Welcome to our 9th edition! Thank you to everyone who has used and learned from previous editions, and helped make this book such a success. We are proud to present the newest edition.

As we went to press, stock markets worldwide were rebounding from the previous year's crash. Confidence in the global economy seemed to be returning, until bad news periodically threw new wrenches into the outlook. Sustainability had become a more mainstream and widespread business concern and objective (as reflected in this as well as our previous editions). China had been investing heavily in Africa for years, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton completed a trip to Africa intended to develop stronger ties with a number of African nations. Iraq's future was highly uncertain, and Afghanistan was getting worse. Under President Obama, health care reform was Topic A but resistance was fierce. Twitter was the new rage, and reality shows were showcasing B-list celebrities and politicians.

But you won't be reading this at the moment we went to press. Those events and trends could still be around, or they may have disappeared or reversed themselves. If they no longer hold, their repercussions still could persist—thus, they may still be relevant (or not). The world continues to change, evolve, and offer new challenges and opportunities.

As things change in the world, they change in business and management. The metaphorical glass sometimes seems half-empty, because unfortunate world events, disconcerting trends, and ineffective and unethical management practices will continue. But good people will continue to "step up" and take on important leadership roles, managing well and making things better, as they always have. In this book, you will read about many managers, some doing things brilliantly, others making mistakes (with some learning from their mistakes, and some not). Some organizations rise from the ashes, or come from seemingly nowhere, to become the next hot investment. Some organizations are high-flyers one day and come crashing down the next. Some achieve greatness, and have occasional downturns, but continue being great.

These performance shifts occur in large part due to the ways in which they are managed, and partly from how circumstances change. Business environments, like pendulums, swing from one extreme to another. These changes will contribute to the fall of some currently successful companies and managers and the rise of others who currently struggle or are now just dreaming of new business ideas.

For you, as a businessperson as in life, uncertainty will be a constant state of affairs. That is, no one knows for certain what will happen, or what to do in pursuit of a successful future. Luck and the right circumstances can help companies (and people) succeed in the short run. But in the long run good management is essential.

Fortunately, you have access to current knowledge about how to manage. We have learned a lot from the companies that have succeeded and failed. The continuing experiment created by the vast array of management practices that exist in the business world, combined with sound research that helps tease out what works from what doesn't, helps us learn from mistakes and identify the most important lessons and useful practices that managers can employ. We hope that you will not only learn as much as you can about this vital activity but also commit to applying it—by reading and learning, and by using it in the best possible ways.

This book and the course you are taking will help you face the managerial challenges of a changing world. In doing so, they will help you identify what's important and what's not, make good decisions, and take effective action on behalf of yourself, your colleagues, and the organizations for which you work.

Our Goals

Our mission with this text hasn't changed from that of our previous editions: to inform, instruct, and inspire. We hope to inform by providing descriptions of the important concepts and practices of modern management. We hope to instruct by describing how you can take action on the ideas discussed. We hope to inspire not only by writing in a positive, interesting, and optimistic way but also by providing a real sense of the opportunities ahead of you. Whether your goal is starting your own company, leading a team to greatness, building a strong organization, delighting your customers, or generally forging a positive future, we want to inspire you to take positive actions.

We hope to inspire you to be both a thinker and a doer. We want you to think about the issues, think about the impact of your actions, think before you act. But being a good thinker is not enough; you also must be a doer. Management is a world of action. It is a world that requires timely and appropriate action. It is a world not for the passive but for those who commit to positive accomplishments.

Keep applying the ideas you learn in this course, read about management in sources outside of this course, and keep learning about management after you leave school and continue your career. Make no mistake about it: learning about management is a personal voyage that will last years, an entire career, your entire lifetime.

Competitive Advantage

Today's world is competitive. Never before has the world of work been so challenging. Never before has it been so imperative to your career that you learn the skills of management. Never before have people had so many opportunities and challenges with so many potential risks and rewards.

You will compete with other people for jobs, resources, and promotions. Your organization will compete with other firms for contracts, clients, and customers. To survive the competition, and to thrive, you must perform in ways that give you an edge over your competitors, that make the other party want to hire you, buy from you, and do repeat business with you. You will want them to choose you, not your competitor.

To survive and thrive, today's managers have to think and act strategically. Today's customers are well educated, aware of their options, and demanding of excellence. For this reason, managers today must think constantly about how to build a capable workforce and manage in a way that delivers the goods and services that provide the best possible value to the customer.

