Authors: Taylor Clark.
Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Publication Date: 2008-11-10
Edition: Reprint

Reviews :

    Part Fast Food Nation, part Bobos in Paradise, STARBUCKED combines investigative heft with witty cultural observation in telling the story of how the coffeehouse movement changed our everyday lives, from our evolving neighborhoods and workplaces to the ways we shop, socialize, and self-medicate.

In STARBUCKED, Taylor Clark provides an objective, meticulously reported look at the volatile issues like gentrification and fair trade that distress activists and coffee zealots alike. Through a cast of characters that includes coffee-wild hippies, business sharks, slackers, Hollywood trendsetters and more, STARBUCKED explores how America transformed into a nation of coffee gourmets in only a few years, how Starbucks manipulates psyches and social habits to snare loyal customers, and why many of the things we think we know about the coffee commodity chain are false.

"Starbucked is ...smart cultural criticism minus any academic gobbledygook. Mr. Clark is quite funny as he dryly sends up the excess of the corporate behemoth, and Starbucked is an entertaining, highly readable book....Full of cocktail-party-worthy tidbits." --Adelle Waldman, New York Observer...

Authors: Sharon M. Oster.
Hardcover, 448 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Publication Date: 1999-03-25
Edition: 3

Reviews :

    Why do some companies thrive while others in the same industry languish? How can a struggling firm achieve higher annual earnings? What allows new corporations to become successful in highly competitive industries? In this book, now updated and expanded, Sharon Oster shows that combining a sound understanding of economic and managerial principles can make a striking difference in the quality of the strategic planning of an organization and provide guidelines for effective corporate strategies.
The third edition of Modern Competitive Analysis includes new material on game theory, added value analysis, and strategic intent. Examples are drawn from modern network industries and more attention is paid to newly deregulated markets. Unusually broad in scope, with many examples from large and small companies, service firms, manufacturers, foreign and American organizations, as well as non-profit corporations, the book emphasizes an economic approach to strategic planning, using the most recent theories to illuminate situations faced by businesses today. Covering new and important areas in economics not treated in other management and strategic planning books, and couched in clear terms that make these concepts especially accessible, Modern Competitive Analysis is a fundamental resource to the managers of today and tomorrow....

Authors:
Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Publication Date: 2002-02-26


Reviews :

    This is a first-time collection of the old classics and best new thinking on how to build and manage strategic business relationships. It features these selling points. It features all-star names in marketing, including Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Gary Hamel, and Kenichi Ohmae. It provides a broad and diverse look at strategic alliances including: why and how they provide strategic advantage, the counterintuitive logic behind allying with your competitors, and how to effectively build and maintain cross-border....

Authors: Leslie Yerkes.
Paperback, 235 pages
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication Date: 2007-04-28
Edition: 2nd

Reviews :

    Yerkes offers tips, examples, and motivation to help readers, their coworkers, and their customers unleash the power of fun in the workplace. Through real-life case studies and interviews with dozens of leading authors and everyday people, the author illustrates 11 principles of what she calls "The Work/Fun Fusion"....

Authors: Nikos Mourkogiannis.
Hardcover, 272 pages
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Publication Date: 2006-10-03


Reviews :

    ...

Authors: Richard H Axelrod.
Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication Date: 2003-01-09
Edition: 2nd

Reviews :

    Terms of Engagement introduces a new method for changing organizations based on four essential principles: Widening the Circle of Involvement, Connecting People to Each Other and Ideas, Creating Communities for Action, and Embracing Democratic Principles. This method enables leaders to create the energetic, flexible, responsive organizations necessary to thrive and prosper in the contemporary business world....

Authors: Paul Orfalea. Ann Marsh.
Paperback, 226 pages
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
Publication Date: 2007-03-30


Reviews :

    Bill Moyers said this about Paul Orfalea after reading Copy This!: "If I could live my life over again, I would sit at his feet and listen to everything he has to say." And David Brancaccio, host of NOW on PBS, wrote: "As the host for a decade of a daily business program, I had to read what seemed like every business book published in the English language. It is, therefore, with authority that I can say Paul Orfalea’s book is wonderful, heartbreaking, and profoundly useful."

