Authors: Jerry Oppenheimer.
Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: Wiley
Publication Date: 2009-02-24


Reviews :

    From Boise to Beijing, Mattel's toys dominate the universe. Its no-fun-and-games marketing muscle reaches some 140 countries, and its iconic products-Barbie, Hot Wheels, and Chatty Cathy, to name a few-have been a part of our culture for generations.

Now, in this intriguing and entertaining exposé, New York Times bestselling author Jerry Oppenheimer places the world's largest toy company under a journalistic microscope, uncovering the dark side of toy land, and exploring Mattel's oddball corporate culture and eccentric, often bizarre, cast of characters.

Based on exclusive interviews and an exhaustive review of public and private records, Toy Monster exposes Mattel's take-no-prisoners, shark-infested corporate style. Throughout this scrupulously reported, unauthorized portrait, you'll discover how dangerous toys are actually nothing new to Mattel, and why its fearsomely litigious approach within the brutal toy business has helped their products dominate over potential rivals such as Bratz.

But this is only part of the story. Along the way, you'll also become familiar with the larger-than-life personalities that have shaped Mattel's eccentric world. There's cofounder Ruth Handler, a "one-woman sales-merchandising-promotion-administrative force, a sort of industrial Orson Welles," who becomes a white-collar criminal. There's Jack Ryan, the "Father of Barbie," whose second of five wives calls him "a full-blown seventies-style swinger into wife-swapping and sundry sexual pursuits as a way of life." And don't forget CEO Robert Eckert, who came from the worlds of processed cheese and hot dogs to lead Mattel-only to get grilled by the U.S. Congress, and the world press, in the lead-paint-and-dangerous-magnets cause célèbre.

The phenomenal Barbie brand's 50th anniversary arrives in 2009, hot on the heels of the China Toy Terror recall scandal that has tarnished Mattel's image in the hearts and minds of millions of people worldwide. Toy Monster takes you inside the scandals that have been a part of this company, and shows you why today's toy business isn't always fun and games....

Authors: Paul Stiles.
Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Collins Business
Publication Date: 2006-09-01


Reviews :

   

The "market" is the collective name for every act of buying and selling we participate in. It governs our economy and our lives, determining our values, our goals, and our accomplishments. We make it—and are made by it.

In Is the American Dream Killing You? Paul Stiles shows how the pressures of the market are causing undue stress in all our lives. He explains why there is so little trust in companies, why it seems harder to feel secure, and why we never seem to be able to rest anymore. In this stunningly well-researched and elegantly argued book, Stiles shows that the harried, anxious lives we lead have one common pressure—the market.

...

Authors: Richard S. Tedlow.
Paperback, 592 pages
Publisher: Portfolio Trade
Publication Date: 2007-10-30


Reviews :

    Any short list of the world’s most admired business people would include Andy Grove, the chairman and CEO of Intel during its years of explosive growth. During Grove’s career, Intel became the model for Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley became the model for the world. And Grove became Time’s Man of the Year—an icon of the promise of the American life.

Born in Hungary in 1936, Grove survived the Holocaust only to face the Soviet invasion. He escaped to New York, penniless, at age twenty, and embraced America, putting himself through college and graduate school. He joined Intel at its founding in 1968, rose to CEO in 1987, then led the company into the stratosphere, with compound annual profit growth at 34 percent for the next eleven years.

Despite decades of media scrutiny and six of Grove’s own books, there remains a powerful element of mystery about him. This definitive biography, by a Harvard Business School professor with unprecedented access, finally cracks the code of who Andy Grove really is, how his mind works, how he attacks impossible problems, and how he leads others to exceed their own expectations of themselves....

Authors: David A. Ricks.
Paperback, 192 pages
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Publication Date: 2006-03-13
Edition: 4

Reviews :

    This new edition of Blunders in International Business is significantly updated and revised, full of interesting anecdotes, including dozens of new international business blunders. David Ricks has uncovered many informative and entertaining blunders that will make this book hard to put down.

Features blunders from well-known corporations American Express, McDonalds, Toyota, GM, Sharwoods, Jolly Green Giant, Bacardi, Puff, AOL, BMW, and many others.

Conserves its well-liked, concise format.

Several well-known blunders from previous editions have been replaced in order to update the lessons learned.

...

Authors: Sherry Schaefer. Jeff Hackett.
Paperback, 96 pages
Publisher: MBI
Publication Date: 2001-10-14


Reviews :

    ...

Authors: Robert B. Catell. Kenny Moore. Glenn Rifkin.
Hardcover, 256 pages
Publisher: Wiley
Publication Date: 2004-01-16
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    Advance praise for The CEO and the Monk

"The CEO and the Monk is an enormously interesting and utterly charming book. We all know that we have to restore faith in our capitalist system if it is to survive and flourish. Bob Catell, with the assistance of an unusual advisor, did just that at a critical moment in his company’s evolution and our nation’s history. This is a rare business story that will both amaze and inspire you."
–David Rockefeller

"This is a wonderful story of commitment, integrity, and the power of relationships. It offers the possibility that executives who care about community and people bring both honor and economic success to their business. Inspiring and practical, The CEO and the Monk threatens to restore our faith in those who lead us. I tip my hat to Bob and Kenny for telling the story of how human values can be brought into the marketplace. This book is unique and much needed."
–Peter Block, consultant, speaker, and author of many bestselling books, including The Answer to How Is Yes, winner of the 2002 Independent Publisher Book Award for Business Breakthrough of the Year

