Opportunity: Optimizing Life's Chances

Donald Morris

Donald Morris, 2006 - 461 páginas

Can you recognize an opportunity when it comes your way? Even though the concept seems fairly basic, most people harbor regrets about missed opportunities that in retrospect might have significantly improved their lives. This book will give you the critical tools to sort through the complexities that often obscure the perception of an opportunity and help you take full advantage of what author Donald Morris calls "high-end opportunities" — pivotal situations that can change your life for the better.
Morris begins by developing a model of opportunity in the abstract, analyzing its elements and the contexts and frameworks that affect our recognition of opportunities. Drawing from a wide range of applications, including investing, business, law, criminology, gambling, and even religion, he shows how opportunities can be defined in various contexts. He also examines highly undesirable situations, where opportunity is lacking, such as poverty and historical instances of slavery, to further illustrate, by way of contrast, the defining characteristics of opportunity.
How does a significant opportunity differ from a simple option? How does taking advantage of opportunities differ from being an opportunist? Does our ability to predict the future affect our opportunities? What do we mean by equality of opportunity? By addressing these and other probing questions, Morris shows how to develop more critical perceptions of real opportunities.

Índice

• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: 15
• CHAPTER: 21
• The matrix of opportunitythe context elements and framework: 27
• Putting it all togetherRobinson Crusoe: 34
• Questioning your understanding: 40
• CHAPTER: 42
• Riskgambling without a full deck: 51
• Catalystcriminology and opportunity: 57
• CHAPTER THREE: 66
• Business strategy and SWOT analysis: 73
• CHAPTER FOUR: 84
• Equality of opportunity: 102
• CHAPTER FIVE: 114
• The poverty linerelative and absolute measures of poverty: 120
• Conclusions: 136
• Slavery: 148
• PredestinationJohn Calvin: 157
• Camus The Stranger and the lack of hope: 164
• CHAPTER SEVEN: 168
• King Richard III Faust and Machiavelli: 175
• CHAPTER EIGHT: 184
• Selfefficacy: 194
• Robinson Crusoe: 200
• Accommodation talents and equal opportunity: 207
• Sacrifice: 226
• Regret or remorse: 232
• CHAPTER: 239
• Distortions in our organization of the pastextra meaning: 246
• Prediction and opportunity: 252
• Economic prediction: 263
• Gamblingthe source of statistical studies of probability: 278
• CHAPTER TWELVE: 284
• Marketingtechnology product and industry life cycles: 294
• Human naturepredicting conduct: 300
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN: 310
• Induction and superstition: 321
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN: 333
• The great chain of being: 343
• The hierarchy in 1300Dantes Paradise: 350
• Keplers death knell for circular assumptions: 356
• The other shoethe new emphasis on methodFrancis Bacon: 362
• Questions: 375
• NOTES: 395
• WORKS CITED: 443
• INDEX: 457

Sobre el autor

Donald Morris, CPA, Ph.D., is professor of accounting and chair of the Accounting, Finance, and CIS Department at Eastern New Mexico University. The former owner of an accounting firm and a onetime instructor of philosophy, he is the author of Dewey and the Behavioristic Context of Ethics.

Información bibliográfica

• Título: Opportunity: Optimizing Life's Chances; G - Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series
• Autor: Donald Morris
• Edición: ilustrada
• Editor: Donald Morris, 2006
• ISBN: 1591024021, 9781591024026
• N.º de páginas: 461 páginas