Developing a Cpa Practice: A Comprehensive Guide to Building a Successful Small to Mid-Sized Accounting Firm

Book Description

This book focuses on marketing and expanding an accounting practice.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent reading!.......2001-11-19

This book provides outstanding insight into the world of accounting. It is a MUST READ for any CPA professional tying to develop a small firm into a budding, successful practice.

Great job of focusing on the most important issues........1998-12-30

This book is written in a technical "how to" style interspersed with plenty of real life examples that effectively communicate the most important issues in building a successful accounting practice. I feel confident that reading this book is tantamount to studying the test answers before the exam.

The message is not flowery nor does it offer any easy answers, but focuses on the issues which you need to work hardest.

Book Description

The time has come for American managers to rethink the traditional relationship between management and workers. The personnel practices of the past are an obstacle today, blocking the higher productivity and quality levels your firm will need to succeed in the competitive environment of the 1980s and beyond.

While U.S. corporations have become increasingly sophisticated at managing their financial and capital resources, one critical resource has been seriously underutilized in the American firm -- though not by its Japanese competitors. This book introduces a new way of thinking about, and managing, your firm's greatest untapped potential: the human resources that can make or break any firm's best-laid plans.

Managing Human Assets is not a book about "personnel management"; traditional personnel practice has involved a disjointed set of functions and techniques that have not optimized motivation, commitment, competence, and receptivity to change, the social capital of the firm.

Instead, here is a pioneering guide for all general managers, operations managers, and personnel executives that treats the management of human resources as a key part of the firm's long-term competitive strategy.

Drawing on the extraordinary new program developed at the Harvard Business School, this book presents an innovative strategic model of human resource management, or HRM. And it demonstrates how this new way of thinking is being implemented at several major American and Japanese corporations, with relatively low financial investment and high productivity pay-off.

Managing Human Assets shows you:

-- How to diagnose the human resource policies of your firm and their immediate and longterm consequences; and how to change them.
-- How to integrate personnel policies into the firm's overall competitive strategy.
-- How to create mechanisms for employee influence and participation; how to assess the potential for union-management collaboration.
-- How to manage human resource flows in, through, and out of the organization with policies that treat employees as a potential life long asset.
-- How to design and manage reward systems that complement other HRM changes. The authors show that using money (particularly pay-for-individual-performance schemes) as the leading policy for motivating employees can actually hurt an organization's HRM efforts.
-- How to design practical, effective work systems to dramatically improve employee commitment and competence.

Recognizing that human resources will have to be managed quite differently in the future, a team of Harvard Business School faculty spent two years developing a new required course in HRM. Their diverse backgrounds in organizational behavior, personnel administration, labor relations, and other fields led to a new synthesis of ideas, a pathbreaking strategic perspective for managing human assets.

What the managers of tomorrow are learning at Harvard has been captured in this exceedingly practical book, a professional guide for the manager of today.

With Managing Human Assets, you can realize the vast potential for productivity that lies in one of the American firm's last underutilized resources -- the motivated American worker.

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A Knowledge Management Classic

The Practicality of Knowledge

Insightful!

Putting the knowledge economy on a sound business foundation

Knowledge as Wealth

The New Organizational Wealth: Managing and Measuring Knowledge-Based Assets
Karl Erik Sveiby
Manufacturer: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations

Intellectual Capital: Realizing Your Company's True Value by Finding Its Hidden Brainpower

Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series)

If Only We Knew What We Know: The Transfer of Internal Knowledge and Best Practice

Value Driven Intellectual Capital: How to Convert Intangible Corporate Assets Into Market Value

ASIN: 1576750140

Book Description

New strategies for business success based on shifting the focus from information to knowledge
-- Fifty percent of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. can be described as "knowledge companies" -- those that employ highly skilled, highly educated people who sell their knowledge rather than products
-- Provides tools for measuring intangible assets such as competent and creative employees, patents, brand names, and company reputation
-- Some archetypal knowledge companies are consultancy firms, advertising agencies, software companies, and architecture firms

Few of today's companies improve performance through knowledge or learning. This is because few managers understand how to make a business of knowledge. They focus on explicit knowledge -- information -- instead of implicit human knowledge. Investing in information technology instead of in people, they only know how to measure performance in money.

