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This book explores the contribution of corporate CEOs and their top lieutenants toward business success and failure. By looking at the three most recent economic crises, the S & L crisis, the dot-com bubble, and the recent subprime mortgage disaster, the author explains why and how corporate managers led their organizations toward disasters in the long-run, and explains the recent destructive collaboration within the organization, across the industry, and between business and government.

How They Blew It profiles business leaders and entrepreneurs and how they went from corporate gurus to financial disaster zones, resulting in the collapse of some of the world's most famous businesses. It looks at the personality traits of these business leaders and the fine line between success and failure

Do you remember the invasion of Newfoundland's hydroponic cucumber? How about New Brunswick's ill-fated space-age sports car? In this dynamic collection, Dan Soucoup follows the money trail up the political ladder to deliver the dirt on the most devastating failed business ventures, political scandals, and industry fiascos in Atlantic Canadian history. Presented in concise, entertaining vignettes, Boondoggles exposes two centuries of debacles in regional, national, and international scope. Exposed is the downfall of many local industries including steel, coal mining, nuclear and hydro-power, oil, heavy-water, and even rum-running. Relive the tragic fall of Sydney Steel in Cape Breton, PEI's flawed immigrant investor program, the controversial (and ongoing) Churchill Falls project in Newfoundland, New Brunswick's doomed Chignecto Ship Railway, and plenty more. From the coal mines of Cape Breton to the dry docks of Esquimalt, rediscover the stories that made headlines and continue to baffle Atlantic Canadians today. Includes 40 historical and contemporary images

A unique text that looks at events from a very different perspective - that of how and why events fail and what can be learnt from this in both a practical and academic perspective. It provides a case study approach to the event planning process with the cases illustrating how core planning theory and concepts fails to emerge in practice and why.

The decision to look at failures for answers is a bold one. Policy makers, planners and implementers have a tendency to look through prisms of success in framing working policies, programs and results when justifying them. Despite this, we still tend to address failures indirectly by looking at risk, critical success factors, unintended outcomes or consequences, and negative impacts to name a few. As the authors say, 'while success is desirable and we plan for it, failures are inevitable and we seldom plan to mitigate them.' The authors have clearly emphasized the need to look at failures in an integrated manner by building them into the planning and budget process while at the same time identifying monitoring points for early detection that will provide critical information for timely intervention. Failures are real, and we must plan to face them when they emerge. This book will offer the necessary insight to managers.

About this book -- Regulation, regulators and reporting -- Manipulating reports and creative accounting -- Landmark scandals : the impact of earlier cases -- Tesco, HBOS and autonomy -- Carillion: the collapse -- Carillion: the blame game -- Recent cases: Steinhoff and Conviviality -- Conclusions: the aftermath.

"This book offers a comprehensive overview of failure in business, management and consulting. It features contributions by experts from diverse fields, who share unique insights from their real-life experiences. Readers will find perspectives from leadership, project management, change management, innovation management, human resource management, counseling, restructuring, entrepreneurship and sports. Each chapter combines the latest empirical findings with relevant case studies, making for a unique book that offers a fascinating exploration of the largely unexplored area of setbacks, pitfalls, flops and disappointments in the business world."--