"Change at Work"
Cappelli, Peter (1997). Change at Work. Oxford University Press. NY
Change at Work is a commissioned study by the Committee on New American Realities that uses available information in an attempt to understand changing employment practices, changing organizations, and evolving employment relationships. The issues discussed in the book are nationwide workplace trends that have important ramifications for employees, employers, and the U. S. economy.

Change at Work is definitely a scholarly work that must be read in manageable, small portions because of the poor linking of chapters and poor data presentation. Fortunately, the final and concluding chapter of this book makes some sense out of the previous six chapters.

The editor tells us that the book was outlined by the group of authors, then individual authors took responsibility for each chapter. The editor also says "the authors made extensive comments on each others chapters along the way." (14). I have no doubt that the authors made comments on each chapter. I only wish they had taken the time to focus these comments on the transition between and the linking of the chapters and the data presentation. A consistent chapter format that used a conclusion or summary section at the end of each chapter would have facilitated the transition and linking of the chapters. This type of section at the end of each chapter could have solidified the authors' conclusions after the data purge that occurs in each chapter. Each data source pertains to a different time period and means of data collection. Some sources use percentage, while others use raw numbers. The authors do a poor job of linking the data; hence, the net effect is confusion to the reader. The authors would have made the book easier to read by using more graphical representation and detailing the significant data necessary to support their arguments.

The one strength of this book is the editor's ability to bring most of the significant findings throughout the book into a logical concluding chapter that is easy to understand and flows quite well. Each of the previous chapters is referenced directly or implicitly as the editor makes sense out of the book.

The authors are definitely working on a timely topic that most people in industry can relate to. Personally, I started working for my current employer, a global consumer products company, a year or two after they went through a large downsizing period. Since employment, I have seen this trend continue in the supervisory level. This is in alignment with the authors data that shows the percentage of supervisory jobs eliminated doubling in four years. My company is not currently going through a large organized downsizing, but rather a slow downsizing through attrition and hiring fewer people. The flattening of my company, coupled with the implementation of high performance work systems has undoubtedly placed the results of doing business on the employees. The book dedicates an entire chapter to these work organizations and the responsibilities that they bring to the employees.

The book describes the changes and brings supporting data, but the authors do not give any significant conclusions or forecasts and does not present the data in a way that the reader can draw his or her own conclusions. The lack of conclusions or forecasts and the poor linking of the chapters leave the experienced reader, someone who has been through downsizing and is involved in high performance work groups, no better off than he or she was before.

Change at Work is a must read for high-school students, college students, and those seeking careers in management. Cappelli has a no nonsense approach with detailing those issues impacting our careers, the work environment, and the future. For those wondering if a technical or college education is worthwhile, Cappelli gives you good reasons for furthering your education. Cappelli and his co-authors do an outstanding job detailing those issues and circumstances faced by today's workers and managers of all business, i.e., corporate America, government agencies and other nonprofit entities, and the smallest of ma-and-pa companies. Cappelli does not offer good solutions for any of the issues he raises in this work. Unfortunately for professionals and management already in the work force, Change at Work offers no new knowledge.

Change at Work is based on a study, commissioned by the National Planning Association's Committee on New American Realities (NAR), to evaluate and comprehend changing employment/organizational practices. The study also looked at the impacts of such changes on the employees of the companies reviewed - particularly the skills and adaptation needed to weather this storm. Change at Work is divided into six chapters, each individually authored by NAR committee members. Consequently, one of the main problems with the book is that it does not flow particularly well. The central theme of Change at Work is that the traditional methods of managing employees and developing skilled workers inside companies are eroding, leaving a new employment relationship in which the attachment between employees and employers has declined. Jobs demand more of their workers but offer them less, and these workers now bear more of the risks of doing business through reduced job security and contingent pay (pay based on performance). In addition, what Peter Cappelli calls the "traditional work arrangements," where companies developed skilled employees and worked to keep them, are quickly disappearing. Pressure on the companies for better performance is being applied from foreign competitors and investors and is causing these companies to explore restructuring to cut out "fat." This "fat" has often been interpreted to mean the companies' employees, who have found themselves to be the unfortunate victims of the now famous concept called "downsizing." The strengths of Change at Work are in the chapters contributed by Cappelli. In addition, the book contains an interesting and thorough variety of data, surveys, and other references, although some may not like their breadth or loose assembly. Unfortunately, Change at Work balances its strengths with several weaknesses. The book claims it is the result of a study, but it is actually more of a history lesson with limited background. It is also not particularly useful as a management tool, and may not even be considered interesting by most managers or employees. The book lacks a solid conclusion to the theme, with the exception that employee/employer relationships will become worse before they improve. Change at Work provides several other useless conclusions as well. Examples include the findings that employees need more skills in the new system (which begs the question-at what point throughout business evolution have employees never needed new skills?); managing these issues will be an enormous challenge; and change at work will continue. Big surprises. The variety of data sources and timeframes simply tossed together leaves the reader hoping that the authors will use them to point to some obvious conclusion or develop their own, but in the last paragraph they resign and state they are divided. The currently strong economy and low unemployment rate, albeit temporary, has given employees an opportunity to strike back in the form of being more selective, demanding better compensation packages, etc. We should not ignore the benefits of corporate restructuring as mentioned in Change at Work. Restructuring has given organizations much more flexibility in accomplishing their goals, has empowered employees, and has given them the autonomy that the traditional model could not.