This ground-breaking book offers practical advice and rules of thumb for designing a business strategy that focuses on knowledge as an intangible asset. It begins by outlining the differences between information-focused strategies (such as adding chips to a manufacturer's product line) and knowledge-focused strategies (such as seeking returns in long term customer relationships, ideas and learning, and research and development). Measuring the knowledge-based assets of a company explains why, for example, Microsoft is valued at 40 times its worth on paper.

In eight chapters, Sveiby assembles a veritable toolbox of knowledge-based management techniques to enable managers to meet the new business challenges of the coming century.

Customer Reviews:

A Knowledge Management Classic.......2004-12-17

This was probably the first book on knowledge management that really paid any attention to the bottom line, or what km can do for it. While the concepts might be abstract without a brief primer on organization development the overall message is not beyond the reach of the average reader. I will say that it may be time for an update as the author was seemingly taken with "boom" economics and used said examples to emphasise his points. What is clear is that while his examples are powerful in the context of the time frame in which they were written they can still be applied to the economic environment now faced by many organizations. Overall I would recommend this book to someone looking to familiarize themselves with some of the underpinnings of KM or in the earliest stages of the development of a km practice.

The Practicality of Knowledge.......2002-02-17

Book Review - Joe Pulichino, Doctoral Student, Pepperdine University; President, Athena Learning Group

The New Organization Wealth - Managing and Measuring Knowledge-Based Assets is quite a practical book for managers seeking to get theirs arms around those intangible corporate assets that cannot be easily measured. It's also valuable for those in the fields of knowledge management and corporate education who are wrestling with ways to facilitate the development and productivity of their organization's human competencies.

Although Sveiby's argument that intangible assets can account for the difference between a company's market capitalization and its net book value may not seem so persuasive since the dot.com collapse, his categorization of those assets as "employee competence", "internal structure", and "external structure" is useful as a way of thinking about the character and value of knowledge in an organization. Much more so than the vague catch-all asset of "good-will", knowledge, though also intangible, is an asset that can be created, managed, and measured, and can serve as the focal point for developing a strategic business model. Sveiby demonstrates this through a wide range of case studies.

Especially useful is his "radical notion" that "information is meaningless and of low value". When we consider how much money and human resources are expended on technologies that collect, store, and retrieve information, this will be an uncomfortable notion for many. However, Sveiby, supported by Michael Polanyi's theory of tacit knowledge (The Tacit Dimension, 1967), makes clear that information does play a role in knowledge creation and transfer. As a means of broadcasting articulated knowledge, information provides raw material, the stuff out of which people create knowledge through their interaction with it and with each other. Knowledge thus created is called competency by Sveiby and is defined as the "capacity to act".

Sveiby then introduces the subject of managing intangible assets by making useful distinctions between the roles of professionals and mangers in the "knowledge organization". He discusses how their competencies are best managed and transferred so that the flow of knowledge through the organization (its internal structure) leads to greater efficiency and effectiveness in managing the flow of knowledge in customer and supplier relationships (its external structure). His model leaves business managers with a choice between a knowledge-focused strategy, which "earns increasing returns primarily from intangible assets", and an information-focused strategy, which "earns increasing returns from adapting to information technology".

To account for it all, Sveiby lays out a non-financial system for measuring intangible assets. While providing some thoughtful perspectives on how one might do this, it is not clear that in the end these forms of measurement have the same utility and precision that financial measurements do. It is fair to say, however, that these types of measures, which include surveys, indices, ratios, and rates of changes, do offer indicators that can help to monitor actions that will develop, maintain, and grow these assets.

