Authors: Peter C. Fusaro. Ross M. Miller.
Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Wiley
Publication Date: 2002-06-21
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    An Easy-To-Read Guide For Everyone

"Do not put another dime into the stock market before reading this book. In all the millions of words that have been written about the Enron scandal, these are the first that really explain, in a way anyone can understand, what actually happened in the greatest stock swindle of modern times."
–Christopher Byron, author, Martha Inc.

"The Enron story, for most of us, is a monster. Fusaro and Miller clarify what went wrong in a manner that allows anyone to get their arms around the beast quickly, without killing oneself."
–Bill Crawford, former Chicago Tribune financial writer and Pulitzer Prize winner

"The authors’ sharp insights into Enron’s self-destructive culture provide a clear road map into its massive failure."
–Peter Behr, Washington Post financial reporter

What Went Wrong at Enron is the first comprehensive and clear explanation of what happened at Enron. Peter C. Fusaro and Ross M. Miller take you inside Enron and show you the who, why, what, where, and when of the sinking of this corporate Titanic. In an engaging style, they explain what happened and uncover the mistakes that led to Enron’s fall–in a way that anyone can understand. What Went Wrong at Enron offers a fascinating backdrop to all the whistle-blowing, backstabbing, grandstanding, deception, posturing, and silence that has become the Enron story....

Authors: John Nathan.
Paperback, 400 pages
Publisher: Mariner Books
Publication Date: 2001-04-05
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    Named one of the best business books of the year (by Fortune and Newsweek), SONY is the "intimate biography of one of the world's leading electronics giants" (San Francisco Chronicle) as well as one of the most fascinating and complex of all corporate stories. Drawing on his unmatched expertise in Japanese culture and on unique, unlimited access to Sony's inner sanctum, John Nathan traces Sony's evolution from its inauspicious beginnings amid Tokyo's bomb-scarred ruins to its current worldwide success. "Richly detailed and revealing" (Wall Street Journal), the book examines both the outward successes and, as never before, the mysterious inner workings that have always characterized this company's top ranks. The result is "a different kind of business book, showing how personal relationships shaped one of the century's great global corporations" (Fortune)....

    Sony's cofounders, Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita, met near the end of World War II. Ibuka was an engineer with a childlike love for gadgetry and technology; Morita, a pragmatic physicist who arranged to be away from his military unit on the day Japan surrendered, fearful that all officers would be ordered to commit ritual suicide. (He guessed correctly.) Together they founded Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Co., Ltd., the forerunner of Sony, in 1946, using loans from Morita's wealthy family for startup capital. But even that wasn't as simple as it seems. First, Morita had to be released from his obligation, as first-born son, to take over the family sake business. The very Japaneseness of that moment goes a long way toward illustrating the exotic charm of Sony: The Private Life.

John Nathan is a professor of Japanese culture at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and speaks and understands the nuanced Japanese like a native. He was given extraordinary access to Sony employees, and found some of them telling him company secrets that had never been revealed to outsiders. (In international business, the electronics giant has traditionally been regarded as a black hole; information goes in, but it never comes out.) From these intimate revelations, he tells a story of a company that to Western observers always seemed like a bottom-line-oriented conglomerate. The reality, he writes, is that Sony has always operated via intense personal relationships and loyalties--in that sense, in a very Japanese way. Even the company's disastrous decision to buy Columbia Pictures came from top Sony executives' desire to honor Morita, who'd always wanted to own a movie studio. Although that decision ultimately cost Sony billions of dollars, it pleased the man who mattered. --Lou Schuler...

Authors: Steve Hamm.
Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Publication Date: 2006-09-19
Edition: 1

Reviews :

   

Of all the tech tigers in India, Wipro is one of a handful that stands out from the pack. In the past five years, it has become one of the most accomplished tech services providers in the world, delivering business value through a combination of process excellence, quality frameworks, and service delivery innovation. Totally dedicated to customer satisfaction, Wipro is known to go above and beyond to make customers happy. It’s a move that’s paid off handsomely, with a 24 percent operating profit in its tech services division—more than twice the industry average.

Bangalore Tiger is the story of Wipro’s transformation and its impact on the tech services industry and the rules of global competition. BusinessWeek senior writer Steve Hamm takes you inside the halls of this transnational phenomenon to reveal the true secrets of Wipro’s superior business: its people, principles, and core competencies.

From Wipro’s triumphs to its missteps, Hamm mines a treasure of business lessons, explaining how and, more important, why it is necessary to:

• Expand quickly without stumbling
• Follow the new rules for outsourcers
• Innovate every day—or else
• Be obsessive about customers
• Motivate employees the Wipro way
• Plan three years ahead to prepare for rapid growth

Hamm also gives you a rare glimpse into the mind of Wipro’s charismatic chairman and thought leader, Azim Premji. Guiding Wipro’s growth every step of the way, Premji was one of the first business leaders in India to decree that his company would not pay bribes. You’ll see how his adoption of world-class business processes helped Wipro thrive—and how Wipro is helping to fulfill his dream of a better educated, more prosperous India. Removing the shroud of secrecy around Indian management principles, Hamm provides a real-world blueprint for operating a successful transnational organization, as viewed through the eye of the Bangalore Tiger.

