Authors: Bernie/Blank,Arthur/Andelman,Bob Marcus.
Paperback, 356 pages
Publisher: Crown Publishing
Publication Date: 2001

Authors: Kenny Moore.
Hardcover, 480 pages
Publisher: Rodale Books
Publication Date: 2006-07-25


Reviews :

    During his tenure as track coach at the University of Oregon from 1949 through 1972, Bill Bowerman won 4 national team titles, trained dozens of milers to break the 4-minute barrier, and his athletes set 13 world and 22 American records. Single-handedly he helped turn the college town of Eugene, Oregon, into the running capital of the world.In Bowerman: The Wings of Nike, Kenny Moore, a world-class marathon runner and one of Bowerman s Oregon men, tells the story of his mentor and hero, drawing on years of taped interviews and the full cooperation of the Bowerman family and Nike, the company that Bowerman helped to found through his invention of the waffle-soled running shoe.Whether providing a fresh look at the tragic siege at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, where Bowerman coached the track and field team; offering a close-up view of the coach s relationship with runner Steve Prefontaine (subject of the movie Without Limits, co-written and co-produced by Moore); or exploring Bowerman s role as a Nike innovator, this illuminating portrait is compelling reading throughout-ample evidence of why Bowerman s widow, noting how well the author understood her husband, said: -If anyone should write Bill s life story, it s Kenny Moore. ...

Authors: Donald Vanthournout.
Paperback, 190 pages
Publisher: Agate B2
Publication Date: 2008-12-30
Edition: First Trade Paper Edition

Reviews :

    ...

Authors: Frederick L. Allen.
Paperback, 544 pages
Publisher: Collins
Publication Date: 1995-07-05


Reviews :

    "A clear, convincing, anecdotal, often fascinating portrayal not just of Coca-Cola's corporate brilliance, but of how it inveighed its way into the center of American, and world, consciousness."--The Financial Times...

Authors: Larry Schweikart.
Paperback, 624 pages
Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing
Publication Date: 1999-06-30
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    THE ENTREPRENEURIAL EXPERIENCE is unique in its positive portrayal of the American entrepreneurial spirit and in its pro-market, pro-entrepreneur perspective. Professor Schweikart emphasizes that individuals, not groups, are most responsible for the creation of wealth in America, and that individual entrepreneurs, if left to their own devices, will have a better chance of solving problems than if controlled or regulated by the government. While the book covers the full extent of the history of the United States, approximately 40% of the text is concerned with the twentieth century....

Authors: Dee W. Hock. Visa International.
Hardcover, 345 pages
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication Date: 2000-01-01


Reviews :

    In Birth of the Chaordic Age, Dee Hock argues that traditional organizational forms can no longer work because organizations have become too complex. Hock advocates a new organizational form that he calls "chaordic," or simultaneously chaotic and orderly. He credits the worldwide success of VISA to its chaordic structure: It is owned by its member banks, which both compete with each other for customers and cooperate by honoring one another's transactions across borders and currencies. The book shows how these same chaordic concepts are now being put into practice in a broad range of business, social, community, and government organizations....

    Birth of the Chaordic Age is a compelling manifesto for the future, embedded within the intriguing story of a personal odyssey. An engaging narrator, Dee Hock is the man who first conceived of a global system for the electronic exchange of value, becoming the founder and CEO of VISA International. He looks critically at today's environment of command-and-control institutions and sees organizations that are falling apart, failing to achieve their own purposes let alone addressing the diversity and complexity of society as a whole. The solution, Hock claims, lies in transforming our notion of organization; in embracing the belief that the chaos of competition and the order of cooperation can and do coexist, succeed, even thrive; and in welcoming in the chaordic age.

The underlying tenets of Hock's ideas are well illustrated by the incredible story of the birth of VISA International, an organization formed on chaordic principles that now links in excess of 20,000 financial institutions, 14 million merchants, and 600 million consumers in 220 countries. Hock deplores an age where ingenuity and effort are wasted on circumventing the rules and regulations of insular, hierarchical bureaucracies. In a bold-type subtext interspersed throughout the book, he examines how this situation is stunting our potential as individuals and communities and contemplates what can be changed. This rumination is propelled onward by "Old Monkey Mind" (Hock's own thoughts). Though the technique allows the reader to engage in stimulating mental discovery along with the author, its New Age spiritual tone is sometimes a bit saccharine. His insights, however, are clear and provocative. In the Chaordic Age, he contends, "success will depend less on rote and more on reason; less on the authority of the few and more on the judgment of many; less on compulsion and more on motivation; less on external control of people and more on internal discipline." Hear, hear. --S. Ketchum...

