This text is a comprehensive introduction to the vital subject of American government and politics. Governments decide who gets what, when, how (See Harold D. Lasswell, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How, [New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936]); they make policies and pass laws that are binding on all a society’s members; they decide about taxation and spending, benefits and costs, even life and death.Governments possess power—the ability to gain compliance and to get people under their jurisdiction to obey them—and they may exercise their power by using the police and military to enforce their decisions. However, power need not involve the exercise of force or compulsion; people often obey because they think it is in their interest to do so, they have no reason to disobey, or they fear punishment. Above all, people obey their government because it has authority; its power is seen by people as rightfully held, as legitimate. People can grant their government legitimacy because they have been socialized to do so; because there are processes, such as elections, that enable them to choose and change their rulers; and because they believe that their governing institutions operate justly.Politics is the process by which leaders are selected and policy decisions are made and executed. It involves people and groups, both inside and outside of government, engaged in deliberation and debate, disagreement and conflict, cooperation and consensus, and power struggles.In covering American government and politics, this text introduces the intricacies of the Constitution, the complexities of federalism, the meanings of civil liberties, and the conflicts over civil rights;explains how people are socialized to politics, acquire and express opinions, and participate in political life; describes interest groups, political parties, and elections—the intermediaries that link people to government and politics; details the branches of government and how they operate; and shows how policies are made and affect people’s lives.

This book is suited for Business Writing, Business English or Business Research/Report Writing courses.Basics of Written Business Communication presents basic business communication concepts, vocabulary, models, and exercises in a clear, practical, and engaging way. The author provides a set of core chapters intended to provide a highly focused introduction to the field. Then, he provides an optional series of modules that provide instructors with complete flexibility to emphasize additional topics of their choice.

The Changing Story gives you assignments, resources, and examples to use in your teaching and learning. It will also help you think of ways digital stories can be used in your teaching, and help students harness the power of visual storytelling.

College Success takes a fresh look at what it means, in today’s world, with today’s students, to be successful in college.Although many of the topics included—from study skills to personal health, from test-taking to managing time and money—will look familiar to those who have used student success texts that have been around for many editions, College Success takes a new approach. The focus is on realistic, practical tools for the students who need them. This is a book designed, frankly, for students who may have difficulty with traditional college texts. The style is direct and to the point. Information is presented concisely and as simply as possible. This is not a weighty tome that discusses student success—this is a manual for doing it.College student demographics have changed considerably in recent decades. More than a third of all students enroll not directly from high school but after a delay of some years. More students are working and have families. More students come from varied ethnic and cultural backgrounds. More students are the first in their family to attend college. More students have grown up with electronic media and now read and think in ways different from the previous generation. With these and so many other cultural changes, more students are not well prepared for a college education with the study skills and life skills they need to become successful students.For each student to get the most out of College Success and their college experience they must understand who they are as it relates to college. To that end, in every chapter students explore themselves, because success starts with recognizing your own strengths and weaknesses. Students make their own goals based on this self-assessment, determining what success in college really means for them as individuals. Interactive activities then help students learn the choices available to them and the possibilities for improving their skills. Skills are presented in step-by-step processes, tips for success in manageable highlighted displays. Most important, students always see the value of what they are reading—and how they can begin to apply it immediately in their own lives.College Success is intended for use in Freshmen Orientation, Study Skills or Student Success courses. A 2009 study revealed that currently nationwide, 34% of college freshmen do not return to their college for their sophomore year. This book is designed to help change that.

Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies overviews the time-tested conceptual foundations of the field, while incorporating the latest research and cutting-edge applications of these basics. Each chapter will include timely, concrete, and real-life examples of communication concepts in action. A key feature of this book is the integration of content regarding diversity and organizational communication in each chapter through examples and/or discrete sub-sections. Discussions of diversity are not relegated to feature boxes. Also integrated into the content are examples that are inclusive in terms of race, gender, sexuality, ability, age, marital status, religion, and other diverse identity characteristics.

