A massively detailed history of Harvard Business School since its founding in 1908 and a searing critique of the school’s impact on American capitalism.
Upon beginning the “thirty-month odyssey” of researching his latest book, New York Observer contributing editor McDonald (The Firm: The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business, 2014, etc.) realized that it constituted the third in a trilogy of sorts, following The Firm and, before that, Last Man Standing: The Ascent of Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase (2009). In The Firm, the author included a section about the connections between the legendary consulting firm and the Harvard MBA program, a section titled “McHarvard.” McDonald’s deep research into the 100-plus years of HBS—the faculty members, the courses offered, many of the students—is undoubtedly impressive. However, the decade-by-decade sections of the history often drag, featuring facts and anecdotes most likely to interest only faculty and students. When McDonald broadens his focus to examine the impact of HBS outside the campus, the book becomes more relevant to general readers. The author concludes that while HBS has always possessed the ability to improve business practices in the United States and around the globe, most faculty members have failed to imbue most of their MBA students with the values needed to make true improvements or innovations a reality. McDonald hoped to share his impressions with HBS administrators and active faculty, but he reports that he received rejections from nearly everyone he approached. Throughout his critique, the author emphasizes the unwillingness within the MBA program to delve into the responsible roles of businesses other than earning as much money as possible. As McDonald rightly notes, deep investigations into the economic inequality spawned by the current capitalist system are egregiously missing from the Harvard MBA curriculum.
A tome that alternates between a useful exposé and a slog—best for HBS alumni and business historians.Pub Date: April 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-234717-6
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
Categories: BUSINESS | LEADERSHIP, MANAGEMENT & COMMUNICATION | GENERAL BUSINESS
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“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
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SEEN & HEARD
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
Categories: BUSINESS | LEADERSHIP, MANAGEMENT & COMMUNICATION | PSYCHOLOGY
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