A serviceable account best appreciated by students of business and veterans of the airline wars.
An insider’s account of the disastrous challenges that faced American Airlines, a combination of events that led to the creation of the world’s largest airline.
In a workmanlike behind-the-scenes narrative, Kennedy, the company’s general counsel from 2003 until his retirement in 2013, and Maxon, a retired Dallas-based airlines reporter, describe the turmoil and chaos that befell AA following 9/11. Though certainly of interest for those involved in the airline industry, the saga, full of jargon-laden descriptions of lawsuits and mergers and acquisitions, may be lackluster for general readers. NFL legend Roger Staubach, who served on the company’s board during those tumultuous years, introduces the book by referencing the company’s 2011 bankruptcy as “a Hail Mary pass” to save the airline and return it “to health and prosperity.” From there, the authors pick up the story, as Kennedy recounts his long history at AA and the events leading up to 9/11. During that tragedy, AA lost both Flight 11 in New York City and Flight 77 at the Pentagon. (AA would be involved in another tragedy just two months later when Flight 587 crashed in Belle Harbor in Queens.) The authors explain the complex business circumstances surrounding those events, including the acquisition of TWA’s assets and liabilities and the subsequent recession of 2001. They also provide an accounting of the cost of doing business in the airline industry, referencing fights with labor unions and the federal government, a revolving door of executive leadership, and tussles with competitors like Southwest Airlines over gates at Dallas’ Love Field. It all culminates in the courtroom drama of the company’s bankruptcy and subsequent merger with U.S. Airways. It’s not always riveting, but it does portray the risky landscape that large companies in a public space must navigate among regulators, the market, and their own people and how American just managed to survive.
A serviceable account best appreciated by students of business and veterans of the airline wars.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68261-488-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Savio Republic/Post Hill Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2018
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
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.
A well-constructed critique of an economic system that, by the author’s account, is a driver of the world’s destruction.
Harvard Business School professor Henderson vigorously questions the bromide that “management’s only duty is to maximize shareholder value,” a notion advanced by Milton Friedman and accepted uncritically in business schools ever since. By that logic, writes the author, there is no reason why corporations should not fish out the oceans, raise drug prices, militate against public education (since it costs tax money), and otherwise behave ruinously and anti-socially. Many do, even though an alternative theory of business organization argues that corporations and society should enjoy a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit, which includes corporate investment in what economists call public goods. Given that the history of humankind is “the story of our increasing ability to cooperate at larger and larger scales,” one would hope that in the face of environmental degradation and other threats, we might adopt the symbiotic model rather than the winner-take-all one. Problems abound, of course, including that of the “free rider,” the corporation that takes the benefits from collaborative agreements but does none of the work. Henderson examines case studies such as a large food company that emphasized environmentally responsible production and in turn built “purpose-led, sustainable living brands” and otherwise led the way in increasing shareholder value by reducing risk while building demand. The author argues that the “short-termism” that dominates corporate thinking needs to be adjusted to a longer view even though the larger problem might be better characterized as “failure of information.” Henderson closes with a set of prescriptions for bringing a more equitable economics to the personal level, one that, among other things, asks us to step outside routine—eat less meat, drive less—and become active in forcing corporations (and politicians) to be better citizens.
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.Pub Date: May 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5417-3015-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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