When we wrote the first edition of Financial Management: Theory and Practice, we had four goals:
(1) to create a text that would help students make better financial decisions;
(2) to provide a book that could be used in the introductory MBA course, but one that was complete enough for use as a reference text in follow-on case courses and after graduation;
(3) to motivate students by demonstrating that finance is both interesting and relevant;
(4) to make the book clear enough so that students could go through the material without wasting either their time or their professor's time trying to figure out what we were saying.
The collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market, the financial crisis, and the globaleconomic crisis make it more important than ever for students and managers to understand the role that finance plays in a global economy, in their own companies, and in their own lives. So in addition to the four goals listed above, this edition has a fifth goal, to prepare students for a changed world.