By this standard, managers and organizations must perform. Five essential types of performance, on which the organization beats, equals, or loses to the competition, are cost, quality, speed, innovation, and service. These five performance dimensions, when managed well, deliver value to the customer and competitive advantage to you and your organization. We will elaborate on all of these topics throughout the book.

The idea is to keep you focused on a type of "bottom line," to make sure you think continually about "delivering the goods" that make both you and your organization a competitive success. This results-oriented approach is unique among management textbooks.

Leading & Collaborating

Yes, business is competitive. But it's not that simple. In fact, to think strictly in terms of competition is overly cynical, and such cynicism can sabotage your performance. The other fundamental elements in the success equation are collaboration and leadership. People working with, rather than against, one another is essential to competitive advantage. Put another way, you can't do it alone—the world is too complex, and business is too challenging.

You need to work with your teammates. Leaders and followers need to work as collaborators more than as adversaries. Work groups throughout your organization need to cooperate with one another. Business and government, often viewed as antagonists, can work productively together. And today more than ever, companies that traditionally were competitors engage in joint ventures and find other ways to collaborate on some things even as they compete in others. Leadership is needed to make these collaborations happen.

How does an organization create competitive advantage through collaboration? It's all about the people, and it derives from good leadership. Three stereotypes of leadership are that it comes from the top of the company, that it comes from one's immediate boss, and that it means being decisive and issuing commands. These stereotypes may contain grains of truth, but the reality is much more complex. First, the person at the top may or may not provide effective leadership—in fact, many observers believe that good leadership is far too rare. Second, organizations need leaders at all levels, in every team and work unit. This includes you, beginning early in your career, and this is why leadership is an important theme in this book.

Third, leaders should be capable of decisiveness and of giving commands, but relying too much on this traditional approach isn't enough. Great leadership is far more inspirational than this, and helps people both to think differently and also to work differently— including working collaboratively, with a focus on results.

Leadership—from your boss, as well as from you— generates collaboration, which in turn creates results that are good for the company and good for the people involved.

As Always, Currency and Variety in the 9th Edition

It goes without saying that this textbook, in its 9th edition, remains on the cutting edge of topical coverage, as updated via both current business examples and recent management research. Chapters have been thoroughly updated, and students are exposed to a broad array of important current topics. We have done our very best to draw from a wide variety of subject matter, sources, and personal experiences. We continue to emphasize throughout the book themes such as real results, ethics, cultural considerations, and leadership and collaboration. Here is just a small sampling of new highlights in the 9th edition, enough to convey the wide variety of people, organizations, issues, and contexts represented throughout the text.

• Tesla Motors, an electric-car start-up, tries to revolutionize the automotive industry.
• Global reach allows a manufacturer's rep to expand business into China.
• New examples of cost competitiveness include Hewlett-Packard and its strategies to improve efficiencies.

• Green Mountain Coffee Roasters cultivates fair-trade relationships with suppliers.
• Updated graphics on economic data.
• New examples to demonstrate the concepts of culture (Google and Sprint).

• Anne Mulcahy's decisions pull Xerox back from the brink.
• An economic crisis forces companies to find innovative alternatives.
• Financial benefits of sustainability.

• The new unfolding case is about Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia.
• A management coaching firm develops a new strategy to bring in business during an economic downturn.
• Collaborating with key stakeholders.

• Walmart goes green, responding to critics and helping its bottom line.
• Ethics of blogging and "astroturfing" about companies and products.
• Where the United States stands in the "honesty" rankings.

• Kraft's unique strategy to improve its global market share.
• Disney opens English schools in China.
• The importance of managers understanding local social norms and cultures.

• Richard Branson turns to renewable energy in one of his latest endeavors.
• Many new examples of green and socially responsible entrepreneurs.
• Managing risk in the economic downturn.

• Whirlpool adapts organizational structure to improve growth.
• Company boards rely on more outside directors for guidance.
• Adding middle management layer helps software company grow efficiently.

• Capitalizing on Corning's strengths to bring the company back to profitability.
• Going "lean" helps Dur-A-Flex maintain its organizational agility.
• Analyzing the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

• Enterprise Rent-a-Car and its successful HR strategies.
• PriceSpective and its innovative approach to dealing with staffing needs.
• Using simulation games to supplement management training at all levels.

• Marriott International's commitment to diversity training for all employees.
• The use of social networking Web sites to reach prospective employees.
• The importance of employee support groups within an organization.

• Amory Lovins may help wean America off of fossil fuels.
• One city administrator's leadership in the aftermath of a devastating Kansas tornado.
• Tips for developing leadership abilities.

• How Tony Hsieh motivates employees at Zappos.com.
• Examples of how companies motivate employees to take care of their health while lowering health care costs.
• New "psychological contract" example for a frustrated HR manager.

• Championing teamwork at Cisco Systems.
• Common mistakes team leaders make.
• Challenges that exist in multicultural teams.

• What customers "Digg" about Kevin Rose's communication style.
• Accenture's employee programs foster communication and strong working relationships.
• Revamping a company Web site to communicate more effectively with customers.

• How Legal Sea Foods maintains control.
• An accounting firm's formal control process ensures exceptional client service.
• Better business through budgeting.

• Honda's flexible manufacturing system drives the company's innovation winning streak.
• Too much innovation may be one game designers' downfall.
• A unique lab program allows Intuit employees to focus a percentage of their time on innovation and collaboration.

• SC Johnson and its environmental sustainability.
• Challenges faced when managing change.
• The right way to shake up a company.

A Team Effort

This book is the product of a fantastic McGraw-Hill/ Irwin team. Moreover, we wrote this book believing that we are part of a team with the course instructor and with students. The entire team is responsible for the learning process. Our goal, and that of your instructor, is to create a positive learning environment in which you can excel. But in the end, the raw material of this course is just words. It is up to you to use them as a basis for further thinking, deep learning, and constructive action. What you do with the things you learn from this course, and with the opportunities the future holds, counts. As a manager, you can make a dramatic difference for yourself and for other people. What managers do matters, tremendously.

Acknowledgments

This book could not have been written and published without the valuable contributions of many individuals.

Karen Hill and her colleagues at Elm Street Publishing were instrumental in creating a strong 9th edition. Many thanks for their meticulous attention to detail, ideas, and contributions. Karen has become a valued friend throughout the process; we couldn't have done it, or had as much fun, without Karen. Our reviewers over the last eight editions contributed time, expertise, and terrific ideas that significantly enhanced the quality of the text. The reviewers of the 9th edition are:

J. Dana Clark
Appalachian State University

Laurie Dahlin
Worcester State College

Jordan J. Kaplan
Long Island University–Brooklyn

Eileen Kearney
Montgomery County Community College

John Keeling
Old Dominion University

Richard Kimbrough
University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Gary F. Kohut
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Venkatram Krishnamurthy
College of Lake County

William Patrick Leonard
Northwestern College

Flo Lucci
Quinsigamond Community College

Tish Matuszek
Troy University

Carol T. Miller
Community College of Denver

Anthony Narsing
Macon State College

Frank Novakowski
Davenport University

Gregory Schultz
Carroll University

Mansour Sharifzadeh
California State Polytechnic University–Pomona

Marc Siegall
California State–Chico

Brien N. Smith
Ball State University

Edward Von Leffern
California State Polytechnic University–Pomona

Kerry S. Webb
Texas Woman's University

Velvet Weems-Landingham
Kent State University–Geauga

Wendy V. Wysocki
Monroe County Community College

Many individuals contributed directly to our development as textbook authors. Dennis Organ provided one of the authors with an initial opportunity and guidance in textbook writing. Executive Editor John Weimeister has been a friend and adviser from the very beginning. The entire McGraw-Hill/Irwin team, starting with Executive Editor Mike Ablassmeir (who spontaneously and impressively knew Rolling Stone 's top three drummers of all time) provided great support and expertise to this new edition. Many thanks to Senior Development Editor Christine Scheid for so much good work on previous editions and for continued friendship. And to our new and superb Development Editor II Laura Griffin, and to Anke Braun Weekes, executive marketing manager and new mom, thank you for your skills, professionalism, collegiality, and for making the new edition rock! What a team!

Finally, we thank our families. Our parents, Jeanine and Tom Bateman and Clara and John Snell, provided us with the foundation on which we have built our careers. They continue to be a source of great support. Our wives, Mary Jo and Marybeth, demonstrated great encouragement, insight, and understanding throughout the process. Our children, Lauren, T. J., and James Bateman and Sara, Jack, and Emily Snell, inspire us in every way.

Thomas S. Bateman
Charlottesville, VA
Scott A. Snell
Charlottesville, VA