Best Business Books-
From Exuberance to Enron

By Susan C. Awe -- Library Journal, 3/15/2002

While most Americans became investors in the boom years, 2001 was a year to reevaluate, to pull back, to diversify, and to buy bonds. Investors need education, techniques, and knowledge. Maria Bartiromo's Use the News and Suze Orman's The Road to Wealth guide readers in the use of myriad tools and provide advice on investing and other areas of personal finance. Christopher Finch's In the Market presents an enlightening history of world markets and how they impact every aspect of business and daily life. Leadership and management are important to organizations and to investors. The ideas of Peter Drucker, a management guru since 1954, and Jack Welch, who took GE from aging industrial bureaucracy to a global juggernaut, have been compiled into compendia of leadership and management philosophy. The Essential Drucker and The Jack Welch Lexicon of Leadership will both be part of business and personal collections for many years to come.

Just as leadership and management have changed, so have corporate environments and all types of organizations. As Thomas H. Davenport and John C. Beck point out in The Attention Economy, yesterday's information age has given way to the 'employ people's attention' age. The authors make suggestions on how leaders can manage their own attention and that of their employees more effectively. Michael and Deborah Dobson's Enlightened Office Politics tells readers how to get ahead and work with fellow employees with similar goals.

During the booming 1990s, investors and companies bet on fast growth and expansion. In 2002, patience and moderate expectations will satisfy both. A slow-growing global economy will still feel like a recovery after the dreariness and slide of 2001. As the financial world becomes even more complicated, library patrons will use books as well as the web to forecast their own economic futures and, one hopes, avoid investing in disasters-in-the-making, like Enron.

Means, Howard. Money & Power: The History of Business. Wiley. 288p. ISBN 0-471-40053-X. $27.95.
This companion book to the acclaimed CNBC documentary follows the movement of power from East to West, from the streets of ancient Venice to the campuses of Silicon Valley, to tell the story of how business has shaped the modern world and how ambitious people have shaped the lives of so much of today's world population. Pivotal figures include St. Godric, the Medicis, the Rothschilds, J.P. Morgan, the Rockefellers, Henry Ford, and Bill Gates. Means deftly threads historical events together to illustrate past innovations and emerging patterns.

Welch, Jack with John A. Bryne. Jack: Straight from the Gut. Warner. 496p. ISBN 0-446-52838-2. $29.95.
Under Welch's leadership, General Electric reinvented itself several times by using management tactics like Six Sigma and E-Initiative. With the help of BusinessWeek journalist Byrne, Welch recounts his career and discusses his style of management and leadership used in his long tenure at GE. Entertaining and direct, the book includes a quote--one of the best--from Welch's mother: 'If you don't know how to lose, you'll never know how to win.'

Bichler, Martin. The Future of E-Markets: Multi-Dimensional Market Mechanisms. Cambridge Univ. 250p. ISBN 0-521-80128-1. $66; pap. ISBN 0-521-00383-0. $29.
Bichler's multidisciplinary book summarizes the basic economics needed to understand electronic markets, and he surveys and summarizes the literature on negotiation and auction theory. Using real-world case studies, he describes the variety of new multidimensional auction mechanisms, game theory, utility theory, and automated negotiations. Dot-comers, researchers, students, and consultants in a variety of fields will use this well-organized, thoughtful presentation.

Da Costa, Eduardo. Global E-Commerce Strategies for Small Businesses. MIT. 230p. ISBN 0-262-04190-1. $24.95.
Da Costa lays out the steps for beginning a global small business. Using examples from seven companies located in six different countries, he details the purchasing process and customer service, explains how to research new business opportunities and markets, recommends ways to employ the web and other forms of new technology, and provides ideas for overcoming obstacles to international trade for small companies. Written in a casual, readable style, this optimistic view of the global marketplace has something for everyone.

de Kare-Silver, Michael. E-Shock: The New Rules: Internet Strategies for Retailers & Manufacturers. 2d ed. AMACOM: American Management Assn. 352p. ISBN 0-8144-7116-1. pap. $19.95.
E-Shock presents an astute analysis of the far-reaching impact of the e-commerce revolution. Explaining how different types of businesses expand or transform current modes of operation via 30 essential survival rules, this title will be well used by entrepreneurs and current business owner/managers. Learn how to strategize your way through the new challenges of the web/electronic manufacturing and retailing arena.