...

Authors: Laura Alpern Manischewitz.
Hardcover, 225 pages
Publisher: KTAV Publishing House
Publication Date: 2008-01-31


Reviews :

    In this highly readable volume, we travel back to the European roots of a remarkable family who crossed the ocean from Lithuania with little baggage but their religious faith and a young man's ambitions.

I'm going to bake matzos this year...We ll see how it goes, said Behr Manischewitz. One bright spring morning in 1888 a young immigrant father named Behr makes this offhand announcement to his modest wife Nesha. Within record time, the ambitious young Talmudic scholar has a burgeoning bakery and is on his way to success. But the years go by and the growing family is ever more complicated, colorful and sometimes explosive. The women of the Manischewitz family who mostly operated behind the scenes played a critical role in providing the mortar that held the family together. As for the men, they covered a broad spectrum: some more able than others, some more affable than others, some more religious than others.

What united them, men and women alike, were bonds of kinship, as well as a firm allegiance to the Jewish people. With these qualities they kept the family business alive and in the family for over 103 years until 1990 when it was sold to various conglomerates as were other ethnic American family food businesses: Ronzoni, Franco-American, La Choy, and Lender's.

Laura Manischewitz Alpern recounts the family's history through the lives of its leading men and women. Her insider' s tale of the family that transformed the world of matzo and became a symbol of 100% kosher reminds us why the name Manischewitz remains magical still. Man, oh Manischewitz, what a story! From the Introduction by Jonathan D. Sarna, Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History Brandeis University...

Authors: Milton Moskowitz.
Hardcover, 160 pages
Publisher: Quirk Books
Publication Date: 2006-04-01


Reviews :

    Business doesn't have to be boring! The Executive's Almanac is the Schott's Miscellany of business trivia, chock-full of surprising facts, lists, anecdotes, histories, diagrams, and more. We bet you didn't know that:

• Adidas and Puma are competing companies owned by estranged brothers, both headquartered in the German mill town of Herzogenaurach.
• 314 acres of trees go into every Sunday edition of the New York Times.
• Soichiro Honda quit the company that bears his name because he lost his sexual potency and his ability to consume large amounts of alcohol.

With whimsical illustrations and a unique design inspired by the Wall Street Journal, this lively companion will appeal to every business executive (and aspiring executive) in your life....

Authors: Simon Partner.
Paperback, 317 pages
Publisher: University of California Press
Publication Date: 2000-01-05
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    Assembled in Japan investigates one of the great success stories of the twentieth century: the rise of the Japanese electronics industry. Contrary to mainstream interpretation, Simon Partner discovers that behind the meteoric rise of Sony, Matsushita, Toshiba, and other electrical goods companies was neither the iron hand of Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry nor a government-sponsored export-led growth policy, but rather an explosion of domestic consumer demand that began in the 1950s.
This powerful consumer boom differed fundamentally from the one under way at the same time in the United States in that it began from widespread poverty and comparatively miserable living conditions. Beginning with a discussion of the prewar origins of the consumer engine that was to take off under the American Occupation, Partner quickly turns his sights on the business leaders, inventors, laborers, and ordinary citizens who participated in the broadly successful effort to create new markets for expensive, unfamiliar new products.
Throughout, the author relates these pressure-cooker years in Japan to the key themes of twentieth-century experience worldwide: the role of technology in promoting social change, the rise of mass consumer societies, and the construction of gender in advanced industrial economies....

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: Marjorie Kelly.
Hardcover, 200 pages
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication Date: 2001-10-15
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    Wealth inequity, corporate welfare, and industrial pollution are the symptoms of our sickened economy, Marjorie Kelly suggests. The underlying illness is shareholder primacy. In The Divine Right of Capital, she shows that the corporate drive to maximize shareholder profits at any cost is not only out of step with democratic and free-market principles, but is detrimental to the long-term health of individual companies and the economy as a whole. Kelly offers a far-reaching solution to rebuild corporations in a way that serves all....

Authors: David S. Landes.
Paperback, 588 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: 2003-07-14
Edition: 2

Reviews :

    In this new edition of his classic history on revolution and economic development in Europe, David Landes reasserts his original arguments in the light of current debates about globalization and comparative economic growth. Questions about why Europe was the first to industrialize and the viability of the post-war economic boom are as controversial as ever and Landes concludes that only by continuous industrial revolution can Europe and the world sustain itself in the years ahead. First Edition Hb (1969): 0-521-07200-X First Edition Pb (1969): 0-521-09418-6...

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...