Assembling Consumption: Researching Actors, Networks and Markets

Contemporary

The travel and tourism industry has for years had to pursue profits within a flexible, fast-moving, unrestricted environment. Recently, this activity has been characterized by a lack of formal objectives and monitoring systems and a tendency to seize each opportunity as it comes, without considering its long-term impact. In this book top executives from American Express, Sheraton Management Corporation, British Airways and other major travel and tourism companies seek to explain exactly why strategy is essential in today's fiercely competitive environment. Dealing with both 'pure strategy' (representing specific moves) and 'mixed strategy' (the art of deciding the general course a company should follow), the contributors demonstrate that structured and profitable growth requires well-defined direction, based on an analysis of the inherent strengths and weaknesses of the whole organization. This important book will be indispensable to all those studying or working in the travel and tourism industry as well as those concerned with strategic management more generally.

Bargaining and Markets

Easterling, Cynthia

Case Studies in Contracting and Organization is an edited collection of empirical studies from the transaction-cost economics literature on contracting and organization. Derived from the work of Ronald Coase, 1991 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Olive Williamson, and other transaction-cost economists, the studies explore such fundamental organizational issues as the role of reputation, the purpose and limitations of contracts, the nature and boundaries of the firm, and the evolution and role of hybrid organizational forms such as franchising, leasing, and joint ventures. Industries covered include aerospace, automotive, electric power generation, fast food, natural gas, ocean shipping, petroleum, coke refining, rail transportation, soft drink distribution, shoe manufacturing, and tuna processing. An introductory chapter provides an overview of transaction-cost reasoning and a summary of each study's contributions to our understanding of the problem of economic organization. The relatively nontechnical nature of the readings makes the book accessible to business and law students as well as advanced undergraduate and graduate students of economics.

Tinker, Irene