The Secrets of CEOs : 150 global chief executives lift the lid on business, life and leadership [book]

Authors: Steve Tappin & Andrew Cave

CEOs including James Murdoch, Terry Leahy (Tesco), Leigh Clifford (Rio Tinto) and Nikesh Arora (Google), give insight into how to become a successful leader, while still having a happy personal life. They also explore how to tackle the major challenges of the coming decade: globalisation, sustainability, the credit crunch, attracting talented employees and the third wave of the web.

The Global Competitiveness Report [online]

Author: World Economic Forum

"The Report is a contribution to enhancing our understanding of the key factors determining economic growth, and explaining why some countries are much more successful than others in raising income levels and opportunities for their respective populations, offering policymakers and business leaders an important tool in the formulation of improved economic policies and institutional reforms. ... [the report] contains a detailed profile for each of the economies featured in the study as well as an extensive section of data tables with global rankings covering over 100 indicators."

Performance benchmarking of Australian business regulation : cost of business registrations [book]

Author: Australia. Productivity Commission

"Estimates the compliance cost to businesses of obtaining a range of generic and industry-specific registrations required by the Australian Government, and state, territory, and selected local governments." - key points.

Balanced national development policy in Korea : theory and practice [book]

Author: Korea. Presidential Committee on Balanced National Development

Outlines how South Korea's change in economic policy has resulted in a knowledge-based economy where innovation and economic growth occurs in regional areas, and not just in metropolitan areas.

The State of Industrial Relations
Source: The Evatt Foundation
(This is from the introduction to the bnook, which is available in the library)
"The words that open this collection by Sidney and Beatrice Webb are suggestive of the context within which the work has been produced in several ways. In the first place, the Webbs remind us that the origins of the recent political struggle over the direction of the nation's industrial relations are very old. Although the debate was pursued in many terms, seen in the long view, at its heart, WorkChoices was another round in the age-old bid by employers to privilege individual over collective bargaining. What people usually mean by 'freedom of choice' in such contexts, the Webbs pointed out in 1894, 'is freedom of opportunity to use the power that they happen to possess; that is, to compel other less powerful people to accept their terms.' As they concluded, 'this sort of personal freedom in a community composed of unequal units is not distinguishable from compulsion.'"

Steady hands needed : reflections on the role of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Australia 1979-1999 [book]

Edited by: Trevor Wilson & Graham Cooke

"Five former secretaries of the Dept of Foreign Affairs and Trade reflect on their experiences and the challenges of their times. ... From the Cold War to the War on Terror; from the floating of the dollar to GATT and the WTO; managing relations big and small, within our region and without; through relentless administrative reforms, technological change and changes of government; steering DFAT requires 'steady hands'." - cover.

Latin America in the global economy : challenges and opportunities [book]

Author: Vittorio Corbo, Australia. Productivity Commission

Considers the recent history of economic and trade policy in Latin American countries and challenges that need to be faced which include education, the quality of the business environment, and the adoption of new technologies.

Promoting change through research and evidence-informed practice: a Knowledge Transfer Partnership project between a university and a local authority (journal article)
by Jess McEwen et al.
from Evidence and Policy, Vol 4 No 4, November 2008, pp. 391-403
This article reports on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership project between a local authority and a university, the aim of which is to encourage a culture of evidence-informed practice and continual improvement across the local authority's Family Services Directorate as part of its performance management framework and to ensure that the Research Governance Framework for Health and Social Care (DH, 2001) is fully implemented. The article describes the successful completion of some of the key stages of the project, including developing and implementing an improvement strategy aimed at increasing levels of engagement with research and evidence-informed approaches to practice.

Funding the practice of learning: exploring the relationship between funders and grant recipients (journal article)
by Sheila March et al.
from Evidence and Policy, Vol 4, No 4, November 2008, pp. 293-310
This article reviews the King's Fund's efforts to establish shared priorities for learning with grant applicants, to improve Londoners' health through community-level projects. The Fund used partnership working for its Partners for Health grant programme, an innovative framework contrasting with the typical, more narrow and limited, model for funding relationships. The related focus on learning required robust evaluation plans from grant applicants, based on the 'realistic evaluation' approach. This shift to grant-aid relationships based on partnership and learning produced varied reactions, and raises far-reaching issues about the challenges presented by partnership that feed into broader debates about the place of partnership in public services.

