An inside look at cultural industries, featuring interviews with key players from such companies as Twentiety-Century Fox, National Public Radio, and Coca-Cola. To what extent do moviemakers, television and radio producers, advertising executives, and marketers merely reflect trends, beliefs, and desires that already exist in our culture, and to what extent do they consciously shape our culture to their own ends? In-depth interviews with ten executives from the "culture industry" and five scholarly analyses examine that question, and address the issues of power and authority, meaning and identity, that arise when cultural producers define and react to audiences. In their own words, leaders from companies like Twentieth-Century Fox, National Public Radio, and Warner Bros. Television describe their perception of the sometimes paradoxical relationship between culture and what influences it. For example, while the former president of Coca-Cola North America claims the company has never tried to create a trend, he notes that "we market in more countries than belong to the United Nations [a product that] has insinuated itself into the lives of the people to a point where it has become-you know, it's there." These reflections by key players provide an unprecedented view, as editor Richard Ohmann writes, "into the ways cultural producers imagine or know markets and how such knowledge figures in their decisions about what events, experiences, and products to make."

Surveys the new practices of advertising, mass distribution of goods, and the birth of the inexpensive mass-audience magazine at the end of the 19th century, and their role in the creation of the American professional-managerial class. Focuses on magazine publishing, careers of key personalities in the publishing world, and the role of fiction in the magazines. For students and general readers. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

An inside look at cultural industries, featuring interviews with key players from such companies as Twentiety-Century Fox, National Public Radio, and Coca-Cola.

Want to reach out to multicultural customers? Cross-Cultural Selling For Dummies is packed with everything you need to know to tap into multicultural markets, from establishing solid relationships to adapting your advertising to meeting the needs of your new clientele. You’ll acquire key cross-cultural skills and build a coordinated effort that engages all aspects of your business. This practical, easy-to-understand guide shows you how to measure the purchasing power of other cultures and change the way you market to them. You’ll learn how to do multicultural research, develop a marketing campaign with wide appeal, pick the right media, tune your materials to the market, and establish a presence in the community. You’ll find tips on identifying generational differences with in a culture, pronouncing names correctly, and determining customer motivation. Discover how to: Reach out to multicultural customers Develop strong relationships Adapt your sales presentations and techniques Clear language barriers Boost your street cred Present appealing financing options Create a foundation for long-term success Handle negotiations with skilled hagglers Recognize and overcome objections Adopt techniques to close the sale Create a strong referral base Avoid cultural conflicts Maintain a diverse sales team You can realize the incredible untapped potential of the multicultural market to send your sales soaring and your profits off the charts. Cross-Cultural Selling For Dummies shows you how!

Whether you are an accomplished sales executive leading a large organization or a sales manager leading a team, your ability to remove obstacles and speed the sales process will determine your success. High-Performance Selling is geared for the sales leader who has to persuade others to work as a sales force of one. Written in a straightforward fashion by veteran sales management consultant Anthony Chaine, this book shows you how to: - lead sales organizations- build solid sales operation- improve cross-functional team cooperation- build better hiring and recruiting systems- develop a sales culture that drives performance- empowers your sales managers to create winning teams"I have worked with Anthony, and I can say firsthand, his leadership style has had a profound impact on every level of our organization. His approach is profoundly visionary and hugely influential. I highly recommend Anthony, his approach, and his book."-Antonio Casanova, CEO of NOVAPAY"World-class selling is about aiding customers to make better choices. Anthony's inspiring stories and honest advice provides insight that sales leaders at every level can use to their benefit. High-Performance Selling is a thought-provoking, good read on an important subject."-Tom Howard, Managing Director TM Cards Networks"Your success as a leader is as good the success of your sales teams. Anthony shows you how to make the right decisions to lead your sales organization towards peak performances while eliminating bottlenecks to keep your sales organization moving toward significance."-Brian Luc, Vice President of Business OperationsAnthony Chaine is an expert in sales management and leadership. He has won multiple awards as a quota carrying sales leader, trainer, and instructor. He is the founder and the CEO of Elite Sales Leadership Consulting LLC. He specialized in management and sales training. Visit asalesleader.com for tools and resources as well as information on your seminars and coaching programs.

The contribution of culture to organizational performance is substantial and quantifiable. In The Culture Cycle, renowned thought leader James Heskett demonstrates how an effective culture can account for 20-30% of the differential in performance compared with "culturally unremarkable" competitors. Drawing on decades of field research and dozens of case studies, Heskett introduces a powerful conceptual framework for managing culture, and shows it at work in a real-world setting. Heskett's "culture cycle" identifies cause-and-effect relationships that are crucial to shaping effective cultures, and demonstrates how to calculate culture's economic value through "Four Rs": referrals, retention, returns to labor, and relationships. This book: Explains how culture evolves, can be shaped and sustained, and serve as the organization's "internal brand." Shows how culture can promote innovation and survival in tough times. Guides leaders in linking culture to strategy and managing forces that challenge it. Shows how to credibly quantify culture's impact on performance, productivity, and profits. Clarifies culture's unique role in mission-driven organizations. A follow-up to the classic Corporate Culture and Performance (authored by Heskett and John Kotter), this is the next indispensable book on organizational culture. "Heskett (emer., Harvard Business School) provides an exhaustive examination of corporate policies, practices, and behaviors in organizations." Summing Up: Recommended. Reprinted with permission from CHOICE, copyright by the American Library Association.