Lewis, Michael. Next: The Future Just Happened. Norton. 192p. ISBN 0-393-02037-1. $23.95; pap. ISBN 0-393-32352-8. $13.95.
While definitely not profound, Lewis's observations, as in Liar's Poker and The New New Thing, are piercingly correct. He examines developments on the Internet and its unique culture to show we have reversed some of our most basic assumptions. Lewis raises provocative questions and makes the unfathomable inconsistencies in the global economy seem nearly rational or, at least, understandable.

Locke, Christopher. Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices. Perseus. 243p. ISBN 0-7382-0408-0. $25.
This recipe book for e-commerce marketing success in the post-cyberboom era describes how to transform the marketing message from 'we want your money' to 'we share your interests.' Learn how networked communities are creating powerful micro-markets and how businesses are tapping them. Locke, coauthor of the Cluetrain Manifesto, is irreverent, penetrating, profoundly simple, and on the money, making this good reading for anyone interested in 21st-century business. (LJ 12/01)

Weill, Peter & Michael R. Vitale. Place to Space: Migrating to eBusiness Models. Harvard Business School. 372p. ISBN 1-57851-245-X. $35.
Weill and Vitale, both management professors, use extensive surveys and research to show how established, traditional bricks-and-mortar companies can and will use the Internet to expand the profitability of their businesses. They describe eight 'atomic' business models that represent the core building blocks of all e-business ventures. The authors' clear, succinct writing and chapter summaries help turn their analysis into practical applications.

Pink, Daniel H. Free Agent Nation: How America's New Independent Workers Are Transforming the Way We Live. Warner. 356p. ISBN 0-446-52523-5. $24.95.
Per Pink, over 25 million Americans now are self-employed and fewer than one in ten work for a Fortune 500 company. Pink introduces the 'Peter-Out Principle,' when the fun peters out, the talented walk out; 'Unschooling,' individual-centered learning, like home schooling; and the 'Feminine Century,' in which women are free agency's early adopters. Provocative and entertaining, Pink's book shows who the free agents are and why they've forged a new path. (LJ 4/15/01)

Gardner, Howard & others. Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet. Basic Bks. 304p. ISBN 0-465-02607-9. $27.50.
The authors, psychologists and university professors, reveal how professionals can produce expert and socially responsible work with humane creativity even in our relentlessly market-driven times. The dilemmas of professionals in the fields of genetics and journalism are used to illustrate the conflict between commerce and ethics. Using the stories of real people from over 200 interviews, their conclusions are that good work feels good, it is innovative, and it follows tradition.

Kelly, Marjorie. The Divine Right of Capital: Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy. Berrett-Koehler. 231p. ISBN 1-57675-125-2. $24.95.
Kelly clearly and concisely exposes six aristocratic principles upon which corporations are built; they are principles we accept in our economy without question, but they exhibit a wealth bias that we would never accept in our modern democratic society. Kelly questions shareholder primacy and corporate welfare and shows how to design more equitable alternatives. (LJ 10/15/01)

Albrecht, Karl & Ron Zemke. Service America in the New Economy. 2d ed. McGraw-Hill. 303p. ISBN 0-07-137722-0. $24.95.
Customer service is suffering major setbacks from web-based businesses, and the service industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the global economy. The electronic commerce marketplace is mindlessly using digital technology to denigrate the customer interface--often it is virtually impossible to get a human being on the phone. With updated case examples and new thinking, Albrecht and Zemke retain the core concepts from their earlier Service America! while adding innovative techniques for winning and keeping customers.

Chandler, Alfred D., Jr. Inventing the Electronic Century: The Epic Story of the Consumer Electronics and Computer Industries. Free Pr. 321p. ISBN 0-7432-1567-2. $35.
The industries that had the greatest impact on everyday life and work during the second half of the 20th century were consumer electronics and computers. Tracing this history from the creation of the radio and TV to the emergence of Silicon Valley and the impact of the Internet, Chandler, author of The Visible Hand, leads the reader to search for answers and lessons behind the story. The new global economy and information age and their trends can only be understood by following the successes and failures of the companies and industries involved in their evolution. This will help you understand why Japan has dominated this industry. (LJ 10/15/01)

Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Houghton. 288p. ISBN 0-395-97789-4. $25; pap. HarperCollins. 384p. ISBN 0-06-093845-5. $13.95.
The fast food industry's drive for homogenization, consolidation, and speed has transformed America's diet and health, as well as the landscape, economy, and work force, frequently in a destructive manner. Atlantic Monthly correspondent Schlosser's investigation reveals almost a complete lack of federal supervision in giant meatpacking corporations, and he takes readers on a tour of the world's largest flavor company. By bringing together fast food's diverse economic, scientific, and social trends, Schlosser creates a cautionary tale of the risks generated by this ubiquitous industry. (LJ 2/1/01)