Economic and regulatory reforms in Europe : past experiences and future challenges [book]

Author: Patrick Messerlin, Australia. Productivity Commission

Looks at the past three decades of trade regulation reform in Europe, particularly regarding goods and services, and the lessons that can be learned.

The Training Manager as a Change Agent (journal article)
by Deborah Wainwright
from Training Journal, December 2008 p.56 -
The author encourages training managers to keep the faith when introducing new initiatives.
"There is much written on change, but little deals with what it feels like to be a change agent."
Please contact the library for a copy of this article.

From Australian Emissions Trading Scheme to Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (journal article)
by Elisa de Wit and Rachael Webb
from National Environmental Law Review, 2008-2
The government views the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme as the key mechanism to achieve substantial emissions reduction "in a responsible and flexible manner and a t the lowest possible cost". This article summarises the key design elements of the proposed scheme.
Please contact the library for a copy of this article

Top Ten Tips for going green (journal article)
From Industry Magazine. Australian Industry Group.
Go to page 26 for a list of ten ways in which employers can make their workplaces more environmentally friendly.

Executing income tax [book]

Author: Graeme S. Cooper, Australian Tax Research Foundation

Chapters include: Sources of complexity in the income tax - culprits real and imagined, Consultation in business tax reform - towards an effective tax policy network and The spectrum of drafting - from black letter to coherent principles.

You can see a lot by just looking : understanding human judgement in financial decision-making [book]

Author: Ian McAuley, Centre for Policy Development

Demonstrates the reasons why 'rational' people frequently make 'irrational' financial decisions, and makes some suggestions about how to 'de-bias' consumers.

The Global competition for talent : mobility of the highly skilled [online]

Author: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

"Draws on analytical literature, the most recent data available and the very valuable policy inventories and evaluations undertaken by some member and observer countries in order to discuss the dimensions, significance and policy implications of international flows of human resources in science and technology (HRST)." - foreword.

Understanding economic statistics : an OECD perspective [online]

Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

"The aim of this book is to help the reader to better understand how to use economic statistics in general and OECD statistics in particular. It introduces the main concepts used by statisticians and economists to measure economic phenomena and provides tables and charts with relevant data." - cover.

10 PowerPoint presentation turnoffs (journal article)
by Leslie Allan
from Training and Development in Australia, December 2008, pp. 31-32
Here are my ten most annoying turnoffs that we should all avoid in our presentations and waht we can do to lift our performance.
Please contact the library for a copy of this article.

Feeling lucky: what drives economic optimism? (journal article)
by Gideon Haigh
from The Monthly, Dec 2008 - Jan 2009, pp. 42 - 49
...There is a way of scrutinising the economic tribulations of the past year, one in which hope - security in the present and the belief in a better tomorrow - is actually a dimension of the problem, rather than a key to its solution. What might be changing is the view of homo economicus as a rational, profit-maximising actor, replaced by the vision of a guileless optimist oblivious to his or her ignorance.
Contact the library for a copy of this article.

Australia and the European superpower : engaging with the European Union [book]

Author: Philomena Murray

"Lively examination of Australia's relationship with the increasingly powerful EU ... provides a fresh and comprehensive perspective on politics and trade, old security and new security. Critically assesses how engagement between the EU and Australia has developed over the past few decades - from narrow concerns with agricultural trade to the newer challenges of terrorism." - cover.