The author's goals in writing Exploring Business were simple: (1) introduce students to business in an exciting way and (2) provide faculty with a fully developed teaching package that allows them to do the former. Toward those ends, the following features are included in this text:1- Integrated (Optional) Nike Case Study: A Nike case study is available for instructors who wish to introduce students to business using an exciting and integrated case. Through an in-depth study of a real company, students learn about the functional areas of business and how these areas fit together. Studying a dynamic organization on a real-time basis allows students to discover the challenges that it faces, and exposes them to critical issues affecting the business, such as globalization, ethics and social responsibility, product innovation, diversity, supply chain management, and e-business.2- A Progressive (Optional) Business Plan: Having students develop a business plan in the course introduces students to the excitement and challenges of starting a business and helps them discover how the functional areas of business interact. This textbook package includes an optionalintegrated business plan project modeled after one refined by the author and her teaching team over the past ten years.3- AACSB Emphasis: The text provides end-of-chapter questions, problems, and cases that ask students to do more than regurgitate information. Most require students to gather information, assess a situation, think about it critically, and reach a conclusion. Each chapter presents ten Questions and Problems as well as five cases on areas of skill and knowledge endorsed by AACSB: Learning on the Web, Career Opportunities, The Ethics Angle, Team-Building Skills, and The Global View. More than 70% of end-of-chapter items help students build skills in areas designated as critical by AACSB, including analytical skills, ethical awareness and reasoning abilities, multicultural understanding and globalization, use of information technology, and communications and team oriented skills. Each AACSB inspired exercise is identified by an AACSB tag and a note indicating the relevant skill area.4- Author-Written Instructor Manual (IM): For the past eleven years, Karen Collins has been developing, coordinating and teaching (to over 3,500 students) an Introduction to Business course. Sections of the course have been taught by a mix of permanent faculty, graduate students, and adjuncts.

This book is suitable for an undergraduate or MBA level Financial Accounting course.

The authors bring their collective teaching wisdom to bear in this book not by changing "the message"(financial accounting content), but by changing "the messenger" (the way the content is presented). The approach centers around utilizing the Socratic method, or simply put, asking and answering questions. The reason that this approach continues to be glorified after thousands of years is simple - it engages students and stresses understanding over memorization. So this text covers standard topics in a standard sequence, but does so through asking a carefully constructed series of questions along with their individual answers.

Human Resource Management by Laura Portolese Dias teaches HRM strategies and theories that any managerŃnot just those in HRŃneeds to know about recruiting, selecting, training, and compensating people.Most students will be managing people at some point in their careers and not necessarily in a human resource management capacity. As businesses cut back, they may outsource HR duties to outside vendors. Or, in smaller businesses, the HR department is sometimes small or non-existent, and managers from other departments have to perform their own HRM. Therefore, teaching HRM from the perspective of a general manager, in addition to an HR manager, provides more relevance to studentsŐ careers and will give them a competitive advantage in the workplace.

Immigrant and Refugee Families: Global Perspectives on Displacement and Resettlement Experiences uses a family systems lens to discuss challenges and strengths of immigrant and refugee families in the United States. Chapters address immigration policy, human rights issues, economic stress, mental health and traumatic stress, domestic violence, substance abuse, family resilience, and methods of integration.

The definitive text for the information search and evaluation process as practiced by news and strategic communication message producers. Currently used at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication; JOUR 3004W/V, Information for Mass Communication.

Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Technology V1.2 is intended for use in undergraduate and/or graduate courses in Management Information Systems and Information Technology.Version 1.2 of John's book retains the same structure and theory of version 1.1, but refreshes key statistics, examples, and brings case material up to date (vital when covering firms that move as fast as Facebook, Google, and Netflix). Adopting version 1.2 guarantees your students will have the most current text on the market, drawing real and applicable lessons from material that will keep your class offerings current and accessible.One of BusinessWeek’s "Professors of the Year", John Gallaugher of Boston College, brings you a brand new Management Information Systems textbook that teaches students how he or she will experience IS from a Managers perspective first hand through interesting coverage and bleeding-edge cases.Get involved with John's community by visiting and subscribing to his blog, The Week In Geek, where courseware, technology and strategy intersect and joining his Ning IT Community site where you can get more resources to teach Information Systems.Shockingly, at a time when technology regularly appears on the cover of every major business publication, students find IS among the least appealing of management disciplines.The teaching approach in Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Technology V 1.2 can change this. The text offers a proven approach that has garnered student praise, increased IS enrollment, and engaged students to think deeper and more practically about the space where business and technology meet. Every topic is related to specific business examples, so students gain an immediate appreciation of its importance. Rather than lead with technical topics, the book starts with strategic thinking, focusing on big-picture issues that have confounded experts but will engage students. And while chapters introduce concepts, cases on approachable, exciting firms across industries further challenge students to apply what they've learned, asking questions like:Why was NetFlix able to repel Blockbuster and WalMart? How did Harrah's Casino's become twice as profitable as comparably-sized Caesar's, enabling the former to acquire the latter? How does Spain's fashion giant Zara, a firm that shuns the sort of offshore manufacturing used by every other popular clothing chain, offer cheap fashions that fly off the shelves, all while achieving growth rates and profit margins that put Gap to shame? Why do technology markets often evolve into winner-take-all or winner take-most scenarios? And how can managers compete when these dynamics are present? Why is Google more profitable than Disney? How much is Facebook really worthThe Information Systems course and discipline have never seemed more relevant, more interesting, and more exciting. Gallaugher's textbook can help teachers make students understand why.

