If your company needs to develop a more scientific strategic approach - one that's sophisticated and creative, yet rigorous and results-oriented - this book is for you. You've probably discovered that the old strategic approaches, including the pet concept of sustainable competitive advantage, just aren't working. Traditional companies - maybe yours? - find themselves being pushed into risky mergers and other catch-up moves to stay afloat in roiling seas. The preferable way is to set your own course by systematically creating and exploiting opportunity. That is what visionary thinkers have always done, and it's what Strategic Renaissance shows you how to do. This guide is packed with models of corporate strategies, based on revolutionary concepts drawn from science, philosophy, military and political history, and business history - strategies with surprising lessons for your organization's success. Evan M. Dudik shows you how to apply the key elements of great business strategy. You'll learn how to objectively assess business conditions (be prepared to trash most of what you know about market research!), formulate and test a resulting if-then hypothesis, and proceed with strategies that can truly change your company's direction. Here are all the tools you need to analyze your company's current strategic efforts and create new ones with greater chances to succeed.

Writing letters to powerful people to win their favor and garner rewards such as political office, tax relief, and recommendations was an institution in Renaissance Florence; the practice was an important tool for those seeking social mobility, security, and recognition by others. In this detailed study of political and social patronage in fifteenth-century Florence, Paul D. McLean shows that patronage was much more than a pursuit of specific rewards. It was also a pursuit of relationships and of a self defined in relation to others. To become independent in Renaissance Florence, one first had to become connected. With The Art of the Network, McLean fills a gap in sociological scholarship by tracing the historical antecedents of networking and examining the concept of self that accompanies it. His analysis of patronage opens into a critique of contemporary theories about social networks and social capital, and an exploration of the sociological meaning of “culture.” McLean scrutinized thousands of letters to and from Renaissance Florentines. He describes the social protocols the letters reveal, paying particular attention to the means by which Florentines crafted credible presentations of themselves. The letters, McLean contends, testify to the development not only of new forms of self-presentation but also of a new kind of self to be presented: an emergent, “modern” conception of self as an autonomous agent. They also bring to the fore the importance that their writers attached to concepts of honor, and the ways that they perceived themselves in relation to the Florentine state.

This volume explores the state of American culture, offering fair and politically balanced strategies for cultural renewal and promoting cultural health in today's society.

The contributions in this volume provide an eclectic and therefore intriguing selection of ideas in Strategic Management. The integration of strategic perspectives exemplifies many of the most important issues facing strategic management today and in the immediate future. Strategic Renaissance and Business Transformation is concerned with building and maintaining bridges between theory and practice. On the research side it generates and tests theories related to business and management; and on the practitioner side it demonstrates how to learn, understand, and apply tested theories in practice.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award The unbelievable story of a secretive mathematician who pioneered the era of the algorithm--and made $23 billion doing it. Jim Simons is the greatest money maker in modern financial history. No other investor--Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Ray Dalio, Steve Cohen, or George Soros--can touch his record. Since 1988, Renaissance's signature Medallion fund has generated average annual returns of 66 percent. The firm has earned profits of more than $100 billion; Simons is worth twenty-three billion dollars. Drawing on unprecedented access to Simons and dozens of current and former employees, Zuckerman, a veteran Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, tells the gripping story of how a world-class mathematician and former code breaker mastered the market. Simons pioneered a data-driven, algorithmic approach that's sweeping the world. As Renaissance became a market force, its executives began influencing the world beyond finance. Simons became a major figure in scientific research, education, and liberal politics. Senior executive Robert Mercer is more responsible than anyone else for the Trump presidency, placing Steve Bannon in the campaign and funding Trump's victorious 2016 effort. Mercer also impacted the campaign behind Brexit. The Man Who Solved the Market is a portrait of a modern-day Midas who remade markets in his own image, but failed to anticipate how his success would impact his firm and his country. It's also a story of what Simons's revolution means for the rest of us.

A sideways look at books that sheds light on the activities of authors, printers, and readers during the English Renaissance

Analyzes the nature of international disagreements and conflict resolution in terms of game theory and non-zero-sum games.