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; and (4) to make the book clear enough so that students could go through the material without wasting either their time or their professors’ time trying to figure out what we were saying. The events precipitating the recession of 2007, the dramatic changes in financial technology at stock exchanges across the world, and the sovereign debt crisis in Greece 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.

当我们写第一版《财务管理：理论与实践》时，我们有四个目标：（1）创造一个文本，帮助学生做出更好的财务决策；（2）提供一本可以用于MBA入门课程的书，但一份已经足够完整，可以作为后续案例课程和毕业后参考的教材；（3）通过证明金融既有趣又相关来激励学生；（4）使书足够清楚，以便学生能够通读材料，而不浪费他们的时间或他们的教授的时间试图弄清楚我们在说什么。引发2007年经济衰退的事件，全球证券交易所金融技术的巨大变化，以及希腊的主权债务危机，使得学生和管理者比以往任何时候都更需要了解金融在全球经济、他们自己的公司和他们自己的生活中所扮演的角色。因此，除了上面列出的四个目标外，本版还有第五个目标：让学生为改变的世界做好准备。