize the symptoms of common access disruptions;
conduct efficient troubleshooting interviews;
manage help tickets and design problem reports that capture key information without overburdening the user;
create publicly available help pages for problems originating with users’ devices or computers;
communicate with vendors and IT personnel for speedy resolutions, providing dozens of clear definitions of library and technology terms that will help you minimize confusion; and
customize your own troubleshooting workflow chart for common use across departments and staff hierarchies.

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Enabling Creative Chaos

The Organization Behind the Burning Man Event

Katherine K. Chen

University of Chicago Press, 2009

In the summer of 2008, nearly fifty thousand people traveled to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to participate in the countercultural arts event Burning Man. Founded on a commitment to expression and community, the annual weeklong festival presents unique challenges to its organizers. Over four years Katherine K. Chen regularly participated in organizing efforts to safely and successfully create a temporary community in the middle of the desert under the hot August sun.

Enabling Creative Chaos tracks how a small, underfunded group of organizers transformed into an unconventional corporation with a ten-million-dollar budget and two thousand volunteers. Over the years, Burning Man’s organizers have experimented with different management models; learned how to recruit, motivate, and retain volunteers; and developed strategies to handle regulatory agencies and respond to media coverage. This remarkable evolution, Chen reveals, offers important lessons for managers in any organization, particularly in uncertain times.

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Engineering Culture

Control and Commitment in a High-Tech Corporation

Gideon Kunda

Temple University Press, 2006

Engineering Culture is an award-winning ethnography of the engineering division of a large American high-tech corporation. Now, this influential book—which has been translated into Japanese, Italian, and Hebrew—has been revised to bring it up to date. In Engineering Culture, Gideon Kunda offers a critical analysis of an American company's well-known and widely emulated "corporate culture." Kunda uses detailed descriptions of everyday interactions and rituals in which the culture is brought to life, excerpts from in-depth interviews and a wide variety of corporate texts to vividly portray managerial attempts to design and impose the culture and the ways in which it is experienced by members of the organization. The company's management, Kunda reveals, uses a variety of methods to promulgate what it claims is a non-authoritarian, informal, and flexible work environment that enhances and rewards individual commitment, initiative, and creativity while promoting personal growth. The author demonstrates, however, that these pervasive efforts mask an elaborate and subtle form of normative control in which the members' minds and hearts become the target of corporate influence. Kunda carefully dissects the impact this form of control has on employees' work behavior and on their sense of self. In the conclusion written especially for this edition, Kunda reviews the company's fortunes in the years that followed publication of the first edition, reevaluates the arguments in the book, and explores the relevance of corporate culture and its management today.

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Entering Cultural Communities

Diversity and Change in the Nonprofit Arts

Grams, Diane

Rutgers University Press, 2008

Arts organizations once sought patrons primarily from among the wealthy and well educated, but for many decades now they have revised their goals as they seek to broaden their audiences. Today, museums, orchestras, dance companies, theaters, and community cultural centers try to involve a variety of people in the arts. They strive to attract a more racially and ethnically diverse group of people, those from a broader range of economic backgrounds, new immigrants, families, and youth.

The chapters in this book draw on interviews with leaders, staff, volunteers, and audience members from eighty-five nonprofit cultural organizations to explore how they are trying to increase participation and the extent to which they have been successful. The insiders' accounts point to the opportunities and challenges involved in such efforts, from the reinvention of programs and creation of new activities, to the addition of new departments and staff dynamics, to partnerships with new groups. The authors differentiate between "relational" and "transactional" practices, the former term describing efforts to build connections with local communities and the latter describing efforts to create new consumer markets for cultural products. In both cases, arts leaders report that, although positive results are difficult to measure conclusively, long-term efforts bring better outcomes than short-term activities.

The organizations discussed include large, medium, and small nonprofits located in urban, suburban, and rural areas—from large institutions such as the Smithsonian, the Walker Art Center, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the San Francisco Symphony to many cultural organizations that are smaller, but often known nationally for their innovative work, such as AS220, The Loft Literary Center, Armory Center for the Arts, Appalshop, and the Western Folklife Center.

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Environmental Land Use Planning and Management

John Randolph

Island Press, 2003

Environmental Land Use Planning and Management is a unique new textbook that presents a diverse, comprehensive, and coordinated approach to issues of land use planning and management and their impacts on the environment. It builds on recent advances in environmental science, engineering, and geospatial information technologies to provide students with the scientific foundation they need to understand both natural land systems and engineering approaches that can mitigate impacts of land use practices. While offering a base of knowledge in planning theory and natural science, its primary emphasis is on describing and explaining emerging approaches, methods, and techniques for environmental land use planning, design, and policy.

The book is divided into two parts. Part I, "Environmental Land Use Management," introduces broad concepts of environmental planning and describes management approaches. Those approaches include collaborative environmental management, land conservation, environmental design, government land use management, natural hazard mitigation, and ecosystem and watershed management. Part II, "Environmental Land Use Principles and Planning Analysis," focuses on land analysis methods, such as geospatial data and geographic information systems (GIS); soils and slope analysis; assessment of stormwater quantity and quality; land use and groundwater protection; ecological assessment for vegetation, wetlands, and habitats; and integrated analytical techniques like land suitability analysis, carrying capacity studies, and environmental impact assessment.

