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The field of organization development is fragmented and lacks a coherent and integrated theory and method for developing an effective organization. A 20-year action research program led to the development and evaluation of the Strategic Fitness Process (SFP) – a platform by which senior leaders, with the help of consultants, can have an honest, collective, and public conversation about their organization's alignment with espoused strategy and values. The research has identified a syndrome of six silent barriers to effectiveness and a dynamic theory of organizational effectiveness. Empirical evidence from the 20-year study demonstrates that SFP always enables truth to speak to power safely, and in a majority of cases enables senior teams to transform silent barriers into strengths, realign their organization's design and strategic management process with strategy and values, and in a few cases employ SFP as an ongoing learning and governance process. Implications for organization and leadership development and corporate governance are discussed.

This chapter reports on the pilot of an innovative approach to business education that was instituted at a small university in the United States. In the program, students were divided into three learning cohorts. Each group was encouraged to learn as a community while taking three integrated classes. Teams competed within their cohort and cohorts competed against other cohorts. Students took introductory managerial accounting, introductory computer information systems and introductory management in the first semester and financial management, operations management and an introductory marketing course in the second semester. The program was designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice by helping students gain a better appreciation of how business functions are integrated. After the first semester, an anonymous survey revealed some useful insights that could be incorporated to enhance such programs. The structure of the program, its benefits, limitations and insights from the survey are reported in this chapter.

The essential investments in new product development (NPD) made by industrial companies entail effective management of NPD activities. In this context, performance measurement is one of the means that can be employed in the pursuit of effectiveness.

This chapter describes the development of a two-course sequence, which explicitly breaks down the silos between the accounting and finance disciplines. A descriptive narrative demonstrates how these courses integrate introductory courses in general business, managerial accounting, financial accounting and finance, and are taught freshman year. The courses are based around an 18-chapter Instructional Narrative about a fictitious company, Windspark, which evolves from a start-up service business in the wind turbine industry to a retailer of parts and then a manufacturer. Topics are introduced as the entrepreneurs in the Instructional Narrative require business knowledge. Individual faculty members teach an entire course, rather than teams comprised from different disciplines. A diagnostic quiz at the beginning of the second course tests students’ understanding and retention of material in the first course. The vast majority of students pass the diagnostic quiz on the first try. Despite its rigor and difficulty, the sequence has coincided with a significant uptick in students choosing to major in finance and accounting. This sequence demonstrates the feasibility and replicability of teaching a truly integrated introductory accounting and finance course sequence. Greater coordination and cooperation between disciplines is possible, with measurable benefits for students.

Organization development (OD) and people analytics (PA) have developed and are typically practiced as entirely separate and nonoverlapping disciplines in organizations. We review the principles underlying each of the two disciplines and show much greater overlap and similarities than commonly believed. An integrated framework is provided, along with examples of OD tools that should be part of the PA toolkit for any practitioner. Case studies of what the integrated framework looks like when applied in practice are discussed.

The chapter briefly reviews the eight volumes in my Legend series – organizational buying behavior, consumer behavior, product and new product management, marketing strategy, market segmentation, global marketing, marketing research and modeling, and the future of marketing. In addition, the chapter highlights the three driving forces of much of my research: (a) the real world challenges facing corporations and organizations, (b) the search for new methodological developments, and (c) the continuous challenge of the prevailing marketing concepts and approaches. The chapter concludes with some reflections on the evolution of marketing in the past five decades and my wish list for the discipline and my future activities.

A paradigm shift is observed in the last decade where transactional marketing is taken over by relationship marketing. Customer relationship management (CRM) has been an integral part of a business strategy in the current era. CRM integrates product sales, product marketing and, most importantly, customer service in a seamless manner to generate value for the organization as well as for its customers in short a win-win situation. Profoundly, CRM needs to be a part of the top management agenda and driven top-down instead of an IT initiative. Industrial revolution 4.0 is characterized by cyber-physical systems. Internet of Things (IoT) is the digital technology for the present and future. IoT primarily aids in gathering real-time data and transmitting the same over the internet to a central repository for consuming the same in business models. Real-time customer data analytics can be performed by customer-centric organizations to enhance CRM.

The lack of traditional employment opportunities for many students and the oft-repeated cry for South Africa to invest in developing black entrepreneurs prompted the University of Western Cape's Department of Management to introduce an Enterprise Management stream at graduate level and Entrepreneurship as a subject at 2nd and 3rd year levels in recent years. All these initiatives are based on a strong capability in entrepreneurship and small business that has been developed in the department since the introduction of the Enterprise Development Unit in 1997.