An effectively argued and engaging case for the value of human capital within organizations.
An organizational development strategist discusses the untapped potential of human capital in modern businesses.
Seeking to “reframe human capital as the most overlooked driver of competitive advantage” in the 21st-century business sector, Bentzen-Mercer urges executive leaders to rethink their relationships with employees. At a time when “employee engagement is at an all-time low,” the author makes a convincing case that an organization’s most underutilized asset is its people. The book offers a six-step process for installing what the author calls a “Human Capital Investment Strategy,” which maximizes employee potential for organizations that have previously focused their attention on financial capital. Each of the volume’s chapters in Part One is dedicated to one of the six steps, and each combines pragmatic advice with anecdotes from Bentzen-Mercer’s three decades of experiences in the business sector and from the perspectives of her varied corporate contacts. While some of the steps may seem simplistic—such as identifying overperformers and underperformers—the author effectively argues that too few businesses actually have an internalized process related to human capital investment. In an age when employees increasingly feel alienated in corporate structures that don’t recognize their worth, Bentzen-Mercer advances a compelling argument that human capital and “human dignity can coexist,” emphasizing that “Every person has potential.” Admirably, the author draws on ample evidence that affirms the value—both ethically and fiscally—of having a demographically diverse workforce. With advanced degrees in business and social psychology, Bentzen-Mercer leverages her expertise in both fields in a work that draws heavily on cutting-edge social science and human behavior ideas and is supported by a multipage reference section. The bestselling author of a previous guidebook for businesswomen, Bentzen-Mercer is a skilled author who writes in a jargon-free yet authoritative style; ample textbox asides, full-color graphs, helpful charts, and other visual aids make the text even more accessible. Grounded in a solid theoretical framework, the book is also pragmatic—it includes a glossary and toolkit to help readers implement its six steps.
An effectively argued and engaging case for the value of human capital within organizations.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9798891387256
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Amplify Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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