Bestselling author Dan Ariely reveals fascinating new insights into motivation—showing that the subject is far more complex than we ever imagined. Every day we work hard to motivate ourselves, the people we live with, the people who work for and do business with us. In this way, much of what we do can be defined as being “motivators.” From the boardroom to the living room, our role as motivators is complex, and the more we try to motivate partners and children, friends and coworkers, the clearer it becomes that the story of motivation is far more intricate and fascinating than we’ve assumed. Payoff investigates the true nature of motivation, our partial blindness to the way it works, and how we can bridge this gap. With studies that range from Intel to a kindergarten classroom, Ariely digs deep to find the root of motivation—how it works and how we can use this knowledge to approach important choices in our own lives. Along the way, he explores intriguing questions such as: Can giving employees bonuses harm productivity? Why is trust so crucial for successful motivation? What are our misconceptions about how to value our work? How does your sense of your mortality impact your motivation?

In an era when IT budgets are being cut as indiscriminately as they were once increased, this book offers the first systematic guide to measuring the true impact of IT spending--and making rational decisions about which projects to fund.

How we pay is so fundamental that it underpins everything - from trade to taxation, stocks and savings to salaries, pensions and pocket money. Rich or poor, criminal, communist or capitalist, we all rely on the same payments system, day in, day out. It sits between us and not just economic meltdown, but a total breakdown in law and order. Why then do we know so little about how it really works? As you read this, technology is dismantling payment barriers and governments are erecting them; cash is on the way out, and crypto and BigTech are fighting their way in. The Europeans are heavily regulated, the Americans oddly backward, and the Chinese hoping to lead the way forward. Challenging our understanding about where financial power really lies, The Pay Off shows us that the most important thing about money is the way we move it. Leibbrandt and De Terán shine a light on the hidden workings of the humble payment - and reveal both how our payment habits are determined by history as well as where we go from here. From national customs to warring nation states, geopolitics will shape the future of payments every bit as much as technology.

Lobbyist, White House Lawyer, and Senate Aide on the Power of America’s Plutocracy to Avoid Prosecution and Subvert Financial Reform Beginning in January 2009, THE PAYOFF lays bare Washington’s culture of power and plutocracy. It’s the story of the twenty-month struggle by Senator Ted Kaufman and Jeff Connaughton, his chief of staff, to hold Wall Street executives accountable for securities fraud, to stop stock manipulation by high-frequency traders, and to break up too-big-to-fail megabanks. This book takes us inside their dogged crusade against institutional inertia and industry influence as they encounter an outright reluctance by the Obama administration, the Justice Department, and the Securities and Exchange Commission to treat Wall Street crimes with the gravity they deserve. On financial reforms, Connaughton criticizes Democrats for relying on the very Wall Street technocrats who had failed to prevent the crisis and Republicans for staunchly opposing real reforms primarily to enjoy a golden opportunity to siphon fundraising dollars from the Wall Street executives who had raised millions to elect Barack Obama president. Connaughton, a former lawyer in the Clinton White House, illuminates the pivotal moments and key decisions in the fight for financial reform that have gone largely unreported. His arch, nonpartisan account chronicles the reasons why Wall Street’s worst offenses were left unpunished, and why it’s likely that the 2008 debacle will happen again.

It would seem that business investment in information technology (IT) is at root no different from business investment in anything else. After a careful consideration of the costs of the investment and its anticipated benefits, a decision is made as to whether the benefits of the investment outstrip the costs and by how much. If the benefits are competitive with other investment alternatives (say, a major marketing campaign), then the business will commit financial resources to the IT proposal. Otherwise it won't. This decision making process is at the heart of capital budgeting. Senior executives have been making IT investment decisions for well over three decades. So why is the measurement of IT investment payoff so difficult and controversial? Why do we need a book dealing with contemporary approaches to measuring IT investment payoff? Why have earlier approaches to measuring IT investment payoff proven unsatisfactory? In what respects have earlier approaches fallen short? Do we need to scrap earlier approaches entirely or can we find important improvements to these approaches such that they can be newly applied to effectively measure IT investment payoff in ways that are convincing to senior management? This book will help you to find improvements in existing methods for measuring IT investment payoff as well as to find new, innovative methods for addressing the value of emerging IT.0000 ø0.

An analysis of Italian Renaissance art from the perspective of the patrons who made 'conspicuous commissions', this text builds on three concepts from the economics of information - signaling, signposting, and stretching - to develop a systematic methodology for assessing the meaning of patronage.

This is the story of one of the youngest county prosecutors in the country whose mission was to finally end the system of vice and corruption that had infiltrated Seattle's police department, municipal departments, and even the mayor's office. In the late 1960s, Christopher T. Bayley was a young lawyer with a fire in his belly to break the back of Seattle’s police payoff system, which was built on licensing of acknowledged illegal activity known as the "tolerance policy." Against the odds, he became the youngest prosecutor in King County (which includes Seattle). Six months into his first term, he indicted a number of prominent city and police officials. Bayley shows how vice and payoffs became rules of the game in Seattle, and what it took to finally clean up the city.