In the final paragraph of the book, Sveiby admits, "I do not believe that the information in a book such as this can really change anything", and in saying so remains true to his thesis: "The only valuable knowledge is that which equips us for action and that kind of knowledge is learned the hard way - by doing." He invites his readers to experiment with the information in his book and by doing so turn it into knowledge. The practicality of The New Organization Wealth - Managing and Measuring Knowledge-Based Assets is therefore dependent on what the reader does with the information it contains.

Insightful!.......2001-06-01

Business is business, they say, but the knowledge management business is something else entirely. Author Karl Erik Sveiby earned his doctorate with a thesis that draws an interesting distinction between information and knowledge. This book owes a great deal to the research in that thesis, although some of the subtleties were probably lost in the translation after it was presented at Stockholm University. Dr. Sveiby offers managers a plausible structure for stratifying their employees. He provides a solid rationale to justify rationing resources and information. We [...] recommend this book to knowledge managers. Professionals who feel they are not receiving adequate support, information, or compensation from managers also will find succor in these theories.

Putting the knowledge economy on a sound business foundation.......2000-11-14

To this day, Sveiby's "New Organizational Wealth" stands apart in that the book remains one of the few to make a serious attempt to place the benefits of the somewhat nebulous concept of the knowledge economy on a sound economic and business foundation. (Paul Strassman takes a similar approach, but more towards the macroeconomic level, in his articles in Knowledge Management magazine.)

Readers of the "New Organizational Wealth" will likely want to visit Sveiby's web site to get access to some of the tools he has since developed to help implement systems to measure and improve upon a company's intangible assets.

Knowledge as Wealth.......2000-04-05

There is a thirst for understanding how to manage the "new" companies that are knowledge based rather than founded on product manufacturing. Here is a book to help with that quest. Sveiby explains that, as an example, the public was willing to pay, in 1995, an average price of $70 for Microsoft when their book value was about $7. In other words, the shareholders saw about $9 of additional value for every $1 of tangible assets on Microsoft's books. There is no entry on Microsoft's balance sheet for that $9, and it represents a major trend in our "post industrial" economy. How do we manage such an illusive asset? Sveiby steps us through (1) understanding the era of knowledge Organizations, (2) managing intangible assets, and (3) measuring intangible assets. There are practical examples of measuring systems, how to organize a company to maintain and transfer knowledge, and keys to developing professional competence. Sveiby defines, for the purpose of this book, knowledge as "a capacity to act." "One's capacity to act is created continuously by a process-of-knowing. In other words, it is contextual. Knowledge cannot be separated from its context. The notion also implies teleological purpose. I believe that the human process-of-knowing is designed by nature to help us survive in an often hostile environment." I learned about the professional's three life cycles - the super star, the statesman, and the normal professional. I learned about the classic problem of organic growth in our knowledge organizations. And I re-learned that "it takes time, experience, and mental effort to turn information into useful knowledge. And since recipients cannot know until afterward whether it was worth spending that time, information that turns out to be worthless is really worth less than nothing." For those trying to understand the new business model, this book is well worth the time and effort. It will help you move your company into the modern age.

Managing Your Mouth: An Owner's Manual for Your Most Important Business Asset

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On Speaking- The High Risk Proposition
Manage your mouth but skip this book
Managing Your Mouth
A must read for developing superior interpersonal skills.

Managing Your Mouth: An Owner's Manual for Your Most Important Business Asset
Robert L. Genua
Manufacturer: AMACOM/American Management Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0814478034

Customer Reviews:

On Speaking- The High Risk Proposition.......2004-06-15

Speaking is very likely the most important interpersonal skill behind integrity, or being true to one's words in deed and action. Mr. Genua's book, Managing Your Mouth, presents diverse examples of the same idea: how thoughtless use of the spoken word can put a person between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Few of us understand, especially the young and un-initiated, that speaking is a high-risk proposition. One may wonder why that is so, and Dr. Robert Bolton, in his well researched book, People Skills, provides a simple answer: when we speak, we have no way of knowing in advance how the other side will react to what we say. That is why Dr. Bolton strongly recommends learning to listen, and many institutions (but not nearly enough) strongly emphasize clear and direct communication, preferably in the simplest terms possible and with an economy of words.