I have a 1999 Honda Prelude. Previous to this, I had a Honda Civic. The book for the Civic was awesome with clear step by step instructions with pictures to accompany each step. This book, all the steps shown involve the Honda Accord which has a totally different body than the Prelude. Things that they mention in steps, more often than not, don't pertain to the Prelude.

I purchased this book to learn how to replace my A/C filters on my Honda Accord Coupe, Year 2000 Model. Not a word about how to do this. It does not even cover how to remove the glove box for access to the filter plenum. A total waste of money for me. If it doesn't even cover this simple task, I wonder what will happen when I try to use if for something complicated..?

this book showed me all the ins and outs of the prelude from bumper to bumper. A deffinate buy if you wanna save money or just learn about your car. It has saved me some money on simple repairs and helped me modify the car as well.

Hi, I'm Paul Glassman, the author of the original and authorized Costa Rica Guide. Though this book uses my name, it consists entirely of outdated material.

Each summer I go to Costa Rica with a group of students to do a course in Sustainable Development. As a consequence I collect Costa Rican guidebooks. The previous guide by this author was good and I looked forward to this one.

This one was a bit of a disappointment. The guide presents a good straight forward description of Costa Rica and is still a useful tool for travellers.

Where this book suffers is in the details. I first came aware of this when I was trying to use it in Monteverde and I found out that there were many errors in the map presented. I eventually learned that the map presented things as they were in arly 1997. This is a real problem for a guide published in 2000 especially since there are guides published in 1999 that have more up to date maps than this one.

The discussion of the Southern Talamanca Coast also suffers. Cahuita is discussed in greater detail than Puerto Viejo even though the latter has become the bigger tourist destination in the past 5 years. Once again, the layout of this book seems to be based on what existed in 1996-97 rather than what exists today.

Lack of detailed, useful information also haunts the ArenalVolcano/La Fortuna disussions.

In summary, Paul Glassman's Costa Rica Guide covers the basics but does not provide the type of helpful detail that many other guides provide. Normally the more recently a guide is published, the more useful it is. However in this case, there are guides published in 1999 and even 1998 that contain more useful and sometimes more up to date information than this year 2000 publication.

Hi,

I am working at Ilisa Language Instute in Costa Rica, San Jose and I want to say that this book helps us a lot to give our students helpfull information about getting around in Costa Rica. Thanks!

This book "mystified" TCP/IP instead. I guess the author did not bother to submit his manuscript to technical editor. A lot of technical subjects are presented but clear explanation is hardly found within the text, defeating the very title and purpose of writing this book.

For example, in Chapter 4, he was supposed to describe "what is raw telnet?" On page 58, he wrote:

"In summary, Figure 4.6 shows the VM machine performing two functions. It performs protocol conversiobn and data translation. However, with the appropriate product, data translation can be performed on the UNIX hot. Consequently, over time savings will be realized when measured by CPU cycles. This is done with TN3270 client."

What's savings in CPU cycles got to do with raw telnet?

I'm not in the position to challenge the author's technical knowledge but I believe even a college freshman can come up with school paper far better than this book.

This book is essentially a glossary of internet terms. Many of the chapter names begin with "What is..." followed by, for example, "FTP". There is a certain amount of historical comment, very little depth of explanation, and no practical information at all. The sheer mass of technical terms - I started counting them and quit at 100 - leads to complete confusion, rather than demystification.

As an IT student, i found purchasing this book gave me the perfect introduction to TCP/IP and how it is applied to various aspects of networking, FTP's, Mail servers, the web etc. today and also what to expect of these services in the future.