Authors:
Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication Date: 1997-10-01
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    Culture has been colonized by enterprise. Mass entertainment has become the economic dynamo that brings the public to the consuming fold and consolidates the power of business over the mind. Telecommunications and entertainment giants have erected a powerful "Culture Trust" and business has taken over the popular imagination. For the last decade "The Baffler" magazine has been hailed as the most perceptive critic of these developments. This work features "The Baffler"'s best essays on the business of culture and culture business....

    In this thought-provoking collection of essays, editor Thomas Frank and other contributors to the contrarian journal the Baffler examine the unprecedented ascendancy of business as the dominating force in American life. If the closest historical parallel is with the Gilded Age and its all-powerful robber barons, Frank and his ilk clearly see themselves as the muckrakers out to expose the absurdities and abuses of big business. Today, however, advertising has come to permeate every aspect of our society, and corporations are in the business of manufacturing culture--what Frank calls the "Culture Trust." These essays analyze the ways in which this Culture Trust has co-opted the power of dissent by appropriating the language and symbolism of nonconformist youth culture, from hippie slang to grunge fashion; in other words, when the media markets rebellion, it becomes just another consumer choice. As evidence, the essayists explore the image of consumer as rebel pioneered by publications such as Details and Wired, as well as the preeminence of "revolutionary" business gurus such as Tom Peters. The result is a highly original book, a satirical and savage indictment of '90s consumerist culture....

Authors: Thomas Bonsall.
Hardcover, 496 pages
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Publication Date: 2000-11-01
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    This lavishly illustrated book on the famous automobile manufacturer traces the Studebaker family from its arrival in America in 1736, to the beginnings of the wagon business under John M. Studebaker and his brothers in the nineteenth century, to the family's entry into the automobile industry in 1902, to the last Studebaker automobile to roll off the assembly line in 1966.

The book, however, is much more than the story of a family business; it is also, in microcosm, the story of the industrial development of America. The Studebakers had always been industrialists in the sense that they made their living by manufacturing things, albeit on a small scale. When the Industrial Revolution hit the country with full force, spurred on by the Civil War, it transformed America from a rural-agrarian society into an urban-industrial one. The fortunes of the Studebaker family were transformed with it.

As the title suggests, the Studebaker story was mostly one of success. Studebaker wagons and carriages were long noted for their quality and popularity, and so, too, were Studebaker automobiles. The 1953 Starliner and the 1963 Avanti, designed under Raymond Loewy's direction, are widely regarded as among the most innovative examples of American industrial design.

The book deals in detail with the soaring prosperity of the company in the 1920s, the bankruptcy and miraculous recovery in the 1930s, the stupendous success of the early post-World War II period, and the eventual decline of the company's fortunes in the mid-1950s. It describes the development of such famous models as the Lark, Avanti, and Gran Tourisimo Hawk, with special attention paid to the Avanti II, a surprisingly successful spinoff from the dying company that continued to be produced until 1991. The final chapter, on why Studebaker died, is tightly reasoned and more convincing than previous theories. Throughout, the author has used personal incident and characterization to bring to life the rich, tumultuous history of one of America's longest enduring industrial empires....

Authors: Paul C Nutt.
Paperback, 350 pages
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication Date: 2002-07-15
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    Why Decisions Fail critiques 15 infamously bad decisions that became public debacles. Including the Firestone tire recall and Quaker’s failed acquisition of Snapple, the author examines how these mistakes could have been avoided and explains how any organization’s decision-making process can be improved to prevent such failures. Author Paul Nutt began by looking at 400 decisions made by top managers involving such topics as products and services, pricing and markets, personnel policy, technology acquisition, and strategic reorganization. Analyzing how each decision was made, he determined that two out of three decisions were based on failure-prone or questionable tactics. He identifies these key errors and suggests alternatives that have proven successful. ...

Authors: Bob Ortega.
Paperback, 448 pages
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Publication Date: 2000-03-21
Edition: Reprint

Reviews :

    If bigger is better, Wal-Mart has rightfully won its leading position in the pantheon of international institutions. With more than 100 million customers a week, Wal-Mart is by far the world's largest retailer. It is the biggest private-sector employer in North America, and one of the most dominant and influential corporations anywhere. Sam Walton's company prides itself on being a paragon of service, integrity, and frugality to its customers. But all is not well in the many areas where people have been "Wal-Martized" and have faced Wal-Mart's controversial business practices.

In Sam We Trust is the true, unvarnished story of the Wal-Mart colossus at work, and of how its remarkable success illustrates the glory as well as the underbelly of American capitalism. A flinty workaholic obsessed with his stores at the expense of his personal life, Walton established the ruthlessly efficient strategy that enabled Wal-Mart to surpass Sears, outsmart Kmart, and crush small-town mom-and-pop stores. Bob Ortega, a veteran reporter who covered Wal-Mart extensively for The Wall Street Journal, has written an illuminating and authoritative account of the world's most powerful store, and of how Sam Walton's way of thinking is transforming America's -- and the world's -- business practices, workplaces, and communities....