Judi Bevan has won the WHSmith Book Award for the best business book of 2002. The Rise and Fall of Marks and Spencer is out now in paperback and has been completely updated with an entirely new chapter assessing the apparent recovery, the success of the new George Davies 'Per Una' range and the fresh approaches of a powerful new team at the top - Roger Holmes (Head of UK Retail), Yasmin Yusuf (Director of Women's Clothing), Steve Longdon (Women's Clothing) and Barry Stevenson (Director of UK Stores). All the main historical players are here too, from the Jewish founders who dominated the company for nearly a century through the brilliant, intimidating Richard Greenbury and hapless Peter Salsbury to the fearsome triumvirate - Luc Vandevelde, Roger Holmes and, of course, George Davies. In this gripping history of the rise and fall, and now slow revival of Marks and Spencer, the in-fighting, rampant corridor creeping, takeover attempts - you name it - are set down in stone with perfect accuracy.

For decades Marks & Spencer was the most successful retailer in the world. Its clothes were a byword for affordable quality and its food halls pioneered ready-prepared meals. Then suddenly they were dowdy, the staff deserted in droves and the shares plummeted - but the annual results in April 2006 show that the company is on the mend. What went wrong and how have things improved? In new chapters covering the Philip Green bid and the Stuart Rose recovery plan, and covering the Christmas 2006 trading figures, Judi Bevan reveals all.

Succession management, often little more than an annual form-filling chore and a throwback to 'chess board' charting of 1950s multinationals, needs revitalisation to become a key driver of organisational renewal in the twenty-first century. Whilst recent corporate failings have focused attention on the difficulties of leadership succession, those organisations which have made the transition to greatness have understood the impact of strategic resourcing in renewing their leadership capability and character. The challenge for organisations is reconciling leadership demand and supply. When it may be impossible to say what your organisation will look like in three years time, or what strategy it will be pursuing, demand becomes difficult to predict. And in an era of shifting career realities, supply management needs to be more than an analysis of the age profile of the leadership population. Practical Succession Management is a response to the increasing relevance of proactive succession management but the widespread difficulty of making it happen. The author focuses on the business realities of succession management rather than provide a conceptualisation of how it might work in principle or simply headline a series of corporate 'just so' stories. In a robust evaluation of relevant research and imaginative practice, Andrew Munro maps out the battlegrounds for succession management, with tools and techniques to guide readers from start to finish. The result is a book that will stimulate and challenge your thinking in opening up new options and provide practical methodologies to advance strategic resourcing within your organisation.

The story of the ferocious battle for supremacy of the four main supermarket chains in Britain - Sainsbury, Tesco, Safeway and Asda. There are dynasties in decline, upstarts coming of age and those who struggle by the wayside. The story of how Tesco came from brash beginnings to challenge and finally overtake the patrician Sainsbury as the market leader in 1995 stunned the retailing world, and raised the curtain on the dramatic rise of supermarket chains in the second half of the 20th century. Behind the bare statistics of roller coaster profits and changing market shares lies a deeper tale of social change, increasing power and clashes with Government and pressure groups. The huge buying power of the supermarket chains, and the growth of edge of town shopping with vast car parking, has destroyed many small high streets along with traditional butchers, fishmongers and greengrocers. Yet their growth has been fuelled by the increase in the numbers of working women who no longer have the time or inclination to shop by foot at small outlets. The result is a love/hate relationship with their customers. The fever of competition engendered by the heads of these companies cannot be underestimated. This book goes behind the checkout till and into the boardroom to discover the true story and show what will happen next. Click here to visit the author's website.

An exquisite memoir of a life saved by poetry. "This is a portrait of the artist, narrated by a priest and a poet and a gay man with tenderness and searing honesty. Spencer Reece weaves the poetry he loves into how he has lived, the poetry as solace and relief, as confirmation and rescue, as redemption." —Colm Toíbín The Secret Gospel of Mark is a powerful dynamo of a story that delicately weaves the author's experiences with an appreciation for seven great literary touchstones: Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, James Merrill, Mark Strand, George Herbert, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. In speaking to the beauty these poets' works inspire in him, Reece finds the beauty of his own life's journey, a path that runs from coming of age as a gay teenager in the 1980s, Yale, alcoholism, a long stint as a Brooks Brothers salesman, Harvard Divinity School, and leads finally to hard-won success as a poet, reconciliation with his family, and the fulfillment of finding his life's work as an Episcopal priest. Reece's writing approaches the truth and beauty of the writers who have influenced him; elliptical and direct, always beautifully rendered.

Lecturers - save time by clicking here to request an e-inspection copy of this textbook - no waiting for the post to arrive! Written by a team of leading academics, this groundbreaking new text is an invaluable guide to the core elements of strategy courses, that will challenge conventional thinking about the field. Key features: - Provides a coherent and engaging overview of the established 'classics' of strategy, while taking an innovative approach to contemporary issues such as power and politics, ethics, branding, globalisation, collaboration, and the global financial crisis. - A unique critical perspective that encourages you to reflect on the strategy process and strategic decision-making. - Packed with learning features, including a wealth of international case studies and accompanying discussion questions. - A website offering a full Instructors' Manual, video cases, podcasts and full-text journal articles. Visit the Companion Website at www.sagepub.co.uk/cleggstrategy Read the authors’ research paper ‘Re-Framing Strategy: Power, Politics and Accounting’ in which they make the case for a critically informed approach to studying strategy in the special issue of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (Vol 23, Issue 5) Praise for Strategy: Theory and Practice "Finally, something different in a strategy text! This new volume provides a broad view of strategy covering the conventional as well as less mainstream alternatives like the growing strategy-as-practice perspective. It also does a great job of providing balanced critiques of the existing orthodoxy and provides explicit connections to some of the more accessible academic articles providing more depth to the arguments presented. All in all, it is an excellent break from the unfortunate tendency to make strategy a narrow economic enterprise in a world that is far more complex and social than that. Strategy: Theory and Practice is a welcome addition to the available texts on strategy" - Nelson Phillips, Professor of Strategy and Organizational Behaviour Co-Editor, Journal of Management Inquiry "A super and overdue book. It embraces the central importance of organization theory and, especially, the play of power and politics both inside and outside the organization. This erudite, almost polemical book promises to redraw how we approach the study of strategy - and not before time!" - Royston Greenwood, Associate Dean, School of Business, University of Alberta "It explains where strategy originates from and how contemporary ideas and practices facilitate or constrain decision-making and action. In particular, this book illuminates the role of power and politics in strategy - an issue that has been overlooked in most textbooks in this area. Enjoyable and inspiring reading for students, researchers and practitioners" - Eero Vaara, Professor of Management and Organization Dean of Research Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki "The authors have managed to produce a unique and admirable combination of critical external engagement with 'strategy', understood as a complex object of organizational and political construction, and a useable insiders text book rich in illustrative cases. As such it is essential reading for academics, students and practitioners - all of whom will discover how theory and practice are more intertwined than they ever imagined" - Michael Power, Professor of Accounting, London School of Economics and Political Science