Ten new gurus you should know (journal article)
By: Reingold, Jennifer; Tkaczyk, Christopher.
From: Fortune, 11/24/2008, Vol. 158 No. 10, pp. 151-158,
This article lists a number of business scholars who many businesspeople think should be known for their expertise in leadership. The work of innovative businesspeople including computer technology developer B. J. Fogg, business professor Rakesh Khurana from Harvard Business School, and Valerie Casey from the design company IDEO is described.;

Leadership from the inside out : becoming a leader for life [book]

Author: Kevin Cashman

"Serves as an integrated coaching experience that helps leaders understand how to harness their authentic, value-creating influence and elevate their impact as individuals, in teams, and in organizations." - cover.

The Effortless empire : the time-poor professional's guide to building wealth from property [book]
Author: Chris Gray

How to leverage your salary & your equity to achieve financial independence through property.

This book illustrates:
* Why property is such as good way to build & hold wealth
* The portfolio approach to property investment
* The numbers, and why most people get them wrong
* The best way to make money is to spend money - wisely
* How to start your own empire - effortlessly.

Coordination and transformation in business processes: towards an integrated view (journal article)
By Göran Goldkuhl and Mikael Lind
from Business Process Management Journal Vol 14 Iss 6 2008, pp. 761-777
"The purpose of this paper is to contrast two views, a transformative and a coordinative view, on business process management (BPM) in order to propose an integrated view. "

Regional Unemployment Disparities: An Evaluation of Policy Measures (journal article)
By N Groenewold and A J Hagger
from Australian Economic Papers Vol 47 Iss 4 2008, pp. 355- 375
"This paper analyses the efficacy of regional and federal government policies in reducing inter-regional unemployment disparities. We use as our framework a two-region general equilibrium model with a given freely-mobile supply of labour. We assume inter-regional migration to occur in response to inter-regional utility differentials. Each region has households, firms and a regional government. In addition to regional governments, there is a federal government. The firms in a region use a single factor, labour, to produce a single good which we assume to be different to that produced in the other region. It is supplied to households and to the regional government in the form of payroll taxes. Households consume some, trade some with households in the other region and give some up to the federal government as income tax. Firms and households bargain over wages and firms then choose employment to maximise profits. The resulting equilibrium will generally not be a full-employment one.
We simulate a linearised numerical version of the model. We examine seven alternative policies, six carried out by a regional government and one by the federal government. In the first group there are traditional tax/expenditure polices as well as policies which might be seen as attacking the natural rate of unemployment: changes in unemployment benefits, changes in union power, changes in the labour force and changes in labour productivity. The federal government policy is a regionally-differentiated fiscal policy.
Contrary to expectations, many policies which have traditionally been recommended to alleviate unemployment are found, in fact, to exacerbate the unemployment problem."

An Assessment of the House of Lords Report on the Economic Impact of Immigration to the United Kingdom (journal article)
By Chris F Wright
from People and Place Vol 16 No 3 2008, pp. 35 - 46
"Since the mid 1990's economic immigration policy in the United Kingdom has been transformed from being one of the most restrictive in Europe to being among the most open-ended. This shift has coincided with increasing public dissatisfaction with immigration policy. In April 2008 the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs published a report on immigration's economic effects. It found - contrary to the assertions of the Labour Government - that recent immigration flows have not produced significant economic benefits. Despite the unequivocal and rather damning conclusions of the report, it is unlikely to produce any major shift in government policy."
Contact the Library to request this article.

Better, Faster Decisions (journal article)
By Ken Hudson
from Management Today Nov/Dec 2008, pp. 26 - 28
"The ideal of lengthy, considered and purely rational decision making is not only unattainable but unworkable, says Dr Ken Hudson. You've got to keep the emotion in."

Reality Bites (journal article)
By Bina Brown
from Management Today Nov Dec 2008, pp. 16 - 21
"If a booming economy presented myriad challenges for Australia's managers, then the subsequent global economic turmoil is hardly going to be the time to look for a reprieve. Looking ahead to the top challenges that managers can expect to face in 2009 - whether it be the state of the economy, the importance of strong leadership or the ongoing skills shortage - the issues are intertwined, making it virtually impossible to consider one without the other. With that in mind and in no particular order, Management Today takes a look at the top 10 issues to watch out for next year, what you can expect and what you can do to be ready."