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Using Language to Build a Global Company

by Sean Silverthorne

In her new book The Language of Global Success, Tsedal Neeley describes Japanese tech giant Rakuten's five-year effort to adopt English as its lingua franca of business. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

What Jane Austen and Mel Brooks Can Teach Us About Finance

by Carmen Nobel

A new book by Mihir Desai links the fundamentals of finance to several centuries of literature, history, philosophy, music, visual arts, theater, and comedy to make the subject seem less mystifying—and more humanizing—to a broad audience of non-financiers. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Meet the Oddball Entrepreneurs Who Invented Green Businesses

by Sean Silverthorne

Historians have hardly noticed the fringe-of-society entrepreneurs who gave birth to the green business movement starting in the 19th century. In a new book, Profits and Sustainability: A History of Green Entrepreneurship, Geoffrey Jones chronicles the pioneers of healthy food, alternative energy, and alternative living. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

The Clear Connection Between Slavery and American Capitalism

by Dina Gerdeman

Slavery is often depicted as a regional institution of cruelty in the South, but it was also the driver of broader American economic prosperity. Sven Beckert discusses Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development, an exploration by 16 scholars of the ties between the brutal system of human bondage and 19th century economic development across the nation. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Why Companies Are Placing Users at the Core of Their Innovation Strategies

by Dina Gerdeman

In his recent edited volume Revolutionizing Innovation, Karim Lakhani brings together the latest thinking around open innovation, users, and communities. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Why American Democracy Thrives On Conflict

by Julia Hanna

Intense political conflict, mediated by shared ideals, has always been with us and is profoundly American, a lesson David Moss drives home in his new book, Democracy: A Case Study. The problem: Not all conflict is productive. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Simple Ways to Take Gender Bias Out of Your Job Ads

by Carmen Nobel

Iris Bohnet's book What Works: Gender Equality by Design, discusses how organizations can leverage findings from behavioral science research to fight gender bias in the workplace—starting with job listings. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Three Critical Mistakes Digital Businesses Make With Content

by Michael Blanding

Do companies really understand the nature of today's digital transformation? Bharat Anand's book The Content Trap offers a new view of digital strategy that shifts the focus from "produce the best content" to "create the best connections." Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Why White-Collar Criminals Commit Their Crimes

by Carmen Nobel

Curious about the motives behind white-collar crime, Eugene Soltes spent seven years interviewing nearly 50 convicted corporate felons, including Bernard Madoff, Allen Stanford, and Dennis Kozlowski. Soltes shares what he learned in his new book, Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Clayton Christensen: The Theory of Jobs To Be Done

by Dina Gerdeman

Clayton M. Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma was a classic text on how companies fail. In a new book, Competing Against Luck, Christensen tackles the opposite challenge: how companies succeed. First lesson, discover what job consumers are hiring your product to do. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Is Company Failure Inevitable?

by Dina Gerdeman

Companies don’t generally fail because of competition; it’s out-of-touch leadership that kills them. Lead and Disrupt coauthor Michael L. Tushman discusses how companies must continue to invest in their core products while innovating in new areas. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Resolve Your Toughest Work Problems with 5 Questions

by Michael Blanding

In Managing in the Gray, Joseph Badaracco offers managers a five-question framework for facing murky situations and solving tough problems. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

‘Big Teaming,’ Audacious Innovation, and the Uncompleted Dream of a Smart City

by Sean Silverthorne

How do you organize a project that spans professions, industries, and even nations? A new book by Amy Edmondson and Susan Salter Reynolds describes the approach of 'big teaming' with a case study of a high-profile smart city. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

A Three-Box Solution to Managing Innovation

by Michael Blanding

In The Three-Box Solution, Vijay Govindarajan adapts an ancient Hindu philosophy to balance a company's often competing realities of past, present, and future. The more we can plan for opportunity, the better the possibility of creating a successful future. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

How to Negotiate Situations That Feel Hopeless

by Carmen Nobel

In Negotiating the Impossible, Deepak Malhotra outlines key lessons for negotiating sticky situations, with examples that include the Cuban Missile Crisis, disputes in the National Football League and National Hockey League, and several instances of high-stakes deal-making where companies found themselves negotiating against the odds. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Accounting for Legitimacy

by Roberta Holland

With little scrutiny from the public, industry experts are quietly rewriting accounting rules to benefit their businesses, says Karthik Ramanna in a new book, Political Standards: Corporate Interest, Ideology, and Leadership in the Shaping of Accounting Rules for the Market Economy. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

The Historian Who Came in from the Cold

by Dina Gerdeman

While much has been written about the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Jeremy S. Friedman’s Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World is the first book to explore in detail the significance of the “Second Cold War” that China and the Soviet Union fought in the shadow of the communist and capitalist struggle. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Alex Ferguson's Lessons on Leading

by Sean Silverthorne

Sir Alex Ferguson, who is an Executive Fellow in Harvard Business School's Executive Education program, may be the most successful professional sports coach of all time. He discusses his management style at Manchester United, and why building a team is less important than building a foundation. PLUS: Book excerpt from Leading. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Dear Internet: You Are Extraordinary, But Not Exceptional

by Carmen Nobel

Professor Shane Greenstein is annoyed by “Internet exceptionalism,” the prevalent idea that the Internet defies economic logic, that there’s never been anything like it in business history, and that its impact supersedes everything. In his new book, Greenstein argues that the Internet actually follows classic patterns of economic behavior, detailing the commercial forces that guided the Internet’s path from cool invention to successful innovation. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

What It Takes to Learn to Be a Leader

by Roberta Holland

Is there such a thing as a born leader? Probably, but for most people, leadership can be a learned craft, says Robert Steven Kaplan. In his new book, What You Really Need to Lead, Kaplan provides practical advice to executives facing different challenges to illustrate what makes a good leader and how to become one. Tip No. 1: Think and act like an owner. Open for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.