Jerold L. Zimmerman - Relentless

Focusing on what make mobster enterprises successful and what leads to their failures, Zimmerman and Forrester provide an intriguing economic analysis of organized crime enterprises and derive corporate governance lessons that are applicable to legitimate enterprises.

Thomas Z. Lys
Eric L. Kohler Professor Emeritus
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Relentless provides a vivid reminder that long-term survival of any business, legitimate or illegitimate, requires creative thinking and adherence to key business principles.

Cliff Owens
Vice President (retired), Medtronic

Relentless deploys the novel device of comparing subjects that on the surface seem to have little in commonlawful and unlawful organizationsto identify important management principles while educating the reader about life and leadership in the criminal underworld. In this regard, Zimmerman and Forrester have really hit the mark. And they do all of this in a highly entertaining manner. Well done.

Graham McDonald
Senior Vice President (Retired), Great-West Financial

Relentless is thought provoking and very enlightening in terms of driving managers of lawful organizations to really understand the essential elements of management and leadership and how they must be tailored to their unique circumstances.

Jay Busch
Former President, Triax Telecommunications

Also by Jerold L. Zimmerman, PhD

Accounting for Decision Making and Control
10th edition, McGraw-Hill Education (2019)

Management Accounting in a Dynamic Environment
(with C. McWatters), Routledge Taylor & Francis (2016)

Managerial Economics and Organizational Architecture
(with J. Brickley and C. Smith), 7th edition,
McGraw-Hill Education (2021)

Designing Organizations to Create Value: From Strategy to Structure
(with J. Brickley, C. Smith, and J. Willett),
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., (2003)

Management Accounting: Analysis and Interpretation
(with and D. Morse), McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (1997); 2nd edition
(with C. McWatters and D. Morse), McGraw-Hill/Irwin (2001)

Also by Daniel P. Forrester

Consider: Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking In Your Organization
Palgrave Macmillan (2011)

The Forensics of Mobsters Business Practices

Based on Seventy-Five Years of Nobel Prize-Winning Research in Economics

Jerold L. Zimmerman, PhD

University of Rochester

with Daniel P. Forrester

THRUUE, Inc.

Relentless: The Forensics of Mobsters Business Practices
2021, Jerold L. Zimmerman, PhD. All rights reserved.
Published by Willowcroft Publishing, Littleton, Colorado

ISBN 978-1-7348371-0-0 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-7348371-1-7 (eBook)
Library of Congress Control Number:

www.JeroldZimmerman.com
www.DanielForrester.com

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This book is intended to provide accurate information with regard to its subject matter and reflects the opinion and perspective of the author. However, in times of rapid change, ensuring all information provided is entirely accurate and up-to-date at all times is not always possible. Therefore, the author and publisher accept no responsibility for inaccuracies or omissions and specifically disclaim any liability, loss or risk, personal, professional or otherwise, which may be incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and/or application of any of the contents of this book.

From Jerold Zimmerman

To my grandchildren Jillian Taylor and Conner and
Easton Beckett for their unrelenting spirit and joy.

From Daniel Forrester

To my children William and Charlotte Forrester. Thank you for
your unrelenting love and inspiration every single day of my life.

Organized criminals are just as savvy as many entrepreneurs. They can pin point where the money is for the Family, then go about constructing the methodology to accomplish it. I tried a case where two Teamster locals were fighting over their right to organize a trucking company. The Genovese Family put together a massive kickback scheme, using the unions, where their gambling operatives were getting no show jobs in that trucking company to provide a steady flow of money kicked up to the Family. These Mafiosi cleverly found a way to pad their pockets. Could these criminals have just as easily been running major businesses? Yes. But they grew up in the FAMILY.

V. Grady OMalley
Assistant United States Attorney

Relentless is defined as continuing in a determined way without any interruption and showing or promising no abatement of severity, intensity, strength, or pace.

Cambridge Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

B efore settling on the name Amazon, Jeff Bezos registered the domain name Relentless.com. In fact, entering Relentless.com in a browser, redirects you to Amazon.com. In 1995, he adopted the mission to be Earths most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. The ever-relentless Bezos claims The No. 1 thing that has made us successful by far is obsessive, compulsive focus on the customer. Over the last twenty-five years, Amazons relentless strategy allowed it to evolve from an online store to dominate the countrys digital backbone in cloud computing.

All types of organizationsfor profit, not-for-profit, lawful, and unlawfulmust be relentless in highly competitive and constantly evolving environments. Every day iconic brands like JCPenney, Kodak, and Blockbuster vanish while El Chapo Guzmn, convicted head of the Sinaloa Cartel, and his wife launch their high-profile El Chapo 701 fashion clothing line. Russian and Sicilian Mafias turn to cybercrime. Managers in lawful companies face disruptive technologies, groundbreaking new products, and competition from new entrants that challenge their existence. Every organization must manage its way through a rapidly shifting world, or else fail. Yet some organized crime (mob) syndicates last decades despite massive law enforcement efforts and rival gangs directed at their daily demise. The American Mafia, which blossomed during Prohibition in the 1920s, continues to persist in the twenty-first century. What allows some of these criminal organizations to survive, and even thrive at times?