This textbook introduces readers to the idea of cooperation and mutualism. Cooperatives and mutuals are participatory organizations in which members participate in control and governance, receive economic benefits through patronage refunds or net income, and become owners through equity. These mutual-benefit organizations exist alongside non-profit organizations and investor-benefit organizations through the global economy.

Teaching the strategic management course can be a challenge for many professors. In most business schools, strategic management is a ŇcapstoneÓ course that requires students to draw on insights from various functional courses they have completed (such as marketing, finance, and accounting) in order to understand how top executives make the strategic decisions that drive whether organizations succeed or fail. Although students have taken these functional courses, many students have very little experience with major organizational choices. It is this inexperience that can undermine many studentsŐ engagement in the course.

Organizational Behavior bridges the gap between theory and practice with a distinct "experiential" approach.

On average, a worker in the USA will change jobs 10 times in 20 years. In order to succeed in this type of career situation, individuals need to be armed with the tools necessary to be life-long learners. To that end, this book is not be about giving students all the answers to every situation they may encounter when they start their first job or as they continue up the career ladder. Instead, this book gives students the vocabulary, framework, and critical thinking skills necessary to diagnose situations, ask tough questions, evaluate the answers received, and to act in an effective and ethical manner regardless of situational characteristics.

This textbook teaches management principles to tomorrow’s business leaders by weaving three threads through every chapter: strategy, entrepreneurship and active leadership.

This book's modular format easily maps to a POLC course organization (Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling, attributed to Henri Fayol (1949, General and industrial management. London. Pitman Publishing company), and suits the needs of most undergraduate or graduate course in Principles of Management.

Principles of Marketing by Tanner, Raymond and Schuster teaches the experience and process of actually doing marketing - not just the vocabulary. It carries five dominant themes throughout in order to expose students to marketing in today's environment: Service dominant logic, sustainability, ethics and social responsibility, global coverage, and metrics.

In a world that is becoming more virtual, more global, and more complex, the project manager's ability to function in this environment becomes critical to the success of the project. Project Management from Simple to Complex explores project management within this complex, virtual, and global environment.

This is not a standard textbook that was adapted to the new publishing paradigm but was designed from the beginning to utilize its capabilities. The book is written in collaboration by an expert in Project Management—Russell Darnall—and an expert in writing instructional texts and using technology for communicating online—John Preston—to create a unique learning environment that prepares students to manage projects in a global, multicultural, and online environment.

Project Management from Simple to Complex features a new model for managing projects, as well as, exploration into the personal dynamics of project management and the role those dynamics play in project outcomes.

Social Problems: Continuity and Change by Steve Barkan is a realistic but motivating look at the many issues that are facing our society today. As this book’s subtitle, Continuity and Change, implies, social problems are persistent, but they have also improved in the past and can be improved in the present and future, provided that our nation has the wisdom and will to address them.

It is easy for students to read a social problems textbook and come away feeling frustrated by the enormity of the many social problems facing us today. Social Problems: Continuity and Change certainly does not minimize the persistence of social problems, but neither does it overlook the possibilities for change offered by social research and by the activities of everyday citizens working to make a difference. Readers of Steve Barkan’s book will find many examples of how social problems have been improved and of strategies that hold great potential for solving them today and in the future.

You will find several pedagogical features help to convey the “continuity and change” theme of this text and the service sociology vision in which it is grounded: Each chapter begins with a “Social Problems in the News” story related to the social problem discussed in that chapter. These stories provide an interesting starting point for the chapter’s discussion and show its relevance for real-life issues. Three types of boxes in each chapter provide examples of how social problems have been changed and can be changed.

The founders of sociology in the United States wanted to make a difference. A central aim of the sociologists of the Chicago school was to use sociological knowledge to achieve social reform. A related aim of sociologists like Jane Addams, W.E.B. DuBois, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett and others since was to use sociological knowledge to understand and alleviate gender, racial, and class inequality.

Steve Barkan’s Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World makes sociology relevant for today’s students by balancing traditional coverage with a fresh approach that takes them back to sociology’s American roots in the use of sociological knowledge for social reform.

From audience analysis to giving a presentation, Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking will guide students through the speech making process. The authors focus on the process of speech making because they have created this book to be a user-friendly guide to creating, researching, and presenting public speeches. While both classic and current academic research in public speaking guide this book, the authors believe that a new textbook in public speaking should first, and foremost, be a practical book that helps students prepare and deliver a variety of different types of speeches — and that is the primary goal of this book.With practicality in mind, the authors developed, Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking, as a streamlined public speaking textbook. Many public speaking textbooks today contain over twenty different chapters, which is often impossible to cover in a ten-week quarter or a sixteen-week semester; this textbook is eighteen unique chapters. The fifteen chapters are divided into four clear units of information: introduction to public speaking, speech preparation, speech creation, and speech presentation.