Turning conventional wisdom on its head, a Senior Partner and an Innovation Specialist from McKinsey & Company debunk the myth that high-octane, built-to-last companies can continue to excel year after year and reveal the dynamic strategies of discontinuity and creative destruction these corporations must adopt in order to maintain excellence and remain competitive. In striking contrast to such bibles of business literature as In Search of Excellence and Built to Last, Richard N. Foster and Sarah Kaplan draw on research they conducted at McKinsey & Company of more than one thousand corporations in fifteen industries over a thirty-six-year period. The industries they examined included old-economy industries such as pulp and paper and chemicals, and new-economy industries like semiconductors and software. Using this enormous fact base, Foster and Kaplan show that even the best-run and most widely admired companies included in their sample are unable to sustain their market-beating levels of performance for more than ten to fifteen years. Foster and Kaplan's long-term studies of corporate birth, survival, and death in America show that the corporate equivalent of El Dorado, the golden company that continually outperforms the market, has never existed. It is a myth. Corporations operate with management philosophies based on the assumption of continuity; as a result, in the long term, they cannot change or create value at the pace and scale of the markets. Their control processes, the very processes that enable them to survive over the long haul, deaden them to the vital and constant need for change. Proposing a radical new business paradigm, Foster and Kaplan argue that redesigning the corporation to change at the pace and scale of the capital markets rather than merely operate well will require more than simple adjustments. They explain how companies like Johnson and Johnson , Enron, Corning, and GE are overcoming cultural "lock-in" by transforming rather than incrementally improving their companies. They are doing this by creating new businesses, selling off or closing down businesses or divisions whose growth is slowing down, as well as abandoning outdated, ingrown structures and rules and adopting new decision-making processes, control systems, and mental models. Corporations, they argue, must learn to be as dynamic and responsive as the market itself if they are to sustain superior returns and thrive over the long term. In a book that is sure to shake the business world to its foundations, Creative Destruction, like Re-Engineering the Corporation before it, offers a new paradigm that will change the way we think about business.

Von Dr. Edward G. Krubasik Director, McKinsey & Company, Munchen Innovation als eine Auseinandersetzung von Angreifern und Verteidigern zu begreifen, weist auf die aktive Rolle von Un ternehmen, ihres Managements und von einzelnen Vorreitern im InnovationsprozeE. hin. Innovation verliert den M ythos, ein anonymes Ereignis bzw. Produkt der jeweiligen U mstande zu sein. Innovation ist auch nicht nur eine Angelegenheit von Forschung und Entwicklung, sondern tangiert die gesamte Unternehmensstrategie und ist dementsprechend eine der wichtigsten Aufgaben der UnternehmensfUhrung. Diese Posi tionen nimmt Richard N. Foster in seinem Buch "Innovation - The Attacker's Advantage" in aller Klarheit ein. Eine deutsche Ausgabe dieses Buches ist vor allem daher an gebracht und notwendig, weil dieses Management-Buch ganz eindeutig nicht von Problemen und Erkenntnissen handelt, nach einer intensiven Anpassung an die besonderen die erst europaischen Managementbedingungen fUr die Praxis rele vant sind. Sowohl in USA als auch in Europa haben wir die gleichen Managementprobleme, die gleichen Ausgangsbedin gungen, die gleichen Moglichkeiten zur Steigerung der Inno vationskrafte in den U nternehmen der Triade USA, Japan und Europa. Dies macht die Idee dieses Buches so auE. er ordentlich wichtig. Denn einerseits wird in einem stark ex portorientierten Land wie dem unserigen das Bestehen im in- 7 ternationalen Wettbewerb ohne Innovationen, insbesondere technologische Innovationen, sehr schwer werden angesichts der starkeren Konkurrenz von Dritte-Welt-Landern bei den herkommlichen Produkten und Industrien. Zum anderen scheint hierzulande die aktive BeeinfluEbarkeit des Entwick lungs- und Durchsetzungsprozesses von Innovation noch we niger akzeptiert zu werden als z. B. in den USA.

This issue of Critical Care Clinics focuses on Burn Resuscitation in the ICU. Articles include: The Physiologic Basis of Burn Shock and the Need for Aggressive Fluid Resuscitation; The Use of Colloid in Burn Resuscitation; Monitoring and Endpoints of Burn Resuscitation; Vitamin C in Burn Resuscitation; Pediatric Burn Resuscitation; Burn resuscitation in the Austere Environment; Failed Burn resuscitation; and more!

Drawing on 13 years of research, the authors show that, over time, long-established companies, instead of maintaining excellence, always under perform the market. Proposing a radical new business paradigm, they argue that instead of focusing on continuity, companies must focus on discontinuity--constantly destroying and recreating themselves to remain competitive and thrive long-term.

Accidents involving reactive chemicals can often be prevented, or their effects alleviated, if those handling them have a sound knowledge both of their hazardous properties and of appropriate handling methods. This book addresses this need.It opens with a definition of the key technical terms and evaluation methods for hazardous materials are outlined. Chapter 2 covers accidents involving self-reactive substances, accidents occurring during chemical reactions, and accidents involving hazardous products in the event of an earthquake. In the next three chapters, methods for evaluating fire and explosion hazards of reactive substances are covered. The test methods described include DSC test using a sealed cell, impact sensitivity tests, the ignitability test, burning tests, the pyrolytic severity test, and shock sensitivity tests. Recently, the Japanese Fire Services Law was amended, requiring hazardous materials to be evaluated and classified by appropriate tests. These test methods, described in chapter 4, are related to oxidising solids, combustible solids, spontaneous ignition substances, and water-reactive substances. The final chapter gives examples of the safety assessment of various pyrotechnics.There are few books available on this subject and none so comprehensive. Each of the methods described is practical, effective and of low cost; and many of the application results are from the author's own laboratory. The book will be invaluable to those in public and industrial safety laboratories, R & D chemical laboratories, Fire Departments, explosives manufacturers, and those responsible for the transportation of hazardous materials.