Dr Paul L Schlieve does an excellent job of introducing the above subjects in a manner which is easily understandable, even by a complete beginner.

Very higly recommendable!

This book has some information that is useful, however most of what I needed to know was difficult to find and implement. The lack of useful guidance with clear cut reasoning for milestone steps was frustrating (i.e. organization naming and bringing in additional domains into your empty root that have existing Exchange organization). Buying this book was not the best use of our limited funds!

I am writing this in hopes that no one will make the same mistake and buy this book. This book was of no help to me what so ever during my Exchange install. The book is poorly written. The chapter order makes no sense at all. The index is useless. The whole book seems to be written to tell about Exchange 2000, but not give any useful information. The authors should be ashamed, and I think they would be, but I don't think they read the book.

This book was very good. I got a different perspective than other Exchange 2000 books I have read. It covers Exchange 2000 technology issues well, and has been a good reference book for my implementation.

This is completely call center focused and does not cover what the title states!

The book seems to be a raw summary of what the authors read and gathered from statistical reviews and reports about new trends in customer services and e-commerce. I found the book to be composed of some really interesting statistics and facts but rather trivial ideas.

Too many words to express simple ideas and too many copy and paste from chapter to chapter.... My college professor would not grade it as an A-, I guess.

Este Libro es muy explicativo de las Caracteristicas que debe poseer un CRM, sus Perifericos, nuevos enfoques sobre servicio al Cliente, Realmente es un libro muy estructurado acerca de las mas importantes nociones de los CRM

Before Marvel relaunched this book, the Fantastic Four was on the verge of being cancelled for many years. This story can show why. It is full of plots that always contradict each other and the artwork is even worse then what you find in the Sunday newspaper cartoon strips. I think comics as a whole are dying as an artform and this book was just another example of it.

You want to know the reason why the Fantastic Four has not been all that fantastic for the last decade or so, read this book and you will see why. It's so convoluted that ou will not have a single idea what's going on from the first page to the last.

I couldn't agree less with the other guy. The art and writing in "Nobody Gets Out Alive" were great. 'Nuff said.

I purchased this book because of its eye catching title but was disappointed after reading a few pages. I was also under the impression that the writer will describe in detail the famous GT road and his experiences while traveling on it. Instead there is more about famous cities of the sub continent and that too written weakly. There are numerous other books written very well. Don't get confused with the title.

If one prefers good travel writing, skip this book.One of the most boring travelogues I have ever had the misfortune to read. Mr. Bach starts with good intentions, but then loses the whole plot. Is travel writng only about ones travelling or should it carry a bit of history of the place, of one's thoughts. Mr Bach could do well to read Paul Theroux, Alexander Frater and all before he writes another book. Its good to be a India lover, but thats all that there is to Mr Bach.

This book really brought alive an area which is lesser known by western travellers. Imaginative and vivid descriptions. I particularly liked the humour and the unexpected nature of travelling in such an area. Many interesting books come out of India, and they are not that well known to us in the western countries.

This is the worst book I have ever read on navigation. By far. I suspect the author can not even stay found when he is trying to go to his kithen or water closet. He says hundreds of blatant nonsense. And from time to time he will pronounce some truism with such an emphasis that I have to believe he is so dumb that he's never been able to read a real book about navigation. Or else, how could he boast about having "invented" himself things mankind has been using since dawn of time?

I have read some very good books about navigation. I have also navigated through thousands of kilometers in jungles, deserts and open lands. Night and day, under rain and under sand storms. I could use "his" methods on some simple scenarios. of course, the "methods" are not "his", every experienced navigator knows them all. And, of course, most of the times "his" method SHOULD NOT BE USED, because they are too simple-minded and will not work under tough conditions. Sometimes "his" method will not work even under fairly light conditions. He brags, he boasts, he blows his horn, he crows, he shows off; the only thing he does NOT do is teaching good navigation principles.

One more thing: EVERY SINGLE thing he mentions as uniquely developed by him can, in fact, be found in almost any other book about land navigation (or any other form of navigation). Including those published by the US Military.

Don't by this book. Keep searching. There are many many titles that go from "good" to "excellent" in this subject. You don't need to waist your time and money with this junk. And, what's worse, you could be convinced -- at least in the begining -- that Don Paul has taught you what you needed for navigation. And then find -- when lost in a dangerous place -- that you are alone, helpless and lost.

