Hawthorne's research provides clear, rational insights into our ethical choices, empowering us to be savvy shoppers.
Brands popular both for their social currency and image of social responsibility go under journalist Hawthorne's (The Overloaded Liberal: Shopping, Investing, Parenting, and Other Daily Dilemmas in an Age of Political Activism, 2010, etc.) microscope in this exploration of how closely the ethical words match up to corporate actions.
In today’s consumer world, advertising, publicity and marketing are mostly geared toward drawing customers to the brand, rather than pushing the product. Akin to social media, where people connect via shared interests, today's best-known brands seek to create communities based on shared product appreciation. One of the common elements companies seek to build these communities around is an ethical approach to business. Caretaking of the environment, fair treatment of workers and a focus on "doing the right thing" are as important as the profit margins. Hawthorne turns an optimistic-but-skeptical eye on a half-dozen companies to dig past the marketing hyperbole and explore actual practices. The companies—Apple, Starbucks, Trader Joe's, American Apparel, Timberland and Tom's of Maine—all purport to carry that best-case combination of ethical practices and "cool products.” In reality, however, they all make significant concessions in pursuit of growing profits. Hawthorne wisely avoids taking a staunch green-or-not approach, instead taking into account the various complexities and realities of doing business in a world that doesn't always provide the infrastructure necessary to make a purely ethical business decision. The author ably explains the standards by which the industries police themselves and the different layers of whitewash and how they're applied to some egregiously unethical policies. She also acknowledges that a company's ethical practices, while increasingly important to younger consumers, are still far from being make-or-break factors for these entrenched status brands. American Apparel still runs ads designed to titillate; Tom's of Maine is now owned by Colgate.
Hawthorne's research provides clear, rational insights into our ethical choices, empowering us to be savvy shoppers.Pub Date: June 19, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0094-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
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
IN THE NEWS
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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