Help your patrons create effective marketing research plans with this sourcebook! Marketing Information: A Strategic Guide for Business and Finance Libraries identifies and describes secondary published sources of information for typical marketing questions and research projects. Experts in the field offer a guided tour of the signposts and landmarks in the world of marketing information—highlighting the most important features. This extensive guide serves as a strategic bibliography, covering over 200 printed books and serials, subscription databases, and free Web sites. Marketing Information contains several useful features, including: basic bibliographic descriptions with publisher location, frequency, format, price, and URL contact information for each source listed special text boxes with practical tips, techniques, and short cuts an alphabetical listing of all source titles an index to subjects and sources Unlike some research guides that recommend only esoteric and expensive resources, this book offers a well-balanced mix of the 'readily available' and the costly and/or not widely available, so that researchers who lack immediate access to a large university business research collection still has a core of accessible materials that can be found in a public library or on the Web. This book will help you provide top-notch service to clients such as: marketing instructors in developing assignments and other curricula which incorporate a business information literacy component students whose assignments require library or other research to identify and use key marketing information tools entrepreneurs and self-employed business people writing marketing plans, business plans, loan applications, and feasibility plans marketers who wish to consult and/or incorporate standard secondary sources in their marketing plans or research projects experienced market researchers who need relevant secondary sources as a preliminary step to surveys, questionnaires, and focus groups reference librarians who advise these groups in academic, public, or corporate library settings collection development librarians selecting material for public, academic, and special libraries Marketing Information is a practical tool for marketers and for those studying to be marketers. The authors are seasoned academic business librarians who have helped doctoral candidates, faculty researchers, MBA and undergraduate students, marketing professionals, entrepreneurs, and business managers all find the right information. Now, in this resource, they come together to help you!

Aligning with recent news stories on difficult economic times, the authors target libraries endeavoring to assist users entering or already involved in the small business community. Small Business and the Public Library will help you reach out to this group of patrons with innovative programming ideas; easy to translate suggestions into day-to-day operations; and suggestions to helping clients become business literate on the Web, on paper, and out in the world of work. Whether patrons need resources to start their own business, search for a new job, or locate demographic statistics to help them market their existing product, this resource will help you answer questions and meet their needs.

Reviews of the literature on historical and theoretical developments of technology and economic growth including productivity measures, technical knowledge, technological spillovers and stock market reactions to technology investment.

With acquisition activity running into the trillions of dollars, it continues to be a favorite for corporate growth strategy, but creating shareholder value remains the most elusive outcome of these corporate strategies—after decades of research and billions of dollars paid in advisory fees, why do these major decisions continue to destroy value? Building on his groundbreaking research first cited in Business Week, Mark L. Sirower explains how companies often pay too much—and predictably never realize the promises of increased performance and competitiveness—in their quest to acquire other companies. Armed with extensive evidence, Sirower destroys the popular notion that the acquisition premium represents potential value. He provides the first formal and functional definition for synergy -- the specific increases in performance beyond those already expected for companies to achieve independently. Sirower's refreshing nuts-and-bolts analysis of the fundamentals behind acquisition performance cuts sharply through the existing folklore surrounding failed acquisitions, such as lack of "strategic fit" or corporate culture problems, and gives managers the tools to avoid predictable losses in acquisition decisions. Using several detailed examples of recent major acquisitions and through his masterful integration and extension of techniques from finance and business strategy, Sirower reveals: -The unique business gamble that acquisitions represent -The managerial challenges already embedded in current stock prices -The competitive conditions that must be met and the organizational cornerstones that must be in place for any possibility of synergy -The precise Required Performance Improvements (RPIs) implicitly embedded in acquisition premiums and the reasons why these RPIs normally dwarf realistic performance gains -The seductiveness and danger of sophisticated valuation models so often used by advisers The Synergy Trap is the first exposé of its kind to prove that the tendency of managers to succumb to the "up the ante" philosophy in acquisitions often leads to disastrous ends for their shareholders. Sirower shows that companies must meticulously plan—and account for huge uncertainties—before deciding to enter the acquisition game. To date, Sirower's work is the most comprehensive and rigorous, yet practical, analysis of the drivers of acquisition performance. This definitive book will become required reading for managers, corporate directors, consultants, investors, bankers, and academics involved in the mergers and acquisitions arena.

"Every CEO and Corporate Director who has been in the path of the 'WOW! GRAB IT!' acquisition locomotive should read this book!" -- Charles R. Shoemate, Chairman and CEO, Bestfoods With global acquisition activity running into the trillions of dollars, the acquisition alternative continues to be the favorite corporate growth strategy of this generation's executives. Unfortunately, creating shareholder value remains the most elusive outcome of these corporate strategies. After decades of research and billions of dollars paid in advisory fees, why do these major decisions continue to destroy value? Building on his groundbreaking research first cited in Business Week, Mark L. Sirower explains how companies often pay too much -- and predictably never realize the promises of increased performance and competitiveness -- in their quest to acquire other companies. Armed with extensive evidence, Sirower destroys the popular notion that the acquisition premium represents potential value. He provides the first formal and functional definition for synergy -- the specific increases in performance beyond those already expected for companies to achieve independently. Sirower's refreshing nuts-and-bolts analysis of the fundamentals behind acquisition performance cuts sharply through the existing folklore surrounding failed acquisitions, such as lack of "strategic fit" or corporate culture problems, and gives managers the tools to avoid predictable losses in acquisition decisions. Using several detailed examples of recent major acquisitions and through his masterful integration and extension of techniques from finance and business strategy, Sirower reveals: The unique business gamble that acquisitions represent The managerial challenges already embedded in current stock prices The competitive conditions that must be met and the organizational cornerstones that must be in place for any possibility of synergy The precise Required Performance Improvements (RPIs) implicitly embedded in acquisition premiums and the reasons why these RPIs normally dwarf realistic performance gains The seductiveness and danger of sophisticated valuation models so often used by advisors The Synergy Trap is the first expose of its kind to prove that the tendency of managers to succumb to the "up the ante" philosophy in acquisitions often leads to disastrous ends for their shareholders. Sirower shows that companies must meticulously plan -- and account for huge uncertainties -- before deciding to enter the acquisition game. To date, Sirower's work is the most comprehensive and rigorous, yet practical, analysis of the drivers of acquisition performance. This definitive book will become required reading for managers, corporate directors, consultants, investors, bankers, and academics involved in the mergers and acquisitions arena.