Now in paperback, Copy This!, Paul Orfale's memoir of turning lemons into lemonade, is wise, personal, funny, unflinchingly honest, and filled with wisdom, business lessons, and his inspired Orfalea Aphorisms. It's the story of how a struggling kid who could barely read, write, or sit still managed to grow a 100-square-foot copy shop named Kinko's into a $1.5 billion empire that Fortune named one of the best places in America to work. And it's the story of an individual who saw his learning disabilities—ADHD and dyslexia—as learning opportunities, which molded the homegrown, compassionate culture that allowed Kinko's to thrive, and guided the behavior of a CEO who had no choice but to think different. A terrifically entertaining read from a born storyteller, but with the hardcore guts of true business acumen, Copy This! will blow fresh air into the thinking of any manager, entrepreneur, executive, or business owner....

Authors: Miyamoto Musashi.
Paperback, 144 pages
Publisher: Shambhala
Publication Date: 2000-12-12


Reviews :

    Here is one of the most insightful texts on the subtle arts of confrontation and victory to emerge from Asian culture. Written not only for martial artists but for leaders in all professions, the book analyzes the process of struggle and mastery over conflict that underlies every level of human interaction. The Book of Five Rings —which has become a well-known classic among American business people, studied for its insights into the Japanese approach to business strategy—was composed in 1643 by the famed duelist and undefeated samurai Miyamoto Musashi. Unlike previous editions of The Book of Five Rings, Thomas Cleary's is an accessible translation, free of jargon, with an introduction that presents the spiritual background of the warrior tradition. Along with Musashi's text, Cleary translates another important Japanese classic on leadership and strategy: The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War by Yagyu Munenori, which highlights the ethical and spiritual insights of Taoism and Zen as they apply to the way of the warrior....

    To learn a Japanese martial art is to learn Zen, and although you can't do so simply by reading a book, it sure does help--especially if that book is The Book of Five Rings. One of Japan's great samurai sword masters penned in decisive, unfaltering terms this certain path to victory, and like Sun Tzu's The Art of War it is applicable not only on the battlefield but also in all forms of competition. Always observant, creating confusion, striking at vulnerabilities--these are some of the basic principles. Going deeper, we find suki, the interval of vulnerability, of indecisiveness, of rest, the briefest but most vital moment to strike. In succinct detail, Miyamoto records ideal postures, blows, and psychological tactics to put the enemy off guard and open the way for attack. Most important of all is Miyamoto's concept of rhythm, how all things are in harmony, and that by working with the rhythm of a situation we can turn it to our advantage with little effort. But like Zen, this requires one task above all else, putting the book down and going out to practice. --Brian Bruya...

Authors: Brian Nattrass. Mary Altomare.
Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Publication Date: 1999-01-01


Reviews :

    This book examines how four very successful "evolutionary" corporations in Sweden and the United States - including IKEA and Scandic Hotels in Sweden, and Collins Pine and Interface in the U.S. - are positioning themselves for long-term competitiveness using The Natural Step as a central part of their corporate strategy. Nattrass and Altomare puncture the myth that a company must choose between profitability and care for the natural environment, and present a timely and practical application of this exciting model for global sustainability....

Authors: AnnaLee Saxenian.
Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication Date: 1996-03-01


Reviews :

    Why is it that business in Silicon Valley is again flourishing while along Route 128 in Massachusetts it continues to decline? The answer, Sexanian suggests, has to do with the fact that despite similar histories and technologies, Silicon Valley developed a decentralized but co-operative industrial system while Route 128 came to be dominated by independent, self-sufficient corporations. The result of more than 100 interviews, this analysis highlights the importance of local sources of competitive advantage in a volatile world economy....