An impressive study of a timely and important topic.
A comprehensive examination of the ways in which American entrepreneurs uniquely balance stability and volatility.
According to Wolk and Landry, the United States has distinguished itself as the greatest incubator of entrepreneurship in an age that’s defined by its ascendancy. At the heart of its exceptionalism, they say, has been its ability to sustain a delicate equilibrium between two countervailing forces: the creative disruption of bold innovation and the stability engendered by reliable protection of property rights: “The system encourages start-up ventures to enter or create markets by promising to respect the wealth that these entities create, free from government confiscation, even as the most successful of them become quite large and profitable.” This tension is the consequence of several factors, they write, including the nation’s political economy, which encourages competition, a “cultural bias” toward individual rights and liberty, decentralized government, and a constitutional system that, they assert, discourages monopolistic power and cronyism. Wolk and Landry sketch a remarkably thorough history of the nation to illustrate its commercial development—one that charts its course from its creation, due to revolutionary dissent, to the present day. Also, they thoughtfully reflect on the challenges to American entrepreneurial success today, which they aver has reached an “inflection point” in which concerns over inequality may cause a revision of the principles that they believe have made it so successful.
This wide-ranging study helpfully alternates between the practical and the theoretical. This isn’t a surprising narrative choice, as Wolk is a successful entrepreneur and Landry, an independent business historian. Over the course of this treatise, the authors propose a powerful thesis, and they scour many key institutional and cultural elements of American life to find evidence to substantiate it. Moreover, they acknowledge the great challenges that the nation faces today and the “big reset” that it could catalyze, including a “a rebalancing of the right to property and the right to compete and the role of government in mediating it.” Ultimately, the book concludes that the country has the resources to effectively manage any gathering storms of this nature and that it needs to reaffirm, with some reforms, the foundational principles that brought it success in the first place: “The United States is largely in control of its own economic destiny….Closely linked with the country’s form of democratic government and highly responsive to consumer preferences, the system has proved resilient and responsive, if also contentious and messy at times.” However, the final argument that the authors make for the continued success of the United States’ economic system, while upbeat, is not made with the same amount of exacting rigor as the rest of the study, and, as such, it may not be successful in convincing skeptics who might read this book. That said, the work as a whole is truly magisterial in its detail; the authors somehow manage to combine a granular account of the country’s entrepreneurial history with a general synopsis of its philosophical foundations.
An impressive study of a timely and important topic.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 9781119900054
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Wiley
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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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