Environmental Land Use Planning and Managementoffers a unique interdisciplinary perspective with an emphasis on application. It is an important new text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in environmental planning, landscape architecture, geography, environmental studies, and natural resource management, and a valuable resource for professionals and others concerned with issues of environmental planning and land use.

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Environmental Land Use Planning and Management

Second Edition

John Randolph

Island Press, 2011

Since the first publication of this landmark textbook in 2004, it has received high praise for its clear, comprehensive, and practical approach. The second edition continues to offer a unique framework for teaching and learning interdisciplinary environmental planning, incorporating the latest thinking, newest research findings, and numerous, updated case studies into the solid foundation of the first edition.

The book has been reorganized based on feedback from instructors, and contains a new chapter entitled "Land Use, Energy, Air Quality and Climate Change." Throughout, boxes have been added on such topics as federal laws, state and local environmental programs, and critical problems and responses.

This new edition addresses three broad subject areas. Part I, "Environmental Planning and Management," provides an overview of the field, along with the fundamentals of land use planning, and presents a collaborative approach to environmental planning. Part II, "Sustainable Land Use Principles and Planning Analysis," considers environmental and geospatial information; soils, topography, and land use; stream flow, flooding, and runoff; stormwater management and stream restoration; groundwater hydrology; landscape ecology; wildlife habitats and biodiversity; energy, air quality and climate change; and methods for land analysis. Part III, "Managing Watersheds, Ecosystems and Development to Achieve Sustainable Communities," explains the principles of ecosystem management, restoration, and protection; land conservation; and the mitigation of natural hazards.

With this thoroughly revised second edition, Environmental Land Use Planning and Management maintains its preeminence as the leading textbook in its field.

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The Essence of Scenarios

Learning from the Shell Experience

Angela Wilkinson and Roland Kupers

Amsterdam University Press, 2014

In 1965, Royal Dutch Shell started experimenting with a new approach to preparing for the future. This approach, called scenario planning, eschewed forecasting in favor of plausible alternative stories. By using stories, or Ÿscenarios,Œ Shell aimed to avoid the false assumption that the future would look much like the present“an assumption that marred most corporate planning at the time. The Essence of Scenarios offers unmatched insight into the company’s innovative practice, which still has a huge influence on the way businesses, governments, and other organizations think about and plan for the future.In the course of their research, Angela Wilkinson and Roland Kupers interviewed almost every living veteran of the Shell scenario planning operation, along with many top Shell executives from later periods. Drawing on these interviews, the authors identify several principles that characterize the Shell process and explain how it has survived and thrived for so long. They also enumerate the qualities of successful Shell scenarios, which above all must be plausible stories with logical trajectories. Ultimately, Wilkinson and Kupers demonstrate the value of scenario planning as a sustained practice, rather than as a one-off exercise.

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Ethics for Records and Information Management

Norman A. Mooradian

American Library Association, 2018

The scope and reach of information, driven by the explosive growth of information technologies and content types, has expanded dramatically over the past 30 years. The consequences of these changes to records and information management (RIM) professionals are profound, necessitating not only specialized knowledge but added responsibilities. RIM professionals require a professional ethics to guide them in their daily practice and to form a basis for developing and implementing organizational policies, and Mooradian’s new book provides a rigorous outline of such an ethics. Taking an authoritative principles/rules based approach to the subject, this book comprehensively addresses

the structure of ethics, outlining principles, moral rules, judgements, and exceptions;
ethical reasoning, from meaning and logic to dilemmas and decision methods;
the ethical core of RIM, discussing key topics such as organizational context, the positive value of accountability, conflicts of interest, and confidentiality;
important ethical concerns like copyright and intellectual property, whistleblowing, information leaks, disclosure, and privacy; and
the relationship between RIM ethics and information governance.

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The Executive Way

Conflict Management in Corporations

Calvin Morrill

University of Chicago Press, 1995

What causes conflict among high-level American corporate executives? How do executives manage their conflicts? Based on candid interviews with over two hundred executives and their support personnel, Calvin Morrill provides an intimate portrait of these men and women as they cope with problems usually hidden from those outside their exclusive ranks.

Personal and corporate scandals, compensation battles, budget worries, interdepartmental rivalries, personal enmities, and general rancor are among everyday challenges faced by executives. Morrill shows what most influences the way managers handle routine conflicts are the cultures created by their company's organizational structure: whether there is a strong hierarchy, a weak hierarchy, or an absence of any strong central authority. The issues most likely to cause conflict within corporations Morrill identifies as managerial style, competition between departments, and performance evaluations, promotions, and compensation.

Among the people whose day-to-day lives we get to know are Jacobs, a divisional executive whose intuitive understanding of the corporate hierarchy enables him to topple his incompetent superior without direct confrontation; Fuller, who through a mix of brains, guile, and connections rises from staff executive secretary to corporate vice president in a large bank; Green, an old-fashioned accounting partner in a firm being taken over by management consultants; and the "Princess of Power," "Iron Man," and the "Terminator"—executives fighting their way to the top of a successful entertainment company.

Unprecedented in its direct access to top managers, this portrayal of daily life and conflict management among corporate elites will be of interest to professionals, scholars, and practitioners in organizational culture and behavior, managerial decision making, dispute, social control, law and society, and organizational ethnography.

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Exploring Discovery

The Front Door to Your Library's Licensed and Digitized Content

Kenneth J. Varnum

American Library Association, 2016