The First Management Classic of the New Millennium! A bold experiment is taking place these days, as leading-edge companies turn upside down the management paradigm that has dominated corporate thinking for more than one hundred years. Southwest Airlines is perhaps the most visible practitioner, soaring through economic downturns while its competitors slash their budgets and order massive layoffs, but you can find other pioneers of the new approach in almost every industry and market niche. Their secret: a culture of ownership that allows them to tap into the most underutilized resource in business today–namely, the enthusiasm, intelligence, and creativity of working people everywhere. No one knows more about building a culture of ownership than CEO Jack Stack, who’s been working on one for the past twenty years with his colleagues at SRC Holdings Corporation (formerly Springfield ReManufacturing Corporation). Along the way, they’ve turned their company into what Business Week has called a “management Mecca,” attracting thousands of people representing hundreds of businesses to SRC’s home in Springfield, Missouri. There the visitors learn how to incorporate the ideals and values of SRC’s remarkable corporate culture into their own organizations–and then they go back and do it. Now, in A Stake in the Outcome, Stack offers a master class on creating a culture of ownership, presenting the hard-won lessons of his own twenty-year journey and explaining what it really takes to build for long-term success. The pioneer of “open-book management” (described in the best-selling classic The Great Game of Business), Stack and twelve other managers began their journey in 1982, when they purchased their factory from its struggling parent company. SRC grew 15 percent a year, while adding almost a thousand new jobs, and the company’s stock price rocketed from 10 cents to $81.60 per share. In the process, Stack discovered that long-term success required constant innovation–and that building a culture of ownership involved much more than paying bonuses, handing out stock options, or setting up an employee stock ownership plan. In a successful ownership culture, every employee had to take the fate of the company as personally as an individual owner would. Achieving that level of commitment was extraordinarily difficult, but Stack realized that the payoff would be enormous: a company that was consistently able to outperform the market. A Stake in the Outcome isn’t about theory–it’s about practice. Stack draws from his own successes and failures at SRC to show how any company can teach its employees to think and act like owners, including how to implement an effective equity-sharing program, how to promote continuous learning at every level of the organization, how to fire up employees’ competitive juices, how to broaden the concept of leadership and delegate responsibility for the business, and how to build a workforce that is fast on its feet and ready to take advantage of every opportunity. You’ll also learn about other companies that have succeeded in building cultures of ownership–and the lessons they can teach the rest of us. Written in Jack Stack’s straightforward, witty, no-beating-around-the-bush style, A Stake in the Outcome is like having a one-on-one session with a master entrepreneur and business innovator. It shows managers and executives of companies both large and small how to build a ferociously motivated workforce that is energized and committed to meeting and overcoming the most daunting challenges a company can face.

Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, co-authors of the New York Times business bestseller Raving Fans, are back with Gung Ho! Here is an invaluable management tool that outlines foolproof ways to increase productivity by fostering excellent morale in the workplace. It is a must-read for everyone who wants to stay on top in today's ultra-competitive business world. Raving Fans taught managers how to turn customers into full-fledged fans. Now, Gung Ho! brings the same magic to employees. Through the inspirational story of business leaders Peggy Sinclair and Andy Longclaw, Blanchard and Bowles reveal the secret of Gung Ho--a revolutionary technique to boost enthusiasm and performance and usher in astonishing results for any organization. The three principles of Gung Ho are: The Spirit of the Squirrel The Way of the Beaver The Gift of the Goose These three cornerstones of Gung Ho are surprisingly simple and yet amazingly powerful. Whether your organization consists of one or is listed in the Fortune 500, this book ensures Gung Ho employees committed to success. Gung Ho! also includes a clear game plan with a step-by-step outline for instituting these groundbreaking ideas. Destined to become a classic, Gung Ho! is a rare and wonderful business book that is packed with invaluable information as well as a compelling, page-turning story. Management legend Ken Blanchard and master entrepreneur Sheldon Bowles are back with Gung Ho!, revealing a surefire way to boost employee enthusiasm, productivity, and performance and usher in astonishing results for any organization. Raving Fans brilliantly schooled managers on how to turn customers into raving fans. Gung Ho! now brings the same magic to employees. Here is the story of how two managers saved a failing company and turned in record profits with record productivity. The three core ideas of Gung Ho! are surprisingly simple: worthwhile work guided by goals and values; putting workers in control of their production; and cheering one another on. Their principles are so powerful that business leaders, reviewing the manuscript for Ken and Sheldon, have written to say, "Sorry. Ignored instructions. Have photocopied for everyone. I promise to buy books, but can't wait. We need now!" Like Raving Fans, Gung Ho! delivers.

This work tackles the question of how to create a corporate culture that matches the new.com business strategy. It provides a practical roadmap of strategies to shift an organization's culture from a liability to a competitive advantage in the .com world.