Mr. Genua advances thing a few more steps, and asserts that when we speak to others, not only do we not know how they will react, but we also do not know for certain how our words will be interpreted, and in a business setting with proprietary knowledge at risk, exactly what information we are consciously or unconsciously transmitting when we speak. Not only do our words communicate, but our posture, facial expressions and other body language can send unconscious signals, which to the trained observer can turn into important and useful information.

In seven quick and easy chapters, the author explains the importance of paying close attention to one's verbal and non-verbal communication, how to avoid certain destructive forms of verbal communication, and finally how to use verbal and non-verbal cues to maximum effect (as opposed to having them used against you to maximum effect), especially in business settings.

After using the preface and first chapter to lay out the reasons for paying close attention to what one says, the author gets to business in the second chapter by engaging the reader with an assessment of his or her current verbal management skills followed by a brief, detailed no-nonsense explanation of each assessment point. The third chapter assists the reader in identifying potential problems about himself or herself so that problematic speaking forms can be avoided, and also shows via vivid examples what can (and does) happen to those who utilize problematic speaking forms. Chapter four covers a variety of instances where unguarded verbal communication can lead to personal ruin, and devotes a considerable amount of space to successful navigating the job interview. The chapter concludes with a discourse on surviving and thriving in company meetings.

Chapter five elaborates on gossip, outlining in detail how bad it is and basically telling the reader to avoid it in all of its forms, such as the grapevine and the water cooler, like the plague. Chapter six explains the importance of not divulging secret or proprietary information, and reminds the reader to be on guard at all times and to use silence as a weapon. The last chapter (of bankruptcy fame) details the ins and outs of secrecy, and the effective use of deception.

My only criticism of this text is its failure to tell the reader to think carefully before he or she speaks. Most of us have to really train ourselves to do this, and work hard at resisting the urge to respond, either to demonstrate our intelligence or to counter a verbal attack (I have found that in many cases one demonstrates his or her intelligence by not speaking or responding to attacks). Most problems result because people fail to consider how their words will be received, and what exactly it is they wish to say. Merely reading about the pitfalls of speaking is one thing, but putting the author's advice to practice is quite another. All readers of this book should keep in mind that when we engage in verbal, we often pass through potentially stormy and treacherous waters.

Manage your mouth but skip this book.......2002-12-09

The concept and potential of this book is great. However, the title seems to say it all - in other words, manage what comes out of your mouth, because it can affect your success. Beyond that, save your money. I hesitate to write negative reviews because I ask myself - why would I do that, they didn't do anything to me?! But actually, I bought this book based on the 5 star reviews and it was a let down. Again, the author should be commended for the concept and for meaning well on such an important topic. I just didn't really feel like it helped me manage my mouth better, which is the point of my review. I have books you couldn't pry out of my hands (like "Keeping your cool under pressure") but I would gladly give up Managing Your Mouth for one dollar of my money back.

Managing Your Mouth.......2001-11-21

A great book on managing one of our best assets! As a manager, I found the book beneficial as it addresses the ramifications of poor communication. It addresses using body language combined with speech and/or silence. Considering "words and movement are the basis of communication" between co-workers, this book is essential in reminding all of us the joys of having and working with individuals who have "a better managed mouth".

A must read for developing superior interpersonal skills........1999-09-30

This is a "one of a kind book" that deals with one of the most important aspects of one's personal development. Most people get in trouble because they say things that offend others. This book is a tremendous help in off-setting that tendency. It will help readers, in both, on the job performance and in their personal lives.