"The CEO and the Monk offers great lessons for any leader or HR professional who wants to build a positive work environment. Where else can you learn to handle such business challenges as mergers and acquisitions, growth, deregulation, cutbacks, and change intertwined with the human issues like employee involvement and communication in one place? Filled with best practice concrete examples, this is one of the finest case studies for engagement and retention that I have ever seen."
–Beverly Kaye, founder and CEO, Career Systems International, and coauthor of Love It, Don’t Leave It: 26 Ways to Get What You Want at Work

"Managers don’t always recognize the critical need for trust and understanding. The CEO and the Monk will awaken their sensibilities. It brilliantly blurs the line between the soft and the hard of business, and proves that you don’t have to sacrifice your soul to make a profit."
–Jim Champy, Chairman of Consulting for Perot Systems and coauthor of Reengineering the Corporation...

Authors: Jim Wangers.
Paperback, 348 pages
Publisher: Bentley Publishers
Publication Date: 1998-10


Reviews :

    Glory Days conjures up images of cruise nights, impromptu drag races, and genuine American fun. It is the story of the GTO, Tigers and Monkees, of Royal Pontiac, drag racing, corporate politics, and personal allegiances. Glory Days illuminates anera when Detroit's Woodward Avenue fairly rumbled with V-8 power, as young people slowly cruised the wide boulevard. Glory Days is also an American success story, giving an insiders view of what it took then, and what it will take in the future, to keep alive America's passion for the automobile. In Glory Days, Jim Wangers uses his 45-year career in Detroit as the basis for explaioning successful brand marketing for automobiles:

Why brand management for cars differs from other branded products

How to position a model for the best possible tie-in promotion--and how not to

What it takes to establish and evolve a brand image Wangers knows what he is talking about, for he was part of the most successful brand marketing campaign to ever come out of Detroit. At a time when such automotive legends as Bunkie Knudsen, Pete Estes, and John DeLorean hald sway in the Motor City, Jim Wangers created and defined the American muslecar image, devising savvy brand marketing strategies to promote the car that started it all and went on to become a cultural icon: the Pontiac GTO....

Authors: Riki Ott.
Paperback, 600 pages
Publisher: Dragonfly Sisters Press
Publication Date: 2005-01-01
Edition: First Trade Edition

Reviews :

    Dr. Riki Ott exposes the profound legacy of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and how readers can help reshape our global energy future.

The author chronicles the long-lasting environmental harm to Prince William Sound, Alaska, and investigates the health problems suffered by many cleanup workers. Exxon's spill provided a portal to understanding a startling truth: oil is much more toxic than we previously thought. Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$ frames the larger story of discovery of the truly toxic nature of oil.

This book shows how one particular fraction of crude oil, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAHs, may well be the new DDT of the 21st century. In 1999, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency listed 22 PAHs in crude oil as "persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) pollutants." Sharing this list of extreme human health hazards are the more commonly known pollutants--mercury, lead, dioxin, PCBs, and DDT. The latter are all highly regulated chemicals and some, such as DDT and PCBs, have been banned in the United States.

Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$ traces 15 years of lingering harm to humans and wildlife from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. It reveals how corporate greed, government short-sightedness, and manipulation of the truth and the media have kept the public from learning the deadly nature of PAHs. The author provides relevant information and practical recommendations for people and policy-makers at this critical juncture in the history of civilization. This book will inspire people to reduce their own consumption of fossil fuels and, in so doing, help permanently shift society to a clean energy future....

Authors: William G. Roy.
Paperback, 360 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication Date: 1999-07-01


Reviews :

    Ever since Adolph Berle and Gardiner Means wrote their classic 1932 analysis of the American corporation, The Modern Corporation and Private Property, social scientists have been intrigued and challenged by the evolution of this crucial part of American social and economic life. Here William Roy conducts a historical inquiry into the rise of the large publicly traded American corporation. Departing from the received wisdom, which sees the big, vertically integrated corporation as the result of technological development and market growth that required greater efficiency in larger scale firms, Roy focuses on political, social, and institutional processes governed by the dynamics of power.

The author shows how the corporation started as a quasi-public device used by governments to create and administer public services like turnpikes and canals and then how it germinated within a system of stock markets, brokerage houses, and investment banks into a mechanism for the organization of railroads. Finally, and most particularly, he analyzes its flowering into the realm of manufacturing, when at the turn of this century, many of the same giants that still dominate the American economic landscape were created. Thus, the corporation altered manufacturing entities so that they were each owned by many people instead of by single individuals as had previously been the case....

Authors: Nick Leeson. Edward Whitley.
Hardcover, 272 pages
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Publication Date: 1996-03
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    How could one trader bring down the banking empire that had funded the Napoleonic Wars? This is the story of Nick Leeson, the young gambler who found himself sucked into a terrifying spiral of loss. Disingenuous but nevertheless compelling, this is a portrait of Leeson -- the working-class boy who lived high, at least for a while, in an upper-class world -- and of Barings, banker to the English peerage, but also of the organized chaos that is the Singaporean money market....