I was thinking, perhaps this guy lost his head when he had an a parachute accident. He is not a writer. He doesn't know how to string words together, let alone a book! It seems he writes as someone who turns the fan on, put some smelling material in front of it and let it fly. The book stinks!

Now, remember: you have been advised. If you still want to buy it, don't complain later.

This little book needs a re-write. It just does not flow, you have to read it a couple of times to understand what he is saying. Once you get his meaning you find out that this material is known by many experienced navigators, it is not a unique idea. My advice is, do not bank on just this method of wilderness navigation; or you will be in trouble.

Investigate other navigation books because there are better ones.

Ted Fisher
Geographic Information Systems Director
Vermilion County MIS

This is not literature nor is it intended to be. It is a presentation of a method for finding the most direct route back to your starting location without knowing where you are at any given time. After reading this a few times and trying it out, it works. Don's writing style is a little like fly excrement, it's all over the place. It makes seperating out his ideas a bit challenging. He presents statements which though obvious to him leaves the reader unknowing. For instance, he suggests rubbing an iron/steel needle on a rock to magnetize it and how to float it for an emergency compass. He fails however to tell which direction to rub it and which end of the needle would be pointing north. There are several important to the subject examples like this that are maddening. There are typos etc. This is a book in serious need of editing. So that's what's wrong with it. What is right with it is that he has developed a novel if somewhat cumbersome method of finding your way home without a map. You need a good compass, a pile of what he calls P.A.U.L. notes and some basic arithmetic skills. Even I could utilize his system almost immediately. This system can be utilized in any immaginable situation, even scuba diving. He then introduces somethink called S.O.C.K. you will just have to read for yourself. It applies to numerous navigation situations and is quite frankly, brilliant. There is a bit of tactical and military information that if not generally useful to a hiker is at least interesting. The owner of this small unusual book definitly gets his moneys worth out of it. There is the unavoidable colorful stories and anecdotes blessedly brief plus bits of very useful common sense suggestions. The attraction of this book is that it is based on empirical experience, it's not just some rhetoric on yet another idea for sale. The book has valuable coupons to use for discounts on his other publications. He's not a dummy. He's also not a writer.

I've been thinking about buying this book and finally came across it in a bookstore so I was able to preview it before buying it on amazon.[com] I'm glad I did because like other reviews, the main disappointment with this book is that the paintings are reproduced small. They're reproduced almost as footnotes to the text but my main reason in buying an art book is for the visuals. And with Bosch, there are so many details but they were just too small to see here. The art should have been given a full page without text surrounding an image. This was a big let down, I was looking forward to buying this book, but now I'll pass on it. With the small reproductions it just isn't worth the price. The 1 star is for Bosch's art which is still great despite the poor book design.

This book has three essay chapters. The first chapter deals with Bosch's home town..... anything about Bosch's home town. Details are thrown in because they are known, even when they do not add to our understanding of Bosch. The second chapter discusses a new method for dating the wood panels that Bosch and others painted on, and questions whether some paintings can really be attributed to Bosch. This could be an interesting discussion if there was more explanation of how the paintings had been judged and attributed to Bosch previously. Instead it is new data without much context. The final chapter deals with the imagery of Bosch. This has the potential to be the most enlightening, but falls well short. By the end the reader may know a little more about Bosch, but not enough to warrant wading through this book.
Now all could still be forgiven if the presentation of the artwork was good. Because Bosch is enjoyable without explanations. But the presentation in the book is not. The paintings and drawings appear scattered throughout with no rhyme or reason. The numbering of the pictures is frustrating to follow. You will be searching back and forth through the book looking for the pictures that correspond to the point being made in the text.
When you do find the picture, you probably will be disappointed. Even the quintessential Bosch work " The Garden of Earthly Delights" is presented in quarter page size. In contrast Bosch imitators are given larger representation. I don't understand why.
The poor lay-out even extends to page numbering. There is a reason for numbering the pages on the outer margins, away from the spine. This was brought home very strongly as I searched for the page numbers halfway along the pages near the spine. This may sound a trivial complaint, but this book seemed designed to test the patience of the reader.
I got this book for half price, but that was still paying way too much. There are far better and cheaper books out there on Bosch. Go with them.

As a scholarly discussion of Bosch the book is excellent. However, as a presentation of his art it is absolutely atrocious. All complete pictures are shown in a miniature form nearly impossible to study, and details are disjointedly scattered throughout the book and unduly difficult to track down. This is not a book for those who want to experience and enjoy Bosch's art for its own sake.