Managing Learning and Communication Systems as Business Assets

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Managing Learning and Communication Systems as Business Assets
Diane M. Gayeski
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0130462616

Book Description

This contemporary and readable bookâfilled with research-based advice, case studies, and efficient toolsâdemonstrates how organizations measure, manage, and maximize their âintangible assetsâ of communication and knowledge. Its unique perspective on âperformance technologyâ shows employees not only how human behavior in the workplace can be engineered to achieve corporate success, but how to communicate those methods and processes used, and the value they add, to employers and clients. Comprehensive coverage of âhuman capitalâ factors that impact organizational performanceâsuch as training, employee communication, branding, and performance managementâsupplies readers with need-to-know and -learn information integral to successful HR and communication. Other coverage of âhot topicsâ includes measurement and evaluation, corporate culture, e-learning, and knowledge management. For Human Resource Managers, Marketing Managers, Performance Consultants, and Management Consultants; and for any and all personnel involved in the training and development of employees in a corporate setting.

Managing Pension Assets: Pension Finance and Corporate Financial Goals

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Managing Pension Assets: Pension Finance and Corporate Financial Goals
Walter R. Good , and Douglas A. Love
Manufacturer: Mcgraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0070237298

The Human Value of the Enterprise: Valuing People as Assets: Monitoring, Measuring, Managing

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The Human Value of the Enterprise: Valuing People as Assets: Monitoring, Measuring, Managing
Andrew Mayo
Manufacturer: Nicholas Brealey Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1904838103

A Focused Issue on Managing Knowledge Assets and Organizational Learning, Volume 2 (Research in Competence-Based Management)

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A Focused Issue on Managing Knowledge Assets and Organizational Learning, Volume 2 (Research in Competence-Based Management)

Manufacturer: JAI Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0762312106

Book Description

This second volume of Research in Competence-Based Management (RCBM) continues the launch of a long-awaited outlet for peer-reviewed research papers contributing to advancement of competence-based management theory.

Each volume in RCBM will be focused on a key aspect of competence theory. The focus in this volume on "Managing Knowledge Assets and Organizational Learning" reflects the central importance of knowledge and learning in organizational competence building, leveraging, and maintenance. Papers in this volume explore the nature of learning dynamics in organizations, systematic approaches to sustaining organizational learning processes, and organizational challenges in managing knowledge flows internally and across the boundaries of an organization. A set of papers also explores the management of existing knowledge and the creation of new knowledge in a key learning arena – new product development processes.

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Human Resources for ASCs: Managing Your Most Valuable Assets
Tom Ealey
Manufacturer: Hcpro
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1578398193

Product Description

A plain-English guide to employment responsibilities for busy ASC administrators, turn to this book, where you'll find all the no-nonsense, practical, ASC-specific advice and tools you need to run an effective HR program in this easy-to-implement book and CD-ROM set.

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Packed with Knowledge!

The Human Value of the Enterprise: Valuing People as Assets--Monitoring, Measuring, Managing
Andrew Mayo
Manufacturer: Nicholas Brealey Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1857882814

Book Description

Andrew Mayo delivers the practical tools that finally join together strategy, human performance and sound quantitative methods to measure a business's most critical resource--its human value.

Customer Reviews:

Packed with Knowledge!.......2002-06-18

In The Human Value of Enterprise, Andrew Mayo proposes a quantitative methodology that attempts to bring the rigors of financial accounting to human resources management. Mayo sets forth a series of formulas designed to reveal how much each individual is contributing to the overall value that any company creates for its stakeholders. Of course, these formulas are limited by the subjective process through which managers assign values to the activities and results of their employees. That said, the procedures that Mayo outlines can be used as the foundation for a fairly rigorous system of human resource cost accounting that we from getAbstract recommend to all professionals in the field.

Managing intangible assets: if the work you're doing is building needed capabilities, competencies and market value, good. If not, stop--and do something ... An article from: Communication World

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Managing intangible assets: if the work you're doing is building needed capabilities, competencies and market value, good. If not, stop--and do something ... An article from: Communication World
Jim Shaffer
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from Communication World, published by Thomson Gale on March 1, 2006. The length of the article is 546 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Managing intangible assets: if the work you're doing is building needed capabilities, competencies and market value, good. If not, stop--and do something that adds value.(bookmark)
Author: Jim Shaffer
Publication: Communication World (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 23 Issue: 2 Page: 18(1)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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