What Makes Retirees Happier: A Gradual or 'Cold Turkey' Retirement?

This study explores the factors that affect an individual’s happiness while transitioning into retirement. Recent studies highlight gradual retirement as an attractive option to older workers as they approach full retirement. However, it is not clear whether phasing or cold turkey makes for a happier retirement. Using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study, this study explores what shapes the change in happiness between the last wave of full employment and the first wave of full retirement. Results suggest that what really matters is not the type of transition (gradual retirement or cold turkey), but whether people perceive the transition as chosen or forced

Without Reservations: How a Family Root Beer Stand Grew Into a Global Hotel Company

In Without Reservations, global business leader and hotel industry icon J.W. “Bill” Marriott, Jr., shares both the story of and the recipe for the success of Marriott International, one of the world’s leading hotel companies. The company began with one family-run root beer stand and grew over eight decades, through his leadership, into a global corporation that is widely respected for the business it does and the way it does business. In 1964, on the eve of being named president of the company, Marriott’s father, founder and then-CEO J. Willard Marriott, Sr., tucked a letter in his 32-year-old son’s desk drawer. The letter contained insights and guideposts that proved invaluable as Bill Jr., blazed the trail not only for his company, but for the hospitality industry as well. The letter, printed in this book, provides timeless advice for any person in any business who aims to achieve success. Without Reservations is a compilation of engaging stories that takes the reader behind the scenes as events and decisions unfol