Can managers learn from fads? That is the question Robert Cole addresses in this insightful book about the various factors supporting and inhibiting organizational learning.

A longtime student of the Japanese and American quality movements, Cole focuses on the response of American industry to the challenge posed in the early 1980s by high quality goods from Japan. While most American managers view this challenge as slowly but successfully met, many academics see the quality movement that emerged from it as just another fad. In seeking to reconcile these two views, Cole explores the...

How did Japan fall from challenger to US hegemonic leadership in the high tech industries in the 1980s, to stumbling giant by the turn of the century? This work examines the challenges faced by Japanese companies through emulation by foreign competitors, and the emergence of new competitive models.

How did Japan fall from challenger to US hegemonic leadership in the high tech industries in the 1980s, to stumbling giant by the turn of the century? This book examines the challenges faced by Japanese companies through emulation by foreign competitors, and the emergence of new competitive models linked to open innovation and modular production.

Offers a study of quality management that is to be linked with the principles of organizational behavior and analysis. This book bridges the world of theory and practice, making academics aware of developments to improve organizational performance and exploring ways in which these efforts both contribute to and challenge current theories.

Offers a study of quality management that is to be linked with the principles of organizational behavior and analysis. This title bridges the world of theory and practice, making academics aware of developments to improve organizational performance and exploring ways in which these efforts both contribute to and challenge theories.

Because chronic disorder is becoming an ordinary feature of family life and development, understanding its impact has become critical. This volume, and the conference proceedings it reports, represents a major effort to examine the family's response to chronic physical or psychopathological illness in one or more of its members. Recent data are revising our notions of chronic illness. Evidence is mounting that chronic psychiatric disorders reflect, in part, abnormalities of brain structure and function. In this sense, they are, in part, medical disorders. On the other hand, a number of...

Because chronic disorder is becoming an ordinary feature of family life and development, understanding its impact has become critical. This volume, and the conference proceedings it reports, represents a major effort to examine the family's response to chronic physical or psychopathological illness in one or more of its members. Recent data are revising our notions of chronic illness. Evidence is mounting that chronic psychiatric disorders reflect, in part, abnormalities of brain structure and function. In this sense, they are, in part, medical disorders. On the other hand, a number of...