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The advent of the single currency was a momentous event that, as the euro-zone crisis has illustrated, entailed profound consequences for people across the Continent and beyond. The euro has become the currency in which individual citizens are paid and denotes the price of all goods, services and labour across the whole eurozone. Most academic social science literature either accepts that closer EU integration is desirable or, more usually given the political will of EU leaders, that it is inevitable. Therefore, economists, political scientists and sociologists frequently devote their research to the dynamics of the eurozone, the political institutions fostering ‘ever-closer union’ and the social implications of these momentous changes. However, whilst such detailed analyses generate important policy proposals, they tend by their weight to obscure the crucial strategic issue: Is the eurozone beneficial or not for the EU as a whole? The purpose of this chapter is to analyse this issue. More specifically, it seeks to evaluate the criteria that have been advanced by different authorities to assess whether or not membership in the single currency would prove beneficial.

The concept of strategy influences, either implicitly or explicitly, much management thinking and practice, and it tends to be informed by a particular view of what an organisation is. How this view is understood and applied has important implications for how we make sense of our experience as leaders and facilitators of strategic change.

A key stance adopted in this study is that strategic leader capability consists of both strategic thinking, and acting strategically.

The international tourist hotel industry in Taiwan has been receiving more attention in recent years. According to Tourism Bureau’s formal release, the average ratio of occupation in international tourist hotels dropped from 61.62 percent in 2002 to 57.43 percent in 2003. In such highly competitive circumstances, the problem of maintaining customer loyalty has become a critical and strategic issue for practitioners. Previous research advocated attracting, maintaining, and enhancing customer relationships in order to address a problem like this (cf. Berry, 1983). Recently, the focus has been put on a series of transactions which build an awareness of a shared relationship through trust and commitment, among other factors (Morgan and Hunt, 1994).

There will be no more important strategic issue for policymakers and investors to manage over the coming years than the continuing rise of China’s economic power. But this is no reason to see the Middle Kingdom as a major economic threat to the world. Fears about her threat have been exaggerated. Distorted views about her development have been blindly followed. China’s economic ascent is in fact not different from the experience of the other Asian economies. Low production costs will not enable China to take over the world economy, as some have naively asserted. In fact, cheap costs — the most feared competitive edge of China — will not get China ahead in the long run. It could even hinder her development. Further, China’s economic reform has produced lower efficiency than has been hyped so that production cost is not really that cheap as many have feared.

Most academic social science literature either accepts that closer European Union (EU) integration is desirable, or more usually, given the political will of EU leaders that it is inevitable. Therefore economists, political scientists and sociologists frequently devote their research to the dynamics of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), the political institutions fostering ‘ever closer union’ and the social implications of these momentous changes. However, whilst such detailed analyses generate important policy proposals, they tend by their weight to smother the crucial strategic issue: is EMU beneficial or not, for the EU as a whole? The purpose of this chapter is to analyse this issue. More specifically, it seeks to evaluate the criteria which have been advanced by different authorities to assess whether or not membership of the single currency would prove beneficial.

Decision-making involves choosing between alternative courses of action, while planning involves goal setting, information collection, idea generation, evaluation and preparation for implementation, as shown in Table 8.1. The process of planning is usually synonymous with that of decision-making.

THE year 1993 was very noteworthy for IBM. It was the first time in the approximate 75-year history of IBM that we brought in an outside Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Lou Gerstner was appointed the head of IBM, as CEO, and he came to us from RJR Nabisco. In addition, he brought in a few members of his senior team, and this was another very significant change in IBM. Up to that time, all promotions were from within and you can imagine the shock waves that reverberated through the system. It was about the time when Lou Gerstner came in that I joined executive development and was asked to head up the Global Executive Development Programme. The first year that we started to map out the programmes, the new head of Human Resources, Gerry Czarnecki, put a stop to all current programmes that had been going on for a year. We were allowed to re-examine everything that was happening in order to come up with an entirely new design. That in effect was quite a monumental thing for IBM, to bring everything to a halt and reconsider all our programmes.

Notwithstanding V. S. Naipaul’s widely quoted statement that ‘Africa has no future,2 Africanist scholars are still committed to identifying and advancing possible futures for the continent. In short, it is not true that Africa has no future. Admittedly, the prophecy that Africa has no future must have been inferred from the continent’s poor performance in economic and political matters. But that itself stems from Africa’